Supervisors Pitch for Ticket Loophole

As if overflowing landfills and overcrowded courtrooms aren’t enough to worry about, San Diego County supervisors sent their attorney to Sacramento Tuesday to fight for something really important: Their right to accept free tickets to Padres and Chargers games without declaring them on public disclosure forms.

County Counsel Lloyd M. Harmon Jr. asked the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission to rewrite a proposed regulation and insert a custom-made loophole exempting county supervisors from publicly reporting their gifts of complimentary ducats to every event at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

FPPC commissioners agreed to make a final decision on the county’s request in March.

Free tickets to Padres and Chargers games--as well as VIP stadium parking--have long been regarded as one of the most coveted perquisites for supervisors and San Diego City Council members.

The elected officials, their stadium authority appointees, City Atty. John Witt, City Manager John Lockwood and County Administrator Norm Hickey each receive two passes for entry into a special government box. Each pass is worth more than $2,600, according to the latest public reports.

But City Council members are not required to report the free tickets on their annual public disclosure form, thanks to a technicality in how the stadium lease is written.

Since the city acts as stadium landlord to the Padres and the Chargers, the city specifically reserves control over the box, city attorneys have maintained. Thus, the tickets are not specific, reportable gifts to council members but are passes to go onto municipal property, they say.

At San Diego’s request, the city’s reporting exemption was even included in a new regulation written by the FPPC on how public officials have to report tickets to sports, theater, movies and amusement parks.

But the new FPPC regulation is not so generous to San Diego County supervisors, who must still report their stadium passes as gifts--since, technically, they receive the privilege to watch the Padres from the government box from the city.

That isn’t fair, Harmon argued, saying that both the city and the county were responsible for creating the Stadium Authority, which built the stadium in the first place. The county, as well as the city, selects members to serve on the authority, an advisory panel.

“Our request, as we like to say, is to do equity between the county and the city,” Harmon told the FPPC commissioners on Tuesday.

The appeal for equal treatment, however, drew a wry observation from FPPC Commissioner Donald Vial, who said that San Diego officials actually wanted “equity in perks.”

Harmon proposed a loophole that would take care of the San Diego interest, written in such a way as to excuse county supervisors from reporting the tickets. He emphasized that the loophole was needed because of San Diego’s unique stadium joint powers agreement between the city and county.

After the meeting, San Diego Supervisor Brian Bilbray said in a telephone interview that the county wants the law to treat City Council members and county supervisors the same.

“It’s absurd to have two partners in a stadium, and have one partner treated one way and another treated totally different,” said Bilbray, who added that he declares the tickets as gifts but rarely uses them.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said.