Gadfly Buzzing Gates Over His Political Funds

Sparing no expense, Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates threw three Christmas parties for his office staff at the tony Four Seasons Hotel and The Ritz in Newport Beach. He picked up the tab with $5,891 in campaign funds.

The gunslinger get-up Gates wore to a California State Sheriff’s Assn. conference cost $1,598, and the price tag for art he wanted for an election fund-raiser was $13,872. Political contributions paid for both.

Reaching once more into his donations, campaign disclosure statements show Gates bought $1,565 worth of Los Angeles Rams tickets for his staff and supporters. When the sheriff needed limousines for transportation to political events, campaign funds paid for them too.

Six weeks into his bid for a fifth term as the most powerful law enforcement official in the county, Gates is already under fire for the way he spends what the late state Treasurer Jesse M. Unruh called the “mother’s milk of politics.”

The strong criticism has come from Shirley L. Grindle, a veteran political activist who has specialized in bird-dogging campaign donations to the County Board of Supervisors to make sure there isn’t a whiff of conflict of interest in any of their votes.

Over the past 10 days, she has filed a complaint against Gates with the Orange County district attorney’s office and has asked the Fair Political Practices Commission, a state watchdog agency, to audit the sheriff’s campaign expenditures since 1987.

From meals at Harrah’s at Lake Tahoe to the cellular phone in his Cadillac, Grindle suspects that Gates might have spent thousands of dollars in violation of state campaign spending laws.

“He’s carrying on in a high style,” Grindle said. “I have never seen a local politician entertain his constituents like he does. Gates is the only one in the county doing this. He makes the County Board of Supervisors look like kindergartners.”

Gates’ political handlers say Grindle’s charges are frivolous, little more than a shallow political stunt cooked up for the benefit of Don Bankhead, a retired Fullerton police captain challenging Gates in the June election. Part of Bankhead’s campaign strategy is to raise questions about Gates’ personal integrity.

“He has never bought his wife a fur coat or taken her to Tahiti with campaign funds,” said David R. White, Gates’ campaign treasurer. “One of the things I notice is that the people who campaign against him can’t get enough support in the community so they have to use the press to get it for them.”

The sheriff did not respond to repeated inquiries to comment on Grindle’s accusations.

Grindle, a vocal opponent of Gates, announced she was going to take official action against the sheriff on April 12 during a political gathering for Bankhead at the Irvine Hilton.

The next day, she filed a complaint with the district attorney’s office alleging that Gates’ was illegally renting his campaign office space from a corporation he and his wife own in San Juan Capistrano. Grindle also questioned whether campaign funds were improperly donated to a horseback riding event hosted by the company, Ortega Equestrian Center.

This week, she formally requested that the Fair Political Practices Commission, which monitors campaign financing in the state, audit three years’ worth of Gates’ campaign expenses.

“I do not like this looking like it’s a political gambit,” Grindle said. “I don’t care whether Don Bankhead is running, but I think Gates should be out of office. I do know a lot about campaign stuff. If Gates is violating the law, it has nothing to do with Bankhead.”

The Bankhead camp, which has mounted a grass-roots effort to unseat Gates’ well-financed campaign, denies any involvement with Grindle’s decision to take on the sheriff over his expenditures.

“This is Shirley operating on her own,” said Wade G. Richmond, Bankhead’s campaign manger. “She only contacted us as a courtesy. We really shouldn’t get involved in this while awaiting word from the D.A. We should just let the normal process take place.”

Under state campaign finance law, political contributions can be spent on anything with a “reasonable relationship” to political, legislative or governmental purposes. Expenditures of primarily personal benefit to candidates and campaign staff are prohibited.

Allen Ashby, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said the law is deliberately designed to allow a broad range of expenses so it would not have “a chilling effect on the political process.”

There are some specifics, however. Candidates cannot use political contributions to rent campaign office space directly from their immediate families or the treasurers of their election committees.

Individual donations from a business or a citizen are limited to $1,000 a year, and gifts to staff and supporters worth more than $100 are prohibited unless they relate to a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

In addition, the state attorney general’s office has issued at least 67 opinion letters to elected officials detailing how campaign donations can be spent, ranging from travel abroad to bonuses for campaign staff members.

Acceptable under the law are the traditional parties, tokens of appreciation, and in some instances bonuses for campaign workers after a successful election campaign. But gifts, money or other items given as compensation for service are considered inappropriate.

The opinion letters state that campaign funds can be used to buy tickets to athletic events for campaign staff and constituents. Campaign funds can also donated to charities as long as the donation relates to a political, legislative or governmental purpose. With respect to clothing, campaign funds can be used for a “reasonable” wardrobe.

After reviewing Gates’ campaign disclosure statements several weeks ago, Grindle said she suspected that the sheriff might have made personal use of campaign funds and received some contributions that exceeded the legal limit.

Among other things, Grindle wants the FPPC to look at $2,000 in campaign contributions to Gates in one year from Valenti and Coelho Inc., a real estate investment firm in Tustin, although the legal limit is $1,000 per year in contributions from a business or individual. Campaign disclosure forms show two $1,000 contributions from the company in February, 1989.

Grindle further contends that Gates might have misused campaign funds by paying $1,611 this year in rent for his election headquarters to Ortega Equestrian Center. Campaign disclosure statements show that Gates also paid $1,611 in rent to the Equestrian Center in 1989, but state provisions restricting rent were not in effect at that time.

Grindle says Gates gave another $1,200 in campaign funds over the last three years to Ortega Equestrian Center for a horseback riding competition there. Gates’ lawyer says the money was a charitable donation allowable under the law.

In addition to the $1,598 costume Gates wore to the sheriff’s association function, Grindle questions what she calls “voluminous amounts” of campaign funds Gates has spent for meals, entertainment, a car phone and gifts for his staff and constituents.

Campaign disclosure forms show that Gates spent $9,517 for calls from his cellular car phone; $21,928 on gifts for his constituents; and $13,601 for meals and travel expenses related to “political” events, some of which were Christmas parties for his staff and functions in Lake Arrowhead, San Luis Obispo, Long Beach, Stateline, Nev., on Lake Tahoe, and Laughlin, Nev. More than $2,140 was used for limousine service.

“I believe that Mr. Gates is entertaining Orange County and calling it political entertainment,” Grindle said. “These things are representative of my concerns. I don’t know of any one who keeps a campaign headquarters alive in non-election years.”

Gates’ campaign manager, Eileen Padberg, and his lawyer, Darryl R. Wold, defend the sheriff, saying he has gone to great lengths to check and double-check his expenditures to make sure they comply with campaign finance laws. They said Grindle’s allegations are another in a series of charges that have been made against the sheriff for more than a decade and never proven.

“We feel confident that all is squared away,” Padberg said. “Grindle works for Bankhead and she is going to do what she has to do and we are going to do what we have to do. She holds herself out as an expert in this area, but we will see.”

Grindle led the fight 12 years ago to pass the so-called TIN CUP ordinance, which prohibits members of the Board of Supervisors from voting on or influencing decisions that will have a financial or material impact on their major campaign contributors. Since then, Grindle, who devotes considerable time to seeing that the ordinance is enforced, said she has become familiar with state campaign laws.

But Gates’ supporters say she doesn’t know what she is talking about with respect to the sheriff. Legally, there is no problem, Wold said, because campaign funds were never diverted to personal use and rent for office space was paid to a corporation, an arrangement that is not prohibited by law. Wold said expenditures for tickets and parties are legitimate ways to recognize good work and maintain staff morale.

“All she is doing is saying that she has suspicions,” Wold said. “She has no facts. She is just a Gates opponent making charges. Anybody can do that. We don’t attack someone unless we have the facts to support it. If she has facts, let her produce them.”

HOW GATES HAS SPENT DONATIONS Political activist Shirley L. Grindle of Orange has asked the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the Orange County district attorney’s office to investigate the way Sheriff Brad Gates spends his campaign funds. Among others, she questions the following expenditures: 1,598: Costume for California State Sheriff’s Assn. conference $13,872: Artwork for a sheriff’s fund-raiser $1,565: Los Angeles Rams tickets $2,400: Staff Christmas party at Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach $1,611: Rent for campaign headquarters paid in 1990 to OTRA Inc.,which Gates’ family owns $1,200: Charitable equestrian event at Ortega Equestrian Center,which Gates’ family owns. $9,517: Gates’ non-official calls on car phone $21,928: Gifts to staff and constituents $13,601: Meals and travel $2,104: Limousine service Source: Orange County registrar of voters.