Countywide : Gates Returns $2,000 in Contributions

Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates has returned $2,000 in campaign contributions as part of a series of amendments he has made to his campaign finance records, according to reports filed with the county.

The amendments and changes postmarked May 25 followed a letter to the state Fair Political Practices Commission and a complaint to the Orange County district attorney by Shirley Grindle, author of a 1978 county political reform law.

“I am amused that he found it necessary to go back and amend these things,” Grindle said Monday. “They had done their utmost to discredit me” by refuting the charges in the complaint.

Grindle vowed to continue to monitor Gates’ political expenditures and “his spending patterns.”

Gates, reelected to a fifth term as sheriff-coroner on June 5, was not available for comment Monday. Neither was his campaign treasurer, David White, nor his attorney Darryl Wold.

In a report filed with the registrar of voters, Gates said the campaign would return a $1,000 contribution received last year from Orange County builders Peter C. Valenti and John Coehlo and another $1,000 received earlier this year from Irvine developer Ron E. Birtcher.

An explanation in the report said the committee was unable to determine if the contributions exceeded the $1,000 state limit on individual giving.

In the first case, the campaign received two $1,000 contributions in 1989 from V&C; Investments with each of the checks signed by a different partner--one by Valenti and another by Coehlo.

“The committee does not have sufficient facts to determine whether or not these contributions must be aggregated for purposes of contribution limitations of the Political Reform Act,” the report said. “To avoid any question, the committee has refunded one of these contributions.”

In the other case, the report said, contributions received from three different Birtcher-related enterprises exceeded the $1,000 limit.