Plan Calls for Ethics Panel, Public Funds for Elections

A hastily drawn ethics proposal intended for the November ballot would create a local ethics commission, establish public funding for political campaigns and make it easier for the mayor and City Council members to obtain raises.

Modeled in part after ethics reform recently adopted in Los Angeles, the measure is encountering opposition from council members.

“I don’t understand half of it,” complained Councilman Les Robbins, a member of the Legislation Committee that is drafting the proposal. “I support an ethics package but I’m not going to support it in a hurry-up-and-let’s-get-it-done manner.”

Both Robbins and Councilman Warren Harwood argued that the city was in no position to provide public funding for candidates.

“This is a relatively tax-poor community that can’t even afford sufficient public safety personnel,” Harwood said Wednesday, sharply criticizing the ethics proposal in remarks before the committee. “It is highly questionable whether the public is going to be enthusiastic about spending large amounts of money from the city’s coffers to pay for junk mail and bumper stickers for politicians.”

Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, chairman of the Legislation Committee, defended his efforts to get an ethics reform measure on the fall ballot. Otherwise, Braude said, the council would have to wait another 18 months to put a measure before voters, who must approve changes to the city’s charter.

“I’m even more concerned after the last election that we need some kind of reform package,” Braude said, referring to June council and mayoral elections that were marked by nasty campaign mailers and heavy spending.

Currently, local public officials are subject only to state regulations dealing with campaigning and conflicts of interest. There have been periodic, unsuccessful efforts in Long Beach to adopt tougher local standards and establish public financing for campaigns. The most recent attempts were begun after Los Angeles officials became embroiled in controversy last year involving some of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s financial investments.

As currently drafted, the Long Beach ethics package would create an ethics commission that would have the power to set salaries annually for the mayor and City Council members, and also enforce conflict-of-interest and campaign regulations. The measure would create public financing, establish as-yet undetermined limits on the amount of money candidates spend in races, and limit individual contributions to $750 per candidate during each election.

State regulations now limit individual contributions to $1,000 per year for each candidate, and council salaries are spelled out in the city charter.

A proposal on the June ballot to double salaries for the part-time council to about $35,000 a year was voted down, and Harwood contended that the ethics package was just another “crack at what was defeated in June.”

But Braude argued that the council pay raise lost because people were unhappy with the election campaigns, not because Long Beach voters did not want to give the council more money.

Harwood also blasted the proposed makeup of the ethics commission, whose members would be appointed by the mayor, city attorney, city prosecutor and auditor and be confirmed by the council.

“I think it’s flat-out conflict of interest and bad public policy,” Harwood said, noting that the council approves raises for the city attorney, prosecutor and auditor, who would in turn be appointing the people responsible for setting the council salary.

Community activists advocating campaign reform have said the council should become full-time and should be subject to tougher conflict-of-interest regulations barring outside work and honorariums, and precluding council members from voting on projects involving their major campaign donors.

The committee’s ethics proposal includes none of those provisions. Braude said there was strong opposition to a full-time council from some council members with full-time jobs. As for conflict-of-interest standards, Braude said they could be adopted later by the council through ordinances.