Developer Fined $10,000 for Campaign Violations

An Oceanside development firm was fined $10,000 Wednesday for failing to identify itself as the source of potentially misleading mass mailers sent out during the 1988 campaign on behalf of Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley and two other City Council candidates.

Leisure Technology agreed to the fine as part of a stipulated decision approved Wednesday by the Fair Political Practices Commission, which found that the Oceanside builder violated state disclosure laws by secretly financing four political mailers in the final days of the 1988 contest.

The FPPC investigation found that Leisure Technology failed to reveal that it had paid $16,000 to print and send more than 15,000 so-called slate mailers in support of Bagley, City Councilman Sam Williamson and candidate Walter Gilbert.

Two of the mailers were sent to Republican voters and listed the council members’ names on a slate that included George Bush and Dan Quayle for the presidential ticket. Two others went to Democrats with a slate that listed presidential hopefuls Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentson.

The may have been misleading, the FPPC order said.

None of the mailers bore Leisure Technology’s name, although the company paid J. R. & Associates, a public relations firm, to create the material Oct. 27--only 12 days before the election, the FPPC said.

State law required Leisure Technology’s name to be listed in 6-point type on each envelope.

Instead, each piece bore the return address of “Oceanside Residents for Managed Growth,” a front group created to keep Leisure Technology’s name out of the election, the FPPC concluded.

The Oceanside City Clerk received queries about the identity of the sender of the mailers and had to “expend resources” to find out, the FPPC order said.

The FPPC order said none of the Oceanside candidates knew about the mailers. Leisure Technology relied on the advice of an unnamed law firm on how to handle the matter, but the bad guidance was not enough to mitigate a maximum fine of $2,000 for each of the four mass mailings.

The development firm was fined an additional $2,000 for violating another provision requiring anyone spending $1,000 or more during the last two weeks of a political campaign to immediately disclose the expenditure.

The purpose of the law is to track money during the final days of campaigning, and Leisure Technology should have sent an overnight telegram to the Oceanside City Clerk within 24 hours of spending $16,000, the FPPC said.

Officials of Leisure Technology or their attorney couldn’t be reached late Wednesday.

In an unrelated matter, the FPPC this week ruled that Assemblywoman Tricia Hunter (R-Bonita) was technically within the law when she sent out 67 versions of letters to constituents days before facing a tough reelection vote in the June primary.

State law prohibits mass mailings of 200 or more “substantially similar” pieces of mail at state expense. Days before the June primary vote, Hunter’s office sent out 199 copies of each letter. Each message was sufficiently different so that Hunter’s office “technically complied with the limitation,” according to an FPPC letter dated Aug. 21.

The political watchdog agency investigated the Hunter mailing because of an “informal” written inquiry it received June 19, two weeks after the primary.