ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Too Cozy by Far: Disclosure Needed

The recent flap over Supervisor Don R. Roth’s laxity in disclosing his political finances adds to a long list of public concerns about relationships between campaign contributors and public officials in Orange County.

Roth didn’t report what amounted to an interest-free loan in the form of free rent he obtained when he set up household after the breakup of his marriage in 1990. Now, an FBI agent has disclosed that Roth’s relationship with a local business family is the primary target of an inquiry aimed at determining whether Roth traded political favors for gifts. Roth declined to comment on the investigation Wednesday.

But on the loan question, he said previously he was strapped financially because he was paying $3,000 a month on the home where his estranged wife was living. He asked his new landlord, the Dougher family, if he could defer rent payments on a unit in Ponderosa Travel Trailer Park in Anaheim. The Doughers--who are friends of Roth--agreed.

Roth also accepted three trips to Catalina Island as the Doughers’ guests. Roth defended the trips by saying his relationship with the Doughers was “reciprocal,” meaning that he also had entertained the Doughers. But Robert M. Stern, co-author of the state’s Political Reform Act, says such gifts must be reported.

Voters want to know from whom their politicians receive campaign contributions, loans and gifts.

The loan to Roth in the form of rent was important in the context of public disclosure because Donald J. and Gerald J. Dougher own a network of mobile home parks in Orange County. The family regularly makes contributions to members of the Board of Supervisors, including $6,350 to Roth since 1986.

Though Roth has said the family had nothing to do with county government, in fact, county transcripts show that a Dougher-owned company was involved in a land-use question in which the supervisors overruled their Planning Commission in December. The family is also actively opposed to rent control, an issue that arises from time to time in Orange County. Most recently, voters in Anaheim, where Roth was a councilman from 1971 to 1972 and from 1976 to 1986, rejected a measure that would have imposed rent controls on mobile home parks.

If Roth had any doubt that the rental loan and gifts were reportable, he should have erred on the side of disclosure. As it is, his activities provide yet another example of why voters in Orange County increasingly fear that special interests have too much power over elected officials.