O.C. Cities Join County Call for Ethics Reform : Policy: Proposed ban on gift has municipal officials and others thinking hard about cutbacks on freebies.

Following the Board of Supervisors’ lead, government officials across Orange County vowed last week to rethink their own ethics policies in hopes of ushering in a new era of local political reform.

Several leaders in some of the county’s biggest cities said in interviews that they want to consider partial or flat bans on gifts to government officials. The head of Orange County’s Democratic Party said he wants to pursue that same idea statewide.

Even Dana W. Reed, a lawyer who has defended recently retired Supervisor Don R. Roth in an influence-peddling case that has triggered calls for reform, said he plans to propose toughened gift restrictions as a member of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

“Now seems like the right time to do it” because of the complicated issues raised by the Roth case, said Reed, who ironically specializes in advising officials on how to publicly report gifts and campaign contributions in keeping with county and state laws. “It takes the issue of gift-giving out of the equation in the whole decision-making process in government.”

Observed Anaheim City Councilman Fred Hunter, who plans to propose a gift ban in his city: “The climate of government is changing. Taken individually, things like lunches or fruit baskets and plants (from business people to politicians) sound dumb. But the only reason people are taking us to lunch is because they want something in return.”

Some remain skeptical about the seriousness of possible ethics reforms, suggesting that politicians have simply hit on a winning issue to tout at a time when the populist appeal of independent presidential candidate Ross Perot is still fresh in voters’ minds. Even naysayers, however, acknowledge that many of the proposals now being entertained seem certain to lead to concrete changes that could go beyond mere political grandstanding.

Local political consultant Harvey Englander predicted that if a ban on gifts to public officials takes effect at the county level, as proposed last week, “You’re going to see expensive restaurants like Antonello’s (at South Coast Village) losing a lot of business.”

Others, however, see change for the worse.

Lobbyist Lyle Overby, who has represented a number of clients with county business and has shown up regularly as a lunch host on political gift-disclosure reports, said the county’s proposed ban is “the biggest non-issue I’ve ever heard of.”

“The idea that government would amend its action over a salad is patently absurd,” said Overby, who served as an aide to two former supervisors and whose county client list has included the Santa Margarita Co. and McDonald’s restaurants. “In the world that I live in, any one who extends an invitation to another offers to absorb the costs. I guess this ordinance means that now you just pay for yourself. What’s next? Is somebody going to get arrested for bringing a sandwich into a supervisor’s office?

“The very concept that something like (a meal) would change someone’s view on an issue is just so far from reality,” he added. “We’re not talking rings and tiaras here. What you are seeing on gift lists are lunches, dinners, and maybe tickets to a ballgame.”

The biggest catalyst for the proposed changes, officials say, has been the widespread and prolonged publicity over the Roth case. And it has centered on questions far bigger than who paid for lunch.

The district attorney’s office is seeking to determine whether Roth, 71, traded political favors for thousands of dollars in home improvements, landscaping, airline flight upgrades, stock, trips, an $8,500 interest-free loan, and other unreported gifts from Southland developers, property owners and other business people with financial interests before the Board of Supervisors. Many of the allegations were first raised in The Times.

Roth denies any criminal wrongdoing, but he resigned his seat, effective March 1, saying the continuing investigation by the district attorney was preventing him from carrying out his official duties with the county. Since December, he abstained from 10 votes involving projects on the docket of the Board of Supervisors and the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Despite his denials, Roth and his lawyers say they are ready to sit down soon with district attorney’s officials to discuss possible charges against the former Anaheim mayor.

Many county officials had been reluctant to discuss the Roth affair while the popular politician remained in office. But in the wake of his surprise resignation, several broad issues surrounding government ethics are now getting a more intensive public airing.

Just in the last week, Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder began plans for developing a new county code of ethics relating to the acceptance of gifts, built around the question: “If you weren’t in public office, would you get it?”

County supervisors said they are nearing completion of a proposed ordinance to register lobbyists and the projects in which they are involved. Supervisors also have voiced general agreement on a virtual ban on all gifts to elected officials, political appointees and county employees, directing lawyers to draft an ordinance on the issue for completion within two months.

The emerging plan would go beyond the standards set by Sacramento, which allow officials to accept up to $1,000 in gifts from a single source in a year, but ban them from voting on anyone who has given more than $250 in gifts. In fact, local and state officials say the Orange County ban as local officials now envision it could be the toughest ordinance in California.

Several officials in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach said they may also favor a review of local ethics policies in light of the current push by county government. And Orange County Democratic Party Chairman Howard Adler said he wants to ask the state party to consider seeking a clampdown on gifts for legislators and public officials across California.

“I think it’s about time,” Adler said. “Even at the smallest level, (gifts) create an appearance problem, and no one can convince me that it doesn’t create these special relationships that provide that much more access for the people giving the gifts. It’s all the little perks and (benefits) that allow these guys in the door.”

Questions still remain over whether county officials will have to begin paying for many of the formal dinners and other public events that they often attend free of charge, or whether they will be allowed to accept such token items as mugs or T-shirts from civic groups.

But Shirley Grindle, a local political reform activist who helped launch the proposed county ban, said: “I’m not worried about this rinky-dink T-shirt stuff. I think of this (ban) as preventing the wining and dining of politicians that goes on all the time.”

Within Orange County, the decades-old practice of gift-giving extends beyond the five high-profile county supervisors who each report having accepted hundreds of dollars in meals, banquet seats and other gifts every year from business people whose interests range from land development to trash collection.

Grindle said she recalls turning down offers down of expensive lunches and gifts from several local developers when she was on the county’s Planning Commission in the 1970s.

Sometimes, however, business people don’t have to pay to create ethical problems in the public eye. In Santa Ana, the council last month had to cancel credit cards and other amenities for city officials after questions were raised publicly about extravagant public spending on meals, travel and recreation during tough budget times for the city.

But Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young cautioned that in the current climate of reform, it is important to remember that “the world of the Orange County Board of Supervisors is different than the world of Orange County cities. We don’t have a few hundred lobbyists roaming the halls peddling their wares. It’s just not a part of the daily life in the cities.”

Young and officials in several other Orange County cities said they see no immediate need to adopt tougher local ethics measures because they are not generally showed with gifts from business people. Many said their annual gift-disclosure statements, required by the state under the 1974 Political Reform Act, are limited to theater passes from Edwards Cinemas.

In Brea, where authorities have investigated three councilmen in the last two years over conflict-of-interest allegations, Mayor Burnie Dunlap said he is worried that the current “siege mentality” for reforms may diminish the ability of politicians to conduct business and limit access for people who have interests before the government.

By pursuing such tough restrictions on gifts, the county “may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. . . . To me, accepting a meal at, let’s say, a business meeting, is not unethical on its face,” Dunlap said. But he added that Brea officials likely will look to the county in developing a recently launched code of conduct for local politicians.

William E. Hodge, executive director of the Orange County division of the League of California Cities, said that while he, too, believes the gift issue is a bigger problem for the county than cities, some municipalities such as San Clemente and others already have begun to institute new policies on conflicts of interest and other ethical issues.

“This (Roth case) raises the level of awareness” about government ethics, Hodge said. “I suspect this will trigger some sort of self-analysis by a lot of people.”

Indeed, even in some cities where officials downplay the influence of the business community, the Roth affair may force force politicians to rethink their own policies.

“It trickles down. Anytime there is government bashing, it’s spread with a broad brush,” Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Mary Hornbuckle said. “If (constituents) perceived this as a problem, we certainly would then have to do some tightening. Perception is the rule.”

Perhaps more than any other city in Orange County, Anaheim has been dogged by public perception problems in connection with the acceptance of gifts by city officials.

For 30 years, city executives and elected officials accompanied Walt Disney Co. executives on weekend trips to San Diego or Santa Catalina Island, where Disney had arranged private golf tournaments, fishing outings and lavish meals. And at the city-run Anaheim Stadium and Convention Center, council members have long enjoyed access to virtually all events, including special parking privileges on game days at the stadium.

The city enacted a ban on all gifts from Disney only after the acceptance of thousands of dollars in complimentary Disneyland tickets led to the temporary suspension last year of two council members’ voting authority on Disneyland’s $3-billion expansion. The members’ gifts far exceeded the state-mandated limit.

The voting suspensions so shook Disney that the company, which issues about 300,000 free park passes annually, recently banned complimentary tickets to all public officials.

Now, Hunter says, it is time to ban gifts altogether as the county is proposing.

“I know I won’t be here a few years from now, but I think it is appropriate that every one knows what the rules are coming in,” Hunter said. “We are, in essence, following the way it should have always been. . . . This Don Roth thing has people thinking about it.”