Esplanade Shopping Center Owners Failed to File Major-Donor Report

The owners of The Esplanade shopping center failed to file a required campaign form listing their company as a major donor to a group backing an anti-tax-rebate measure on the March ballot, city officials said Friday.

The city clerk’s office is sending a letter to the Oxnard shopping center’s owners in San Francisco requesting that they file the proper paperwork within 10 days of notification or risk fines under California election law.

“Based on the information we received from the Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway . . . they should have filed a major-donor report with this office,” Deputy City Clerk Mabi Covarrubias Plisky said.

Individuals or companies that contribute $10,000 or more to a committee or a candidate must file a major-donor statement, which lists all cash and nonmonetary contributions made to that person or group’s campaign. For instance, if a donor pays for a poll or for a consultant, those expenditures must be disclosed.

Campaign records filed by Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway indicate that Esplanade owners contributed $39,700 to the committee supporting Measure S, an initiative aimed at stopping the tax-sharing deal negotiated for the Buenaventura Mall expansion.

Esplanade owners could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

Plisky also sent a letter to the committee’s treasurer, Lary Reid, requesting that the statement reflect contributions received for the full 1995 calendar year. The committee’s report only included contributions received from July 1, 1995.

Reid could not be reached for comment.

But campaign Manager Eric Lambert said his group would file any needed revisions. He added that his group received no contributions prior to forming in October 1995.

“That’s a real technical mistake on our part,” he said. “We have listed everything.”

Glitches in the reports were discovered during a customary review of campaign finance reports filed by the committee on Jan. 31.

“After every filing,” Plisky said, “we review the campaign statements to make sure they are complete and accurate on their face.”

Esplanade owners and the committee they are financing were not the only parties to be sent letters from the city clerk’s office for failing to comply with election regulations.

A Los Angeles-based political action committee that contributed $10,000 to the campaign against the greenbelt-preservation measures on last fall’s ballot also failed to file a major-donor statement.

Issues Mobilization PAC, the political arm of the California Assn. of Realtors, has 10 days after receiving Plisky’s letter to file the document.

And the other four groups that participated in the greenbelt campaigns last fall were all caught in the clerk’s review.

Voter’s Coalition, Venturans for a Quality Community, Save Our Agricultural Resources and a committee of Ventura County farmers were all sent letters regarding a range of inconsistencies in their campaign finance reports.