Panel Aims for Funding Report by Valley VOTE

The City Ethics Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to pursue closure of a legal loophole that has allowed the group pushing for a study and possible vote on San Fernando Valley secession to avoid revealing its finances, expenditures and contributors.

The commission, which acts as Los Angeles’ campaign finance watchdog, voted to ask California legislators to impose the requirement statewide. But in the meantime, it will recommend that the local panel handling the secession issue order disclosure now.

The Local Agency Formation Commission, the state-created, county-based panel that oversees the secession process, has the power to force lobbyists to publicly report their finances. Secession proponents would be considered lobbyists under such rules since they are working to shape a LAFCO study on secession--a required step before a breakup vote can take place.

“We’re talking about a situation where in every other [political campaign], disclosure does apply,” said LeeAnn Pelham, the Ethics Commission’s assistant director.

The decision to explore options to close the loophole followed a plea for action by Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer--and a surprising move by the secession group Valley VOTE, which had earlier opposed the change.

After slamming the proposed reforms earlier this week as an attempt by Feuer to intimidate and single out secession activists, Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain told the commission Wednesday that the group will comply with any new laws.

However, he continued to express the same concerns that secession boosters say led them not to release the information in the first place: fear that contributors to the breakup movement will face payback from politicians at City Hall who oppose secession.

Already, Brain said, Councilman Nate Holden has demanded the resignation of Police Commissioner Bert Boeckmann and Fire Commissioner David Fleming because of their involvement in the secession movement, and a firm that worked with Valley VOTE on its signature drive to force a secession study is finding it hard to get more work in town.

“We’re not going up against a candidate, we’re going up against the whole city,” Brain said. “I know our people have been intimidated.”

Ethics commissioners said they understood Brain’s concerns, but thought withholding the information would only increase innuendo and retribution.

“Wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interest if you disclosed this for everyone to see?” said Commissioner Art Mattox.

Brain said afterward that Valley VOTE is, in fact, pondering release of all contributors to its effort, though it continues to insist it is not a political campaign and does not have to make such disclosures. A handful of donors want to stay private, but their contributions amount to only $2,000, and the group may just send them their money back, Brain said.

The group said recently that it had spent roughly $500,000 to date, including $290,000 on its signature drive. Last year, it revealed that its biggest donor at that time was the Daily News of Los Angeles, which had contributed $60,000 of the $200,000 the group said it had at that time. Boeckmann and Fleming, among Valley VOTE’s top contributors, have also begun a sister committee titled the CIVIC Foundation to raise money for the secession study and have already received $500,000 in pledges from that effort.

The Ethics Commission’s reform proposals, which will be further fleshed out at the commission’s next meeting July 8, are:

* Lobbying the Legislature to fix a quirk in the state’s Political Reform Act, which requires nearly every type of campaign in California to reveal spending and contributions except secession drives.

* Requiring all petition drives in Los Angeles to disclose contributions and funding. Such a law would come too late to address the current Valley secession campaign, which has already gathered signatures to trigger a study of municipal divorce, and a similar campaign in San Pedro and Wilmington, which has also concluded the petition phase.

* Asking LAFCO to enact rules forcing lobbyists to publicly report their finances. The rule would not be applied retroactively, so lobbying and fund-raising activities before it was enacted would still not be revealed.

After a Times story on the loophole last month, the Ethics Commission issued a report last week that also concluded that secession groups, like all cityhood drives, were not required to disclose their finances because they were not covered under the state’s Political Reform Act.

The Fair Political Practices Commission has ruled since 1976 that cityhood proposals are not subject to the landmark state law, which applies to candidates, initiatives, recalls and referendums.

The reason is that unlike other ballot drives, cityhood proposals are not immediately placed before voters after activists collect enough signatures. Instead, cityhood proposals are sent to LAFCO, which ultimately decides whether to place them before voters after conducting an analysis.

So only if they cross that threshold do cityhood movements qualify as ballot measures and have to report their finances, according to the Fair Political Practices Commission--and even then, only from that point forward.

That rationale, though legally accurate under the status quo, does not satisfy Robert Stern, one of the drafters of the Political Reform Act. He told the commission Wednesday that he would like to see secession movements covered under disclosure laws like everything else.

Nor did it please Feuer, who said he could see no argument for treating secession differently from other political campaigns.

“Disclosure is a very good thing--always,” Feuer said.