Scores of Garofalo’s Votes Favored Business’ Advertisers

Huntington Beach Mayor Dave Garofalo voted at least 87 times in the last 5 1/2 years on matters affecting major advertisers in the city’s annual Visitors Guide that he has published since 1994.

In every case, Garofalo voted in favor of advertisers’ requests for action by the City Council, according to a Times review of city records. The items ranged from numerous development and loan approvals to permits--with most receiving unanimous support from the seven-member council.

Garofalo said last week he has done nothing wrong.

“I have not, nor will I ever knowingly commit a criminal offense while in public office,” said Garofalo, who declined to discuss his voting record.

State law bars elected officials who receive $250 or more from voting for 12 months on matters that could financially benefit the giver. Officials also cannot be involved in votes or deliberations if it is likely that the outcome would have an “important impact” on the official’s economic interests.

Because Garofalo has not disclosed exactly when he received payment for those ads, it is difficult to tell exactly which votes, if any, may be questionable.

The Times looked at nine major advertisers who appeared in the city’s guide from 1995-2000. The guides are distributed at the beginning of each year and the newspaper examined Garofalo’s votes involving those advertisers in the subsequent 12 months. Each of those advertisers paid for ads that exceeded $250, the state’s threshold that would preclude voting.

The advertisers included Boeing Corp.; Hearthside Homes, formerly Koll Real Estate; the Waterfront Hilton; Huntington Beach Mall; Seacliff Village Shopping Center; McDonnell Douglas Corp.; PLC Land Co.; and Commercial Investment Management Group, which is building a $46-million redevelopment project near the mayor’s home.

A statewide government watchdog on Friday called Garofalo’s publishing activities “extremely unusual.”

“It doesn’t sound right,” said Robert M. Stern, principal co-author of the state Political Reform Act and president of the Center for Government Studies in West Los Angeles, a nonprofit research organization.

Local government watchdog Shirley Grindle, who wrote Orange County’s campaign reform law, said Garofalo “has a problem.”

“I find it difficult to believe that he wouldn’t know there was a conflict in this,” she said. “You’ve got to err on the side of caution.”

Garofalo has held the no-bid contract for the glossy Visitors Guide for the last six years and helps sell advertising in the publication, which typically runs more than 50 pages. He says the money he receives for the ads is not technically income, but is passed on to the Local News, a bimonthly newspaper that he also publishes.

He said he sold his financial interest in the Local News in December 1997 to Coatings Resource, a paint manufacturing company owned by former city planning commissioner Ed Laird.

According to the terms of the sale, Garofalo receives $100,000 a year as a consultant to Coatings Resource. However, Garofalo has continued to be listed as publisher and owner of the Local News, except for a 15-month period. County documents reflect a change of ownership to Laird’s son, Jeff, in January 1999 through last April, when Garofalo was again listed as owner.

Since the sale, he said, he has passed on any advertising revenue from the annual city guides to the Local News.

However, in one instance, an advertiser in the 2000 Visitors Guide paid $2,995 for a half-page ad, paying the check to David P. Garofalo and Associates Inc. Garofalo said this week that he deposited the money into an account for the Local News.

In 1998, the state Fair Political Practices Commission said Garofalo should abstain on advertiser votes for a year after the newspaper sale to comply with conflict-of-interest laws. Even if Garofalo had sold the business in December 1997, state law required him to abstain on matters involving advertisers between January 1995 when he first took office and December 1998. Records show that he did so once, in October 1998, shortly before that FPPC ruling.

However, city records show Garofalo voted at least 46 times on agenda items involving Visitors Guide advertisers during that time. The remaining 41 votes involving guide advertisers were cast between January 1999 and March 2000, a period for which he says he had sold the business but continued to draw a six-figure consulting fee.

Most of the votes involving advertisers were unanimous for projects including the redevelopment of the Waterfront Hilton and construction of the upscale Holly Seacliff neighborhood. In 1998, Garofalo bought a home in the neighborhood for $565,000, then sold it within three days to friend and gas station mogul George A. Pearson for an additional $60,000. Garofalo said his net profit was $1 after paying for Pearson’s upgrades.

The council was split over the annexation of the Bolsa Chica wetlands by the city, which Garofalo supported with a bare majority of the council. In one council meeting alone, on March 29, 1999, Garofalo participated in six separate votes involving the Bolsa Chica development by Hearthside Homes, formerly Koll Real Estate.

Stern said Garofalo’s continued relationship with both publications is troubling.

“If it were legitimate, and he was soliciting funds for someone else and not receiving any of the money, then there is no conflict under the law,” Stern said. “The problem is, the checks are made out to him.”

City Atty. Gail Hutton launched an investigation last week into the relationship between the Visitors Guide, Garofalo and the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau, which is solely funded through the city. The council gave $235,000 this year to the bureau, on which Garofalo sits as a nonvoting member.

Hutton also will ask the FPPC to rule on the propriety of Garofalo’s votes on matters affecting advertisers in his publications and on two transactions involving property owned by the mayor.

In a surprise announcement Monday during the City Council meeting, Garofalo said he would divest himself of any remaining interest or activity in his publishing businesses. He said this week that he failed to properly record the change of ownership of the Local News and that he should not have cashed an advertising check for the visitors guide. He also said he would refrain from voting on any matter involving advertisers in the 2000 guide until getting a ruling from the FPPC.

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Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.