Blame Tower Vote Delay on City Law?

The delay of a highly anticipated Santa Ana City Council vote on whether to approve a downtown office tower stems from an unusual and confusing city law, experts said Wednesday.

The delay was requested by the state attorney general’s office in order to investigate a council member’s possible conflict of interest. At issue is whether Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez can vote on developer Michael Harrah’s $86-million One Broadway Plaza after having accepted a $3,200 contribution from him last year in her campaign for an Assembly seat.

City law prohibits council members from voting on projects within a year of receiving campaign contributions of $250 or more from the project sponsors. The law does not explicitly state whether those donations are for any campaign or just City Council races, and City Atty. Joseph Fletcher interpreted it to refer only to City Council campaigns.

Opponents of the office tower, which would be Orange County’s tallest building, say the municipal conflict-of-interest law applies to contributions to council members for any race they may be in, and that Alvarez should recuse herself from any discussion over Harrah’s projects in the city because she may be influenced by his financial support of her political aspirations.

Campaign-law language in some other cities specifies that the donations apply only to municipal elections, but in other cities, the language is ambiguous.

Harrah’s project was scheduled for a vote by the Santa Ana City Council on Tuesday night when the attorney general’s office asked for the delay so it could interpret Santa Ana’s campaign ordinance.

The future of the office tower is cloudy without Alvarez’s vote of support. Among the seven council members, two others already have voluntarily recused themselves from the discussions because of potential conflicts of interest, and a third said she was opposed to it. Three others have voiced support for the project, and Alvarez would provide the critical majority vote.

Even if the state determines that Alvarez could not have voted this year to support the project, the issue may now be moot because more than a year has elapsed since she received the donation, and the recusal requirement extends only for one year.

In addition to the recusal provision, Santa Ana’s campaign ordinance also bans contributions of more than $1,000 to candidates in municipal elections.

Recusal requirements are unusual, said Shirley L. Grindle, author of the county’s campaign reform law and a government watchdog. Most cities simply have one provision, a campaign contribution limit. For example, the city of Los Angeles does not allow any contribution greater than $500.

Grindle said she believed the intention of the city law is -- or should be -- to diminish the influence that campaign donors have on council members, no matter which race they contribute to on behalf of the council member.

She said, for instance, that state law prohibits commissioners on state boards from voting on matters affecting campaign supporters who donated funds to them, even in nonstate races.

“The influence of the money is on the candidate, not on the race,” she said. Fletcher’s interpretation, she said, “thwarts the purpose of the law.”

Cities generally have no authority to regulate contributions to anything other than a city election, said Sigrid Bathen of the state Fair Political Practices Commission. Likewise, interpretations of city campaign laws are left to city attorneys, Bathen said.

The state review was prompted by opponents of the 37-story tower, who complained that Alvarez had been allowed to vote. Because she is a deputy district attorney, the matter was referred to the attorney general’s office to avoid appearance of a conflict.

Fletcher had ruled not only that Alvarez could vote because the municipal code referred only to city races, but that Councilman Brett Franklin also could vote even though he received $1,000 from Harrah for his failed bid for county supervisor.

Franklin said Wednesday that he still wouldn’t vote, to avoid the appearance of conflict and that whatever the decision about Alvarez’s possible conflict, he would not change his mind.

The provision preventing council members from voting for one year on projects after receiving donations from those financially affected was added to the city code in 1992. “I can only remember that the council members discussed it thoroughly, and they wanted this,” said Ed Cooper, city attorney at the time.

Fletcher and City Manager Dave Ream said they have no plan to propose a change to the city code regarding campaign contributions.