01.3 - Laserfiche WebLink

Mayor Hosterman felt local self-contribution limits paves the way for the wealthy to achieve elected office and short-changes those who could not possibly contribute out of pocket for their own campaign. Councilmember Sullivan confirmed that with the voluntary pledge to limit expenditures it would also apply to one's own check but it would not affect independent expenditures, soft money or PAC's because anyone can form a PAC. Ms. Seto said if the Council is interested in exploring a voluntary expenditure limit, staff would need more direction in terms of what the limit would be. Councilmember Sullivan thanked staff for pulling together the contribution numbers, said he additionally created two different visual aids for the Council as he felt it better illustrated the trend than the pie charts presented. He said the numbers were the same with the exception for the 1992 and 1996 election, records were only kept for successful candidates and he doubled the numbers making the assumption that the losers spent just as much as the winners. He felt it illustrated that from 1992 to 2006, there has been a dramatic upward trend primarily in individual contributions, PACs, committees, independent, and business/others. In looking at individuals for 2006, it reveals somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 total to all candidates. In others, it is in the $10,000 to $30,000 range individually. On the second graph, he said it better illustrates the total effect of contributions, where a stacked line graph is additive of each of the categories. In looking at the overall total contributions in 2006, it is almost $250,000 and the combination of committees, PACs, independents and business is about $80,000 total. So, one of the distinctive traits is that the individual contributions went to all candidates. The others went to not all candidates and were more selective. So, he felt this would be helpful to the Council and to the public to understand the expediential rise in campaign contributions from all sources over the last 15 years. Mayor Hosterman opened the item for public comment. Kay Ayala felt what the City of San Ramon was doing is a great idea, asked to see the City go to a voluntary spending contribution limit, would wonder if there could also be a voluntary statement from each candidate statement saying they would not take PAC money which would send a message to the public that the vote of the individual person is what was most important and not PACs that garner a lot of money for one candidate. Mary Roberts thinks what the City really wants is a lot of disclosure and citizens to know what is going on. She asked to put the disclosure statements on the City's website so anyone can see them. She was interested in what San Ramon is doing and supported setting a voluntary amount, felt independent expenditures were always going to be a problem and sometimes you do not even know money is being spent on ads and make it apparent to people. She felt it was important to list contributions over $25 and that reporting requirements should be inclusive of the time prior to and after elections. Councilmember Thorne asked if it would be possible to develop a website link for this information, as this was one of the critical issues. City Clerk Karen Diaz said the State requires many of its officeholders to file on-line and there are several software applications available to manage this. The software programs provide the automatic redaction of required personal information and the statements are immediately made available on the Web once they are submitted using the E-filing software. Councilmember Thorne supported visibility, said he was proud of those who contributed to his campaign and said he could refer them to the website. City Council Minutes 7 October 16, 2007