01.3 - Laserfiche WebLink

Judy Symcox said she was not supportive of tampering or suppressing information to the public, felt it would skew the elections further. What is important is "soft" money or "in-kind" contributions like from unions and non-partisan groups who are not political PAC's but bodies who spent a lot of time politicking. She said a lot of work is done during elections and she questioned what value could be placed on this. Brian Arkin felt all contributions and expenditures should be filed and made public before the day of the election. He said many large contributions and expenditures were not made public until many months after people had voted because the forms were due 5 days before elections and then there is a lag. To be fair, it should be determined how to require that any contributions received must be filed and made public prior to the election. Steve Brozosky felt the increased spending is not just a new issue for this election but prior elections. The biggest change is the addition of PACs within the community. Whether they are from the Chamber of Commerce, the unions, other business interests, developers, or other environmentalists, the contributions greatly affect Pleasanton elections. He does not believe you can limit contributions much unless you can control PACs, which he felt could not be done. He supported electronic filing; said it is done at federal and state levels and that he has had conversations about this in Pleasanton. He felt transparency was the best thing for the community. Joe Ely urged the Council to strive for the highest level of honesty, fairness and transparency in the City government so all citizens can safely invest their trust and participate with confidence whether or not they are wealthy. He felt the Council should establish a political process that is accessible, fair and open to the greatest possible extent, which means keeping the disclosure threshold as low as possible and posting contributions on the Internet as soon as they are received. He applauded the City of San Ramon for its success in implementing a voluntary system of spending limits and felt Pleasanton should study their process and use it to the extent that it is truly effective. He urged the Council to publicly endorse as a body or individually the clean money voluntary system of full public campaign financing and to work for its enactment in all state and local elections. He referred to AB 583, a bill that is currently in the Senate. John Carroll felt it was important to get full and complete disclosure, supported the website idea, and he questioned whether expenditures could be controlled via an independent expenditure committee or the general purpose committees, He noted that Livermore requires all donations to be in two weeks prior to the election which are then reported and is followed by two-week moratorium on any activity prior to the election. He felt the expenditure limits of San Ramon would also be a benefit and encouraged the Council to look at all options for full disclosure. Bill Woodriff favored contribution limits but did not believe the amount of the limit is the critical issue. Expressed the need to limit sources of large uncapped money and pointed out the vast differences of resident funding versus business or special interest funding and to achieve the goal of a democratic process with the primarily focus on the benefits and interests of the residents. Regarding options in the agenda report, he was in favor of option 1 which is to complete the reporting prior to the election. He did not believe that a voluntary pledge can be broken and are not binding, and he felt PAC contributions should have the same limit as individual contributions. Jon Harvey said despite the fact that Pleasanton has had unlimited contributions and expenditures over time, the City has always had Councilmembers of high integrity and hoped the Council will take his comments in that light. He felt campaigns often become extremely City Council Minutes 8 October 16, 2007