Questions concerning Santa Monica City Councilman Mike Feinstein’s handling of $30,000 in Green Party contributions has attracted national attention from party leaders.
State and national Green Party officials spoke about how they should respond to Feinstein’s alleged actions on Sunday during a conference call, Los Angeles County Green Party officials said.
The call was between state party officials and elected Greens from across the country. The conversation focused on their concerns that Feinstein hasn’t disclosed what happened to checks made out to the Los Angeles County and California Green Party organizations, said Ginny Marie Case, a local Green Party delegate.
The conference call was sparked by a Jan. 10 letter sent by the state Green Party to national Green Party officials reporting that Feinstein is not an official fundraiser and a national convention that he is organizing is not recognized by the party, according to Case.
Feinstein did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday.
Feinstein has allegedly ignored requests to provide balance sheets of a credit union account where he allegedly deposited a $10,000 donation to the L.A. County Green Party. They also want to know what happened to proceeds from a 2000 fundraiser with Ralph Nader and why several Green Party checks were signed over to Barrios Unidos, a local Latino group that helped open the Pico Youth and Family Center.
Now Green Party officials are concerned about the convention being organized by Feinstein which will consist of elected Greens from across the country and will take place in Santa Monica during the weekend of Feb. 22.
660,“Mike Feinstein is no longer mayor now and he started to reassert his activism as a Green Party member on virtually every level, local state, national and international,” said Green Party Treasurer Mike Wyman at a Jan. 10 meeting of state Green Party officials, according to minutes of the meeting.
“This has raised problems particularly because he still has this Pico Boulevard office in mind to be involved with Green Party activities,” he said.
While most Green Party officials agree the convention is needed, they said there are concerns Feinstein may be inappropriately using the Green Party name to raise money for the event.
National party officials reportedly asked Feinstein to remove Green Party icons on a Web site promoting the national convention, according to L.A. County Green Party members.
Local and state Green Party officials also are concerned Feinstein will use the event to raise money for a storefront office, located at 2809 Pico Blvd., as an official Green Party location. Officials say no county or state Green Party organization recognizes the storefront as anything more than an office space leased personally by Feinstein.
They cite Feinstein’s continued silence about the donations as evidence that he is still up to his old fundraising habits that got him in trouble nearly two years ago. And now Feinstein is doing it on a national level, Green Party officials said.
“Clearly, Mike Feinstein has not changed in terms of his habits of using the Green Party name for fundraising,” said Wyman, “And then not using the money for Green Party stuff.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 5, 2003. Read the original PDF.