City attorney’s office reviewing ‘complaints’
A publicly-funded business organization may have overstepped its boundaries when it asked nine city council candidates to explain their views on several downtown issues, officials said.
The answers to the questions were to be printed in the Bayside District Corporation’s monthly newsletter, though that plan is now on hold.
An emergency meeting of Bayside’s board was called Tuesday morning to address concerns by some board members that the questionnaire may violate Bayside’s non-profit status, which forbids the group from taking direct political action or endorsing candidates.
Nearly 80 percent of Bayside’s funding comes from the city, while the other 20 percent comes from non-public sources. Some public funds are used to publish the newsletter and distribute its roughly 2,000 copies.
A divided board voted 5-3 Tuesday to publish the September issue containing the candidates’ answers to the survey, which touched on a $92.5 million parking plan approved by the city council, candidates’ views on the city’s living wage ordinance and how candidates would “curb” free meal programs for the homeless.
However, the newsletter was put on hold again later in the day when officials with the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office said they will look into whether the candidates’ survey can be published in a publicly-funded newsletter, said Deputy District Attorney Joseph Lawrence.
“We have been asked to review it,” Lawrence said. “A lot of people have been calling and complaining about this.” He declined to name who has complained or the number of complaints the office has received.
“We have been asked to review it. A lot of people have been calling and complaining about this.” — — JOSEPH LAWRENCE Deputy City Attorney
When a publication is representing the views of a city body, then it should try to stay neutral, said Councilman Ken Genser, who is not running for re-election.
He said it wasn’t “wise” for Bayside to send out the survey and he felt publishing the results would “unnecessarily inject the organization into the political arena.”
“Certainly the questions they choose to ask, no matter how neutral they seem, will favor some candidates over other candidates,” he said. “When it comes to forums and things, the questions should be carefully chosen by non-partisan groups.
“And that wasn’t the case here.” A few Bayside board members agreed they thought the questions being posed in the survey were better suited for political forums.
“I think it was a great idea by staff but... I think we should steer clear of these issues during election time,” said Rob Rader. “This doesn’t appear proper when we already have a stated position and then we put out what the individual candidates believe.”
But board member Ann Greenspun said as long as Bayside is not barred from sending out such a questionnaire, there is no reason not to do it.
“We can’t advocate, we can’t endorse, but we can educate,” said Greenspun. “And it seems that is what we are doing.”
Lawrence said he needs to check the city’s agreement for funding Bayside and the downtown business group’s filing status with the Internal Revenue Service before he can be certain it is permissible.
Earlier last month, Lawrence told Bayside Executive Director Kathleen Rawson that as long as nothing legally forbids publishing a candidates’survey — and Bayside does not endorse or oppose any candidate, or edit or editorialize any of the candidates’ statements — then publishing the survey would be fine.
While Lawrence does not believe his earlier recommendation to Rawson will change, a closer examination is now required, he said.
“Now we will look at everything,” he said. “And in light of everything, we will find out if we have a different opinion on things.”
If city attorneys find that Bayside cannot publish the results of its survey in their newsletter, Rawson said the issue would be canceled.
Rawson said her organization was only trying to objectively gather information from the candidates running for city council, find out their views on issues pertaining to downtown Santa Monica and disseminate the information to its readership, which consists mainly of those with downtown business interests and residents living in the district.
The Bayside District Corporation is a public-private management company in partnership with the City of Santa Monica, charged with the responsibility of overseeing public safety, security, and maintenance of streets surrounding the Promenade, including the alleys and the six city-owned parking structures.
Its borders are from Seventh Street to Ocean Avenue and between Wilshire to Colorado boulevards.
Complaints arose after Rawson distributed questions written by the newsletter’s editor, Jorge Casuso, to the nine city council candidates.
The idea for the survey came about in a meeting between the staffs of Bayside and the newsletter at the beginning of August, Rawson said. Casuso did not returns calls Tuesday for comment.
“Downtown has been in the news a lot lately,” Rawson said, “so there were many issues to choose from.”
After five questions were chosen, Rawson sent them out in an e-mail to all nine city council candidates on Aug. 15. Candidates were given six days to respond and were limited to 15-word responses.
Every candidate except for one, has submitted responses to the survey. Abby Arnold declined to answer the questionnaire but submitted a paragraph to be printed in the Bayside newsletter explaining she felt the broad nature of the questions being asked in the survey could not be answered with short responses.
“It’s not that I don’t want to answer those questions but the time and space limitations made it impossible for me to respond to what are very complex questions,” she said. “I knew there was no way I could answer a question about homelessness in 15-words or less.”
Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown, who is running for re-election this year, agreed that time and space limitations were tough, but he felt it was still important to respond.
“I had no problem answering that questionnaire except that they asked us to answer very complex questions in only 15 words,” he said. “Of course I support (the survey). Part of my job as a candidate is to explain what my positions are.”
Josefina Aranda said though she felt some questions may have been out of place, she felt the overall survey would be beneficial for voters.
“I thought the questions were good because they are trying to educate the public where each candidate stands,” she said. “I think just the living wage question, in particular, as to how it relates to the district (was questionable), but it’s a big issue and a lot of people would be affected by it.”
John Warfel, chair of the Bayside Board, said he felt the survey was valid since it had a high response rate.
“If we had a lesser response, I would have been more concerned about that,” he said. “But we had 90 percent participation, with only one abstention.”
Another city-funded newsletter, The Seascape, is not printed during elections to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, city spokeswoman Judy Rambeau said. The bi-monthly newsletter is not published between the first week of August to the third week of November.
The Seascape, which is sent to every household in Santa Monica, avoids listing the names of council members and tries to keep the names of individuals out of the publication.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 4, 2002. Read the original PDF.