For 2 years, political contributions have been unaccounted for
The investigation of a Santa Monica city councilman’s handling of Green Party funds turned from political to criminal this week when police seized bank records in the case.
Former mayor and current councilman Mike Feinstein has insisted that questions over his alleged mishandling of $30,000 in Green Party funds amounted to a dispute within the party. Feinstein is accused of depositing party contributions into a private account he controlled and then used them to fund an unsanctioned office in Santa Monica.
But Feinstein’s apparent failure over the past two years to produce that account’s bank records led to a criminal investigation. Santa Monica police Lt. Mike Beautz served a search warrant this week and retrieved bank statements, canceled checks, deposit slips and transfer records from Feinstein’s credit union.
Officials said they haven’t decided whether to pursue criminal charges.
The search warrant for the account, signed June 23 by Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins, indicates the investigation thus far “tends to show a felony has been committed.”
Lt. Beautz began the investigation in March when Bob Morris, former treasurer and councilman for the Green Party of Los Angeles County, filed a police report that accused Feinstein of embezzlement. Morris also lodged a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Committee, the state agency that regulates campaign funding.
FPPC officials do not comment on complaints until they are resolved. No announcement has been made to date.
Feinstein was the focus of an August 2001 investigation by the Green Party of California over donations that were made out to the GPLAC but deposited into a personal account. The state party urged Feinstein to withdraw from Green Party work earlier this year until he makes public what happened to the money.
The national Green Party will conclude today a three-day conference in Washington, D.C.
Santa Monica Councilman Kevin McKeown, who is attending the event, said the situation surrounding Feinstein has detracted from the broader Green agenda.
“There’s little we can do now,” he said. “This is between Mike and the justice system. The Green Party offered to help in several ways two years ago, before this became a law enforcement issue and Mike declined our assistance.”
The criminal investigation focuses around a $10,000 check made out to the GPLAC by Bill Pietz, a former Green. But county officials have accused Feinstein of taking $30,000 to run a local but unauthorized Green Party office, located at 2809 Pico Blvd.
Feinstein has declined to discuss the matter with the Daily Press, but has privately characterized the dispute as something of a power squabble over his role in the party.
He told state Green officials in 2001 that he spent the money on a five-month advance for the local office. But GPLAC officials said the money was never intended for the office and Lt. Beautz said returned checks show the GPLAC paid only $500 monthly in rent.
Though Feinstein repeatedly promised to open up his ledger books, he had not done so before the warrant was issued.
“It’d been two years,” Morris said this week. “I don’t know if he ever would have (opened up his account), but he had done nothing up until then. I just said, ‘Look, here’s a check made out to GPLAC, which by the endorsing signature on the back was put into a personal bank account. Is this a problem?’”
Morris, McKeown and Pietz have each been interviewed by Lt. Beautz as part of the investigation. Pietz resigned from the party earlier this year, largely due to its handling of the Feinstein issue. He said Feinstein misused the money, but not criminally, when he diverted it from the county office.
The $10,000 check, written in January of 2001, was originally meant to be spent on voter registration, printing of pamphlets and brochures, and candidate searches, though Pietz said he left it to the County Council to decide how best it could be spent.
Pietz said the whole matter has left a sour taste in his mouth.
“It’s just all-consuming disgust with the whole thing and disgust with the immaturity of the party at this point,” said Pietz, an independent scholar. “Hopefully something else, politically, will come along to make (the Green Party) more serious about being an organized political party.”
“Hopefully something else, politically, will come along to make (the Green Party) more serious about being an organized political party.” — — BILL PIETZ Green Party donor
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 19, 2003. Read the original PDF.