My favorite City Department (I know, it’s sad that I have a favorite City Department) is easily the City Clerk’s office. Everyone, and I mean, everyone in that office is terrific. Starting from the top with the City Clerk herself all the way down the chain. The office is responsive and timely and so nice. An added bonus is that the City Clerk has a cheerful and pleasant voice since she has to read through all those god awful agenda item titles at every single meeting. So if you were wondering who is saying things like “Agenda item 5-G, Ordinance to paint every fifth house blue in the City of Alameda,” that’s her.
Now, it’s not to say that other departments are bad, they aren’t, but as a whole if you are looking for a completely non stressful interaction with a City Department, it’s the City Clerk’s office.
There is a point to my gushing about the City Clerk’s office, the point is, they are immensely accessible, so if you do have a question about an issue, say, oh about what office is the appropriate one to file campaign disclosures, they can and will answer you. So that you don’t end up posting information like this:
Action Alameda “News” is “reporting” that:
[Ed] Hirshberg says that campaign organizing documents were filed with the Alameda City Clerk’s office last week. As of last Friday, at close-of-business, the Alameda City Clerk did not have on record campaign filings for Alamedans Protecting Learning at Underfunded Schools (APLUS), Hirshberg’s chief opponent in the campaign. Political action committees are typically required to file campaign documents with the city they are active in.
Ed Hirshberg, as a reminder, is one of the Plaintiff in the Borikas case against Measure H and the School District. He is listed as the Treasurer for the No on Measure E campaign. So, I sort of remembered this argument the last time we were doing this parcel tax rodeo where a certain blogger suggested that Ron Mooney (who was the treasurer for the Measure H campaign) had failed to file campaign expenditure reports when he couldn’t locate them at the City Clerk’s office.
Here’s the thing, while “typically” political action committees are required to “file campaign documents with the city they are active in” in this case, the local filing officer for school district issues is the County Registrar of Voters, and not the Alameda City Clerk. Just like back during the Measure H times and now with Measure E. A quick confirmation email to the City Clerk and she (or her staff) would have confirmed that “typically” school ballot measure campaign paraphernalia is filed at the County.
But here is what makes this critique ironic and quite amusing. Back in 2008 during the Measure H election, this same blogger lobbed the same critique at Keep Alameda Schools Excellent (KASE) on Alameda Daily News (Screen caps below!):
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been contacted or talked to a number of people in town about the school parcel tax. They can all be grouped generally into one of four categories:
1) Those that this parcel tax must pass, come hell or high water.
2) Those that support a parcel tax, but not the current proposed measure as written, because it doesn’t provide enough control over the use of funds.
3) Those that are opposed to any parcel tax.
4) And those that advised me to be on the look-out for “false” opposition groups that will file a watered-down opposition statement for the ballot, intended to scuttle the true opposition to the tax.I have reluctantly agreed to go along with this parcel tax, despite my mis-givings about the City of Alameda’s management of redevelopment money intended for AUSD in the form of the District Housing Fund and the District Capital Outlay Fund. I’ve written that the school board can improve their chances of passing the parcel tax if they can provide full disclosure about the management and use of these funds.
Now comes a new PAC with the acronym KASE and the state FPPC #1303778 advocating support for the parcel tax. It’s not clear who is behind that group and the “Who We Are” page does not live up to its promise. However, the site lists AUSD board member Mike McMahon’s website, and re-produces some of the same mis-information from his website about redevelopment funds being available only for low-cost housing. (That’s not true – the District Capital Outlay Fund provides for facilities improvements.)
California Form 410, the form that KASE would have had to complete to get their state FPPC# clearly states that for City Committees, the organizers must file a copy with the “Local filing officer who receive the original disclosure statements.”. In Alameda, that would be the City Clerk’s office. I was at the City Clerk’s office this morning, and they did not have on file a Form 410 for KASE FPPC #1303778, which it seems, by law, KASE should have filed with them.
If KASE wants support from Alameda residents, they should fully disclose their organizing members, and immediately file – as required by law – a copy of their FPPC California Form 410 “Statement of Organization Recipient Committee” with Alameda’s City Clerk’s Office.
But then a few hours later, was forced to write this retraction:
A correction to my previous email – The Keep Alameda Schools Excellent PAC filed a copy of their organizing form, not with the City of Alameda, but with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. The filing was made with remarkable foresight by Alameda Education Foundation Secretary Ronald Mooney on January 29, 2008. I have attached a copy. Given that this parcel tax will be voted on by Alameda voters, and affects Alameda schools, one could be forgiven for thinking the PAC would file a copy in Alameda City Hall. In a similar case last year, the Legal Division of the California Fair Political Practices Commission held that a Berkeley based PAC that spent most of it’s money on City of Berkeley campaigns should be filing with the City of Berkeley, and not with Alameda County.
The point is transparency, particularly when we’re going to tax ourselves, in this case, or transparency with regards to the redevelopment school district “pass-through” funds managed by the City of Alameda on behalf of Alameda Unified School District. Voters deserve transparency to make proper decisions. With transparency, we can pass this parcel tax and get over the current crisis, but then we need to continue on in the same spirit and address structural issues in our education funding system, and in the redevelopment mechanism.
Yes, “one could be forgiven for thinking the PAC would file a copy in Alameda City Hall” the first time the error was made, but twice? The second time is just getting your facts wrong intentionally.
But the irony doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Notice the whole preachy passage on the “point is transparency” and needing to “continue on in the same spirit” of transparency? I guess “transparency” isn’t as important of a topic for your own campaign as it is for your opposition. On the Committee Against Measure E’s Facebook page under the name “Alamedans for Fair Taxation” they tell their supporters to:
Donate $99 anonymously to the “Committee Against Measure E” by clicking the “donate” button on the left side bar. Funds will be used to defeat Alameda’s Measure E school parcel tax. FPPC number to follow from the state.
Why $99, you may be asking? Well according to the campaign finance disclosure report, the campaign does not need to itemize contributions of less than $100. They have to track it for their own records (or in case someone wants to view the records like say the Alameda County Registrar of Voters or the Secretary of State’s office), but they don’t have to list each individual that gives $99 or less on the campaign disclosure form. So much for the spirit of transparency.
Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up.
