Da Rat does elections...
Wharff to reevaluate Internet campaign finance posting
By KATIE MINTZ The Daily Journal
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors General Government Committee met Monday afternoon to review proposed legislation pertaining to campaign finance reform. The discussion, postponed since early May in an effort to allow County Assessor/Clerk-Recorder Marsh Wharff to voice her opinion, largely regarded whether the draft ordinance should include a stipulation requiring that candidate and committee campaign disclosure forms be made available on the county Web site.
At the conclusion of the nearly hour-long conversation between Supervisors Kendall Smith and Jim Wattenburger, who comprise the committee, County Counsel Jeanine Nadel, Chief Operating Officer Alison Glassey, Wharff and a handful of citizens, the committee decided to return to the matter at its August 14 meeting for what they hope to be a final review. Following a final review, the reform act will be brought before the entire Board of Supervisors.
Wharff expressed concern over a line in the draft ordinance that would require her, as the registrar of voters, to "provide Internet access to all campaign disclosures filings within five working days of receipt of filing."
She noted that while this would not be a overly-taxing duty at the time of the first filing deadline in an election cycle, it would be difficult for the elections office to handle the additional workload at the second filing deadline, which falls close to the election date. More important duties, she said, such registering voters and sending absentee ballots, consume most of her staff's time at that point.
Local residents Ron Epstein and Scott Cratty offered a number of suggestions to lessen the workload in an effort to make posting of the forms possible. This, Epstein said, would make it easier for the public to be more involved in, and more knowledgeable about, the election process.
Rather than use the system that Wharff had initially investigated -- the same system that the State of California uses to make disclosure forms available online, which according to Wharff would cost the county $10,000-$15,000 per year -- Epstein proposed a "less ambitious system," which would involve, he said, scanning the forms, creating PDF files from the forms and then posting them to the Web site.
Wharff said that this too, might take more time than available to staff in the elections office. While it sounds simple, she said, "a lot of detail goes into fixing it all," including coordinating information with the County's Internet Resources Department, which acts as the webmaster for the county site.
Before the August meeting, Wharff will compile a cost analysis for various methods and systems that could be used to post the campaign disclosure materials to the county Web site, including costs from expected additional staff hours. Nadel will also work on adding language to the draft ordinance that would require late campaign disclosure filings to be posted on the Web site within a shorter time frame than five days, allowing for the media to report on the filings prior to election day.
According to the current draft, in addition to requiring online posting of disclosure forms, per each election period, the ordinance would limit individual and business contributions to $500, and contributions from outside the county to $5,000. Candidates would be required to report all cumulative contributions of $100 or more by listing the name, address, occupation and employer of the donor on campaign disclosure forms for the regular election cycle. Late contributions of $500 or more -- which was changed at the meeting from the previous level of $100 or more -- would also need to be reported in the same manner. The ordinance would also require that within 90 days after the election, any surplus campaign funds over $5,000 be returned to donors, donated to a registered charity or deposited in the County's General Fund. In addition to these regulations, a voluntary regulation, which would limit participating candidates to expenditures of $50,000 for county-wide local office candidates and $30,000 for Board of Supervisors candidates, is included in the draft ordinance. Participating candidates would then be able to disclose such acceptance on all campaign advertising.
Katie Mintz can be reached at udjkm@pacific.net.
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