The right pledge of ethics

A top City Council priority once a fifth member is seated after ballots are counted in Tuesday’s special election will be to renew, revise or replace a 35-year-old ethics code covering Yorba Linda’s elected and appointed leaders and all city employees.

According to a report from City Attorney Sonia Carvalho and her Best, Best & Krieger colleague Grover Trask, the City Clerk’s office turned up the apparently forgotten 1972 policy after the council asked city staff to develop ethics policy options.

The city’s third council adopted the four-page code setting “minimal ethical standards” by a unanimous vote, and it was signed by then-Mayor Rudy Castro on Dec. 18, 1972.

Carvalho and Trask recommend that council affirm the existing policy, adopt a model policy based on one developed in conjunction with Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics or give further direction on developing a different policy.

The 1972 policy includes conflict of interest descriptions already illegal or made illegal in later state legislation. The resolution calls for officials and employees to self-disclose conflicts and doesn’t contain mechanisms to enforce code provisions.

The Santa Clara policy is considered “value-based” rather than “rule-based” because it emphasizes what officials and employees should strive to do instead of what they are mandated by law to do, according to Carvalho and Trask.

The code’s preamble says officials, employees, volunteers and others who participate in city government “are required to subscribe to this code, understand how it applies to their specific responsibilities and practice its eight core values in their work.”

The values include individual pledges to be ethical, professional, service-oriented, fiscally responsible, organized, communicative, collaborative and progressive.

One “progressive” behavior is described as displaying “a style that maintains consistent standards, but is also sensitive to the need for compromise, ‘thinking outside the box’ and improving existing paradigms when necessary.”

The value-based approach sounds more like a list of personal goals and objectives than an old-fashioned code with teeth in the form of enforcement and consequences for misdeeds.

But there’s no harm in considering a policy that just might assist sound decision-making, encourage high conduct standards, increase public confidence in city leadership and link standards of integrity and values to daily operations as Carvalho and Trask indicate.

A FINAL NOTE

Richard Nixon Library and Museum director-designate Dr. Tim Naftali recently updated Town Center Blue Ribbon Committee members on future activities expected to increase the current estimated 100,000 annual attendance “by 50 percent very quickly.”

“Raise the wattage of the museum, and everybody benefits,” Naftali said, noting a non-partisan approach with new exhibits, interactive history, scholarly conferences and more evening events should attract a younger audience.

Of course, a new archive building on the west parking lot will increase parking and traffic pressures in the area, which the “blue-ribbon” body must consider in Old Town planning.

Life after the election

A City Council election should focus on the future, with an array of knowledgeable candidates explaining in some detail their visions for Yorba Linda in the coming years.

But sadly, the June 5 contest to fill a vacant seat on the city’s five-member governing body is often mired in the past, with two former council members spending too much time sniping at each other’s prior city service.

Perhaps only the candidates and their most passionate supporters fail to recognize that past alliances, long-held grievances and unhealed wounds are driving the current battle for votes.

Certainly, there’s much to criticize about Hank Wedaa’s 28 years and Keri Wilson’s four years at the dais, and each camp is spending plenty to publicize their opponent’s real or imagined faults.

Residents frequently are reminded of the oil industry money Wedaa raised for his 1990 campaign and his reputation for tough talk and political gamesmanship.

Voters also are asked to recall developer and builder-related donations to Wilson’s 2002 campaign and her past support of possible eminent domain use in Old Town.

Wedaa’s strong opposition to term limits and Wilson’s signature on a developer-funded letter to residents supporting Town Center zoning changes are among other issues.

Naturally, all campaigns claim to deal only in facts, but candidates and supporters often exaggerate key elements of past events.

For example, Wilson opponents say she was overwhelmingly defeated for re-election “by more than 3,000 votes” last year. Actually, she needed only 1,456 more votes to top John Anderson, and if 729 Anderson votes were cast for Wilson instead, she’d still hold office.

And Wilson’s web posting of one of my past columns noting Wedaa admitted writing an unsigned newspaper ad attacking Wilson morphed into a recent Wilson mailer claiming Wedaa was “forced to admit” the deed. Actually, Wedaa readily acknowledged his role.

Of course, because of all the attacks and counterattacks, voters might be looking for an alternative, and they could respond favorably to the low-budget, self-financed campaign run by recent resident and ballot newcomer Victoria Gulickson.

But how do candidates expect to govern effectively after running campaigns that divide the community and consist of so many negative comments about their opponents and the residents who support them?

They should remember that after the election, they’re supposed to represent a citywide constituency that includes supporters and opponents.

A FINAL NOTE

The election has drawn the attention of longtime Wedaa nemesis John Gullixson, a developer-friendly three-term councilman who left Yorba Linda for a more rural, low-density lifestyle in Plumas County.

I e-mailed Gullixson to ask if he was involved with an anonymous blog that popped up last month, and he answered with a phone call recounting events that led him to believe Wedaa is “less than standup.”

Gullixson then sent an e-mail detailing one of his stories to the unsigned blog and me. I guess it’s too hard for a political junkie like Gullixson to retire gracefully from the field.

Will YLRRR play a part in June 5 election?

Will the grassroots group Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Representation (formerly Redevelopment) record another civic victory or will a two-year string of impressive political triumphs come to an end?

That question will be answered June 5, when absentee ballots and precinct votes are tallied in the special election for a vacant City Council seat.

YLRRR’s five straight wins include gathering 8,647 signatures on the citizen-sponsored Right-to-Vote on Land-Use Amendments initiative in summer 2005 and 9,790 and 9,771 signatures on two petitions to overturn high-density Old Town zoning in winter 2005-6.

The high signature count on the latter petitions led Council members Allen Castellano, Ken Ryan, Keri Wilson and Jim Winder to rescind the unpopular zoning laws and eliminate the Redevelopment Agency’s eminent domain authority.

YLRRR members also won a March 2006 legal battle to keep the Right-to-Vote initiative on the ballot, and YLRRR campaigners won a narrow 299-vote victory for Measure B in June 2006, despite a city-record $174,150 raised in opposition by the building industry.

Next, YLRRR-endorsed council candidates Jan Horton and John Anderson won 8,293 and 6,684 votes to defeat retired Brea police captain Doug Dickerson (5,903 votes), Wilson (5,228 votes) and six other candidates in November 2006.

The current contest pits YLRRR-endorsed Hank Wedaa (past council tenure: 1970-1994 and 1996-2000) against Wilson (2002-2006) and ballot newcomer Victoria Gulickson.

But not all YLRRRers agree with the nine-member board’s Wedaa endorsement, and only 22 people attended the last YLRRR meeting, featuring a Wedaa talk on the city’s real and perceived problems.

Two sparkplugs for past YLRRR successes, Councilwoman Jan Horton and her husband, former YLRRR board member Jim Horton, aren’t endorsing any of the contenders.

Wilson is running a more aggressive campaign this time by touting her density record, her participation in negotiations to end the school district’s lawsuit against the city’s Redevelopment Agency and her “mental alertness and physical stamina” for the job.

Former councilman and current water board director Mike Beverage, a longtime Wedaa nemesis, is working as a volunteer on Wilson’s campaign mailers and signs. The Beverage-Wedaa feud, which extends back 25 years, is legendary in local politics.

The bickering between Wedaa and Wilson might benefit Gulickson, since she wasn’t involved in the recent Town Center debates or earlier controversies about the Imperial Highway Improvement Project or the removal of 27-year City Manager Art Simonian.

Even staunch Wedaa supporter Anderson notes Gulickson “is worthy of…consideration should you choose not to vote for…Wedaa.” Castellano favors Wilson, while Winder hasn’t made an endorsement, although he signed Wedaa’s nomination petition.

A FNAL NOTE

With no other offices or issues on the ballot, Yorba Linda’s 40,885 registered voters might deliver the smallest turnout percentage in city history.

Candidates and supporters are walking precincts and pushing absentee ballots to eke out every possible vote, and residents should expect more tough-talk, late-in-the-campaign mailers.

Positions can change after elections

Since moving to Yorba Linda 32 years ago, I’ve watched 17 of the community’s 21 past City Council elections, researched the previous four and written in these pages about the six most recent contests.

Density always has been the top issue, with listening to the public becoming important in later years.

This year’s candidates—ballot newcomer Victoria Gulickson and past council members Hank Wedaa and Keri Wilson—claim to support the city’s low-density heritage and say they’ll listen to the people when making decisions.

However, they toss around the term “low density” generically, without stating specific numbers and, importantly, what those numbers should be in Old Town, while “listening” is subject to several interpretations.

Like many voters in past elections, I’ve read candidate statements, reviewed campaign mailers and listened to presentations at forums hosted by various groups before casting my ballot based on what I thought was an informed decision.

But, again like many voters, I was surprised when the campaign rhetoric from several candidates I voted for didn’t match their post-election voting records, and I wondered why some of their previous concerns vanished from their agendas.

That’s why I think Councilman John Anderson is a refreshing change: he still focuses on his original platform during conversations with constituents, comments from the dais and on his straight-talk www.anderson4yl.com Web site.

During Anderson’s five months in office, he’s backed opening council committee meetings to the public, revamping an “out-of-touch” planning commission and allowing Traffic Commission input into decisions about development projects.

And Anderson wants the city to examine “the pros and cons of using state redevelopment law” because “debate on this issue has been very one-sided.”

“Informed decision-making requires exploring all possibilities, including abolishing the Yorba Linda Redevelopment Agency,” Anderson notes. He adds he’s not advocating such a move, “just suggesting that there should be no sacred cows in city governance.”

I’m not sure how a voter can determine if a council candidate will be the same person with the same concerns after the election as he or she was before the ballots were cast.

But that’s one reason voters should ask candidates for more details. If one says the city needs five new planning commissioners, for example, voters should be told how that goal would be achieved.

A FINAL NOTE

In the old days in Yorba Linda’s council elections, some candidates and their supporters left unsigned flyers on doorsteps, made anonymous phone calls and launched last-minute attacks on opponents with misleading mailers.

But they’ve become much more malevolent in a technological age, as they register versions of a candidate’s name to put up a phony Web site, unleash anonymous attacks on blogs and post mean-spirited comments from unidentified people.

While the backroom bloggers bare supposed skeletons in the closets of others, residents may wonder if the furtive figures have too many bones in their own backyards to reveal their names in public.

An election mystery on the Web

While the June 5 special election for a single City Council seat isn’t yet on many voters’ radar, at least one secretive political operator is anonymously active.

The identity of the person or group involved in a Web site targeting former Councilman Hank Wedaa, who’s seeking a record eighth term, currently remains unknown, despite extensive efforts to uncover the site’s secret sponsor.

Two weeks ago, I found http://truth4yl.blogspot.com when I Googled “Yorba Linda” to check out what’s new in the community, saw a pdf file for one of my past columns and clicked on the accompanying domain name.

Google blogs aren’t always listed in general Internet searches, but this one also can be accessed through three common top-level domains: www.truth4yl.com and .org and .net.

I e-mailed the address listed on the site but received no response, so I asked my oldest son, Josh, a UC Irvine computer science grad who develops security software and procedures for the campus computer system, for help.

“It’s definitely someone who is purposely trying to remain anonymous. The profile has no name, the html code has no private addresses and the domain names are registered through a third-party anonymous proxy,” Josh noted.

Josh said he downloaded pdf files linked on the site because they sometimes “save meta-information as part of the file, like the computer or name of the person who created the document,” but “all that information was left blank.”

The site was created March 28 and registered through Schlund+Partner AG in Germany, with contact information hidden by third-party proxy Oneandone Private Registration, which operates from a “suite” in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania.

I contacted Wedaa’s opponents, Victoria Gulickson and Keri Wilson, but they indicated my inquiry was the first time they heard of the site.

An anonymous person also registered at least six domain names using variations of Wedaa’s name on March 12 through GoDaddy.com, Inc., with contact information hidden by Domains by Proxy, which uses a private mailbox in Scottsdale, Arizona.

So the Web site Wedaa recently noted on a fundraising letter has his picture, name and age posted by someone else. Wedaa should have acquired rights to the address before publicizing it, but his slip-up doesn’t excuse election-time trickery.

Although the back-room blogger earns undeserved attention in this column, I think voters will listen to those who stand behind their statements and rightly question material posted by someone whose secret Web campaign and signs skirt election reporting requirements.

A FINAL NOTE

The two former City Council members seeking to return to a seat at the dais hold Yorba Linda’s all-time first and second place records for most funds raised for a single council contest, according to campaign finance documents.

Keri Wilson took in $49,632 in cash contributions in 2006 and finished in fourth place. She raised $34,964 in 2002 and 2003 to pay expenses associated with her 2002 win.

Hank Wedaa raised $48,323 in cash and other contributions in 1988, 1989 and 1990 for the 1990 race. He reported $13,395 in 1996 and $10,365 in 1986 in two other wins.

In 1990, Wedaa ran second to John Gullixson but edged out the city’s first mayor, Roland Bigonger, who called the contest the “sleaziest election I have seen in Yorba Linda.”

This year’s self-financed candidate, first-time contender Victoria Gulickson, says she’ll cap expenditures at $5,000.