City web postings miss transparancy target

Yorba Linda’s website listing of salaries, benefits and other compensation paid to City Council members falls a bit shy of a bull’s eye on the transparency target.

Council voted 5-0 to post city employee pay information after media disclosure of compensation levels in Bell. Council members and this column received a blitz of inquiries about this city’s salaries following the Bell brouhaha.

The city clearly lists some council pay, but benefit information is presented in lawyerly legalese that doesn’t reveal all of the costs. And some money members earn from public-paid taxes and tolls isn’t even mentioned.

The $500 per month salary and $30 per meeting Redevelopment Agency pay is listed, as is a $36 monthly phone payment and a currently suspended $100 car allowance. The cost for $6,000 life insurance policies (to replace a year’s council salary) isn’t detailed.

Benefits, which total more than salaries and allowances, aren’t listed in the same clear manner; instead, readers are referred to three sections in an eight-page 2010 resolution.

The retirement section says the city pays the seven percent employee contribution to the Public Employees Retirement System, but it doesn’t detail the actual payments made for council members.

(I was told it was $1,500 for each of four participants for 2009-10. Based on age and service years, retiring members can receive up to $162 monthly with COLAs for life.)

The health section notes council members will get $945 monthly starting Jan. 1 in a “cafeteria” plan allowing either cash or deferred compensation payments after deducting any health plan costs.

(I was told that this year four members put $833 into 401k-type plans each month and one receives $459 for a health plan and $374 for retirement, totaling $49,980 annually for the five.)

The $833 jumps to $945 monthly under the resolution adopted 5-0 without comment at the Aug. 17 council meeting, giving council members $112 more per month or $56,700 for the five in 2011.

The dental and vision section notes 100 percent of premiums for employees and dependents are paid by the city, but again the costs to taxpayers are not outlined.

Payments members receive as city reps on five county boards are absent from the website. Per-meeting pay comes from taxes and fees paid directly to the agencies.

Two toll road boards each pay $120 per meeting, up to 18 per quarter, but the groups normally meet once monthly. The sanitation board pays $212.50 per meeting, with a six-meeting monthly max, but it usually meets monthly.

The Fire Authority pays $100 per meeting, with a $300 monthly max, and Vector Control pays $100 per meeting, with a $1,200 annual max. Both usually meet monthly.

John Anderson is on the sanitation, Nancy Rikel the fire, Jim Winder the vector and Mark Schwing the toll road boards. Jan Horton was on the toll road and fire boards in 2007-08.

Duvall disperses leftover campaign funds

Mike Duvall, who resigned his state Assembly seat due to what he called an incident of “inappropriate storytelling” midway through his second two-year term, has parceled out $60,000 of leftover campaign funds to charities, non-profits and political causes.

The two-time Yorba Linda mayor and Chamber of Commerce president wisely dispersed $33,600 to non-profit groups, but kept a foot in the political door by handing out $21,500 to 11 campaign committees for other candidates, including four who represent this city.

The latest report from the Mike Duvall for Assembly 2010 committee, covering the first six months of this year, was filed with California’s Secretary of State July 29. Duvall quit his legislative job last year after his talk of extramarital affairs reached the media.

In a column published two weeks after the resignation, I commented that Duvall “should offer to return cash contributed by constituents, with the rest going to a community-wide charity, such as the financially strapped Boys & Girls Club.”

While I doubt Duvall is taking guidance from newspaper writers, he did make one of his largest donations—$7,000 on April 30—to the Boys & Girls Club of Brea, Placentia and Yorba Linda. He gave the same amount on the same day to the county’s YMCA.

Other hefty donations: $6,000 to March of Dimes, $3,600 to Ahab/Patrick Smith Leukemia Fund, $3,500 each to Brea and Yorba Linda Masonic lodges, $2,000 to Cavalry Church of Santa Ana and $1,000 to Claremont Institute.

Local politicians benefiting from Duvall’s largess include Curt Hagman ($3,000), who holds the city’s eastside Assembly seat; Brett Barbre ($2,000), the city’s rep on the county Municipal Water District board; and Mike Beverage and Ric Collette (each $2,000), Yorba Linda Water District directors not on the ballot this year.

Duvall, who served on City Council 2000-06 before resigning to take his Assembly post, also gave cash to council candidates in other cities, including Scott Nelson ($2,500) in Placentia, Jim Gomez ($1,000) in La Habra and Michele Orrock ($2,000) in Elk Grove.

More money went to three sitting Assembly members (each $2,000), the San Bernardino Republican Party ($3,000), defeated Senate candidate Chuck Devore ($1,000) and David Bauer ($1,662 for legal and accounting services).

Interestingly, the California Republican Party returned a $15,000 contribution Duvall made April 20. Duvall’s state-required report listed the money’s return date as June 7.

And Jerry Amante, who lost the GOP nomination for Devore’s Assembly seat in June, lost no time in giving back $3,000. Duvall’s report stated the money was transmitted April 9 and refunded April 19. Amante listed April 15 as the receipt and return dates.

Duvall had $15,391 left June 30, but I’ll bet it’s gone when he files his report due Jan. 31, 2011, for the remainder of 2010. Advice for Duvall: think more good works, less politics.

Rarely a suprise in YL politics

I started covering suburban city councils and school boards for community newspapers in 1966, and I’ve penned this column on local government and politics for the Yorba Linda Star since 1998, so I’m not shocked at the twists and turns in small-town political affairs.

Through the years, I’ve witnessed changes in political alliances, the escalation of personal differences into political feuds and efforts by council members and their loyalists to rewrite history by misrepresenting past positions.

But I must admit to mild surprise when Mayor John Anderson reversed his decision to not seek a second council term and joined the race just hours before the filing deadline, since he told me firmly a few weeks ago he was out.

Of course, it’s very good politics to appear to respond to a draft-like request by a large number of supporters to fight another electoral battle but Anderson’s partisans, at least, say his about-face was due to their fervent appeals and was not a pre-planned strategy.

This city’s registered voters—43,121 by current count—shouldn’t expect a replay of the 2006 contest, in which Anderson and Jan Horton, who announced her bid for re-election months ago, ran and won on nearly identical platforms and pronouncements.

Certainly, the pair won’t be sitting side-by-side on a fire truck during a Fiesta Day parade (if there is a parade this year), as they did a few days before the 2006 ballot, because they long ago parted ways on many key city issues.

And policy differences obviously have turned personal, as is in evidence at several of the twice-monthly council sessions and especially on their combative websites and Facebook pages, where they mince fewer words in describing the other’s actions and attributes.

Also, each has found a different person to support in this year’s contest for the two open seats on the governing body. Anderson is backing Tom Lindsey, and Horton is cheering for Brenda McCune.

Holdover council members Nancy Rikel and Mark Schwing are expected to endorse Anderson-Lindsey, while Jim Winder is likely to back Horton-McCune, so residents could be changing the council’s current 3-2 balance of power when they cast ballots.

Maybe two other candidates, Tim McCune (not related to Brenda McCune) and Richard Wolfinger, can position themselves as independents. Wolfinger placed eighth out of nine contenders in 2008, and six-year resident McCune needs to build name identification.

My July 29 column on the city’s recent history of political bickering—“Yorba Linda voters send messages with ballots”—drew several e-mails, including the following:

“I am in total agreement with your editorial, especially the part about residents wanting a healthy discussion of issues. Name-calling and personal attacks can be done elsewhere, if at all. It’s about time we vote out those who cannot be fair, impartial and use integrity in their office.”

Anonymous attacks, abstentions in YL

Two items merit ink this week:

--Anonymous attacks involving City Council incumbents and candidates are nothing new, having played a role in several municipal elections since three of the city’s first council members lost their seats in a bruising 1970 battle.

But lately, the unsigned flyers and unidentified telephone calls of earlier years have been replaced by shadowy websites created by people who lack the courage to own up to their assaults on electoral integrity.

The first furtive website appeared in the 2007 special election involving two former council members, Hank Wedaa and Keri Wilson, and newcomer Victoria Gulickson. Wedaa won that contest but lost in 2008, ending a 30-year council career.

A so-called “truth” site relentlessly attacked Wedaa and even spun a conspiracy theory between Wedaa and Gulickson, who hadn’t met before the campaign. Despite several community-wide calls for transparency, the site’s blogger never came forward.

Somebody also registered versions of Wedaa’s name for web addresses, hampering his effort to create a genuine campaign page. Of course, the registrations were anonymous.

First victim of a secretive hit site this year is Mayor John Anderson, who, ironically, is not seeking a second council term. But Anderson’s name was registered in a domain address for a year beginning May 1, before he announced he wouldn’t be in the race.

As expected, the registration was anonymous, at a sale price of $10.69 from Go Daddy, a domain registration firm. The sham site incorporates Anderson’s official city portrait, but the content attacks Anderson and frequent council allies Nancy Rikel and Mark Schwing.

--Councilwoman Jan Horton stated she would have abstained on council’s 3-0 vote supporting Arizona’s controversial illegal immigration law, if she had been present. She labeled the issue “emotional” and “not city business.”

But a little-noticed Municipal Code section might have prevented Horton’s abstention, if the term “councilman” is considered generic and not gender-specific. And if she actually abstained, her vote might have been recorded as “affirmative” on the proclamation.

Here’s the pertinent code section: “No City Councilman shall be permitted to disqualify himself and abstain from voting unless the disqualification shall have been approved by the City Attorney or by unanimous vote of the remainder of the City Council present.”

The section’s next sentence: “Unapproved disqualifications and abstentions shall be counted by the City Clerk as an affirmative vote.”

The City Attorney regularly advises council members to abstain, if a vote would be a conflict-of-interest, which wouldn’t be the case in the Arizona matter. And Anderson, Rikel and Schwing weren’t likely to vote to allow Horton to abstain.

Jim Winder had left the meeting after speaking against the proclamation but before public comment and the vote.