Albany council to reconsider city's campaign finance law

Albany council to reconsider city's campaign finance law
By Shelly Meron
STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 07/10/2008 12:39:43 PM PDT
Contra Costa Times

After a lively public debate, the Albany City Council decided this week to consider throwing out its campaign finance reform ordinance at its next meeting.

The decision comes amidst a debate about whether the act has been effective and easy enough for candidates to interpret, and whether it can be improved or should be done away with completely.

"Simplicity would be the best thing to have," said councilman Farid Javandel. "We should make it simple and easy. People shouldn't be guessing — 'Can I do this?'"

Councilwoman Marge Atkinson had stronger words, saying "I don't think this is functioning now," and called for the city to "start over."

The discussion came after the council received several recommendations from the city's Social and Economic Justice Commission on how the ordinance could be improved, including raising the spending limit per voter; adding a fourth expenditure filing — on top of the three already required by the state — for those who choose not to accept voluntary expenditure limits; and removing a prohibition on contributions from organizations and limits on contributions related to independent expenditures and general purpose committees.

The committee also called for having information and debates more readily available on the city's Web site and KALB, community access television and for establishing a task force that can delve deeper into complex issues.

City attorney Robert Zweben seemed
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to agree with concerns expressed by others about the ordinance and recommended that the council get rid of it, and — if they wished — attempt to put together better legislation after the November election.

In a later interview, Zweben explained that "it's almost impossible to have campaign finance reform laws that are effective given the state of court decisions that essentially protect or authorize people to be able to spend money and to receive money from those who have rights to give money. You can try to nibble around the edges, but by and large there's not an effective campaign finance reform statute in this country, period. So, at most, to some extent you might get a symbolic ordinance."

Zweben warned the council this week that whatever group takes on the issue — whether a committee or a task force — it "will experience the same frustration."

Several public speakers also expressed concerns about the changes, and about the ordinance in general.

"I don't think the proposed revisions were very well thought out," said resident Clay Larson. "They pretty much eviscerates the current requirements and that's a concern. This whole thing needs to be looked at more thoroughly. All the proposed changes should be perceived with a thorough legal written review by the city attorney."

Resident Bob Outis said he had always been concerned about the ordinance, and is more concerned about the proposed changes.

"This ordinance has been used for mischievous purposes in the past. It has been proven to not be an aid to rational, fair, responsible elections," he said. "There's a state law that probably accommodates most of the concerns about full and fair disclosure and reasonable restrictions on campaign finance. Given the way the courts are going on these things anyway, we would be far better off to repeal this."

The discussion also brought back memories of the contentious 2006 election in Albany, which led to a suit filed against five candidates and two election committees, alleging they were violating Albany's campaign finance reform ordinance. The defendants included Joyce Jackson, Peggy McQuaid, Sally Outis, Caryl O'Keefe, O'Keefe's husband Alan Riffer, the Committee to Elect Caryl O'Keefe, and a committee named Concerned Albany Neighbors (CAN). According to O'Keefe, the suit was dismissed before the election.

An anti-SLAPP suit was then filed by Bob Outis, Sally Outis' husband, and another attorney. SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuits against public participation," and refers to suits filed to try and intimidate and prevent someone from participating in government and civic affairs, speaking out about public issues, and petitioning government officials about grievances.

Resident Robert Cheasty said the lawsuit was a result of the ordinance being unclear.

"The major issue with the last campaign had to do with a lot of confusion about what the election law says," Cheasty told the council. "I think that it's fair to say that part of the reason that happened was because the law is so poorly written and so confusing, that it was subject to multiple interpretations. The law should be clear enough so that a reasonable reading gives everybody the same understanding of it, and that's what you don't have with this law."

O'Keefe agreed that there are issues with the ordinance that need to be addressed, but said she is "hoping that when the (city) council comes back to this that they think hard before they disappear the entire act."

The council is expected to discuss repealing the ordinance at its next meeting on July 21.

Staff writer Shelly Meron covers Albany, El Cerrito and Kensington. Reach her at 510-243-3578 or smeron@bayareanewsgroup.com

Study Ranks Albany 'Greenest' City in California

A recent study by researchers at UCLA ranked Albany the 'Greenest' City in California.

The report, titled "Green Market Geography," ranks Albany as California's "greenest" city, followed in second place by our southern neighbor, Berkeley. Of course all of the articles highlight Berkeley. Still it's fascinating how Albany rated.

From Economist.com
Why does Berkeley have so many Priuses?
June 16, 2008


BUYING green is all the rage: barely a day passes without the rollout of a new “environmentally responsible” product. This week it's the waterless car-wash, an energy saving computer monitor and a biodegradable dish-rack. Ignore, for a moment, whether green consumerism is a contradiction in terms. Pass over the question of whether these products actually deliver the benefits they promise. Who buys them—the rich, the idealistic, the penny pinching or the guilty?

Perhaps energy saving cars, light-bulbs, computer monitors and building materials appeal to those who value their future environmental benefits. But evidence suggests that, despite tangible financial rewards, most people do not make even small environmentally sound changes at home, such as installing energy-efficient light bulbs or not leaving the television on standby.
AP Green machines

By and large, then, these green products are aimed at the environmentally concerned. Matthew Kahn and Ryan Vaughn, economists at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote a paper analysing the patterns of green consumerism in California. They noticed that Berkeley, California, just a few hours up the coast, has lots of Priuses, organic food, solar panels and public transit—and no Hummers.

Messrs Kahn and Vaughn built a database of every certified green building, sorted by zip codes. They looked at where hybrid vehicles were registered, and constructed a measure of each zip code's politics based on analysis of party registration and voting records on two binding statewide environmental initiatives.

They also controlled their results for factors such as age, income and ethnicity, allowing them to see environmental commitment all the more starkly. Malibu, for instance, has many Prius owners; Beverly Hills has few, but both are largely wealthy and white: it is no stretch to deduce, then, that Malibu residents tend to be greener than those of Beverly Hills.

When they average their measure of greenery by zip code, across entire cities, and then rank the results, the usual suspects come out top and bottom. Of 349 places in California, the ten greenest are Albany, Berkeley, Fairfax, Belvedere, Piedmont, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Portola Valley, Sausalito and Palo Alto. Folsom and Bakersfield rank near the bottom. And mapping their index by zip code across the entire state gives a graphic representation of where California's greenies live.

All of this raises the question of why the politically green huddle together in the same sorts of locations. Dr Kahn speculates that small initial differences in spatial attributes, such as being close to a beach or public transport, may create the initial seeds of green communities. “This in turn attracts ‘green businesses’,” he explains, “such as tofu restaurants and bike shops, and this in turn attracts more greens.” The process culminates when greens have enough political clout to elect politicians and enact green regulation that further enhances their community’s attractiveness to environmentalists.

Though greens are a small minority in America generally, concentrated in certain locations, they can have a strong influence on local policy. California itself is quite green relative to other states, and taking unilateral steps, which are much stricter than federal mandates, to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions.

While green clustering could certainly cause hot spots in green consumerism, let us not neglect other possible factors when it comes to the Prius. What we know of work on social interactions suggests that the chance that any person will buy a Prius is likely to be related to the probability that his neighbour buys one. Of course, competitively purchasing the latest green products to keep up with the Joneses is hardly environmentally friendly. But that, as they say, is another matter entirely.

Albany Schools Begin Webcasts of Meetings

According to the Superintendent's Office of Albany Unified School
District , meetings of the Board of Education of the school district will be broadcast live on Cable
Channel 33, and webcasted on the new Web site <> of the City of Albany from July 15. The meetings will be held at the Albany Community Center, 1249
Marin Avenue, from then on.http://www.albanyca.org/index.aspx?page=544