Taking a look at campaign spending in Laguna

Barbara Diamond

Independent Expenditure Committees have surfaced in Laguna Beach.

Steven Esslinger filed a report Oct. 19 listing independent

expenditures of $2,607.50 each on behalf of candidate Elizabeth

Pearson and incumbent Steven Dicterow. The statements were filed in

San Juan Capistrano.

The Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn. filed a statement covering Oct.

20 to 24 for expenditures on behalf of Dicterow, Pearson and school

board candidates K Turner and Bob Whalen. The association spent more

than $1,005 on each of the candidates.

Independent Expenditure Committees are not limited in the amount

they may spend on behalf a candidate and do not directly contribute

to the candidate or to the candidate’s campaign fund.

Village Laguna, a general purpose committee, added $1,135 between

July 1 and Oct. 19 to its coffers. The committee started with a

balance of $35,275.60 and spent $11,067.47.

All told, the committee has spent $21,103.

City Council incumbent Toni Iseman was bumping the $30,000

donation ceiling as of Oct. 19. She had raised $28,289 by the

deadline to file campaign statements.

Iseman raised $5,582 between Oct. 1 and 19 and spent $4,312.07.

She started out the period with $14,166,74, leaving her with a total

of $17,283.67 with about three weeks to go in the campaign.

Her largest expenditure was $1,417.50 for advertising in the Los

Angeles Times, but she also spent $848 for Rolling Stone tickets for

a silent auction.

Iseman’s donors included the Kalos Kagathos Foundation founded by

Bruce Hopping, Joan Irvine Smith of San Juan Capistrano and School

Board candidate Betsy Jenkins.

Pearson had collected a total of $26.092, as of Oct. 19 and spent

$24,266.

Pearson’s donors included the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn., $250

over and above its independent expenditures; and the Vermont

investment company of Heart Bar L.L. C. and the law offices of Warren

Finley, both of which also donated to Melissa O’Neal and Dicterow.

O’Neal’s donors also included the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra

Club and David Schaar.

She received donations of $10,999 between Oct. 1 to 19, pushing her total contributions to $15,447. She also listed a previous loan

of $500. O’Neal spent a total of $13,231.06, as of Oct. 19.

Incumbent Dicterow raised the least money of the four candidates

from Oct. 1 to 19 and spent the least. He listed contributions of

$7,670 and expenditures of $1,965.23. However, this was the most

money Dicterow raised in any filing period in the campaign. He

previously listed donations of $850 and a loan of $700.

His donors included Joseph Ambrose Jr., Laguna Beach Seniors Inc.

fund-raising consultant Richard French and Athens Group President Kim

Richards.

Laguna Beach has 16,536 registered voters, almost evenly divided

between Republicans and Democrats.

The Grand Old Party has a slight edge with 6,812 registered. The

Democrats come in second with 6,025.

Laguna Beach voters who decline to state a party affiliation

number 2,803.

The American Independent Party has 334 registered voters here, the

Green Party has 215. Libertarians have 169 voters in Laguna Beach.

The Reform Party has 87, the Natural Law Party, 28.

All other registered voters are lumped together under

miscellaneous, with a count of 63.

Absentee ballots may be dropped off at any polling place or cast

by mail, but must be received by the Registrar of Voters by Nov. 5.

For more information, call the City Clerk’s Office, 497-0705.