Conspiracy of silence tarnishes City Council

Richard Taylor

It has been widely reported that David Ellis, the campaign manager

for City Councilmen Gary Adams, Tod Ridgeway and Don Webb, used

deceptive and potentially fraudulent phone messages to attempt to

manipulate last month’s election in favor of Ellis’ candidate, Adams.

Reliable witnesses have now come forth and confirmed that the same

type of deceitful phone call tactics were used back in November of

2000 in the Steve Bromberg vs. Greenlight candidate Pat Beek race.

One of the witnesses went so far as to complain to the District

Attorney at that time as to the alleged deceitful actions. It is a

matter of record that Ellis was Bromberg’s campaign manager at that

time.

Clearly, questions are thus raised about the integrity and

validity of Ellis’ statements that the use of the deceitful telephone

messages in the most recent election on behalf of Adams was a

“mistake,” when according to the witnesses and the evidence now in

hand, that same technique was employed in the Beek/Bromberg campaign.

It’s common knowledge that dirty hit pieces aren’t about making

people not vote for their candidate. They are about making people

stay home and not vote at all, either out of frustration or

confusion. How many votes “stayed at home” in the these last two

elections? How would the balance of the council change? We’ll never

know.

This raises additional questions as to the culpability of Adams,

who claims he did not authorize Ellis’ actions. However, Ellis’s

propensity for a scorched earth campaigns were well known in city

political circles. Most of all to Adams.

If he claims he had no knowledge, why was his immediate retort

that he warned Ellis to run a “squeaky clean campaign?” Such

admonitions are not given absent a history of questionable actions

and dirty tricks. Either Adam’s knew such actions were likely and

chose to look the other way or he knew what he was getting with the

Ellis package. Either way, he is culpable for the conduct of his

retained agent, who would presumably do nothing without his direction

and control.

Serious questions are thus raised about legitimacy of the City

Council sworn in on Dec. 10. Four of the members were placed in

office by a political spin-doctor who is known to be deceptive and

apparently willing to undertake any actions to win. Councilwoman

Norma Glover, at the swearing-in ceremony, lectured from the dais

that politics are “rough and tumble” and not for the faint hearted.

If these deceptive and fraudulent means are what she was referring

to, one has to feel sorry for Glover and the world she must live in.

But it would appear she’s in good company with her Ellis-elected

cohorts.

This issue goes beyond local political shenanigans. This is an

issue of community values, the integrity of the council that

represents the citizens of Newport Beach and the trust that people

have in the City Council. If we, as a community, don’t conclusively

put an end to dirty tricks politics, we will be left with the

groundwork for the same type of deceitful political campaign in two

years with the only guaranteed losers being the residents of Newport

Beach.

What is most disturbing, since the avalanche of public outrage and

protest evidenced in the media, is the conspiracy of silence on the

part of those council members that benefited from these actions.

The complete lack of contrition from Adams, and to a lesser degree

the other Ellis candidates who benefited from such sleazy tactics, is

deafening and cannot be ignored by the public. It is time for these

individuals to come clean with the city of Newport Beach . They must

restore the integrity of the City Council for all of the prior

members of the council whose reputations and integrity they have now

sullied

In the interim, the wave of moral outrage swells in stark contrast

to the roaring silence from Ellis, Adams, and the rest of his clients

who now control the City Council.

* RICHARD TAYLOR is a longtime member of the Airport Working

Group who ran for Newport Beach City Council this fall.