Council to review election code and spending

Barbara Diamond

Frank Ricchiazzi questions the honesty of Village Laguna and plans to

demand answers at the May 6 City Council meeting.

“All I am doing, and what other people will be doing Tuesday, is

asking questions pertaining to the agenda item, which is on the

filing of the three PACs [political action committees] in ’01 and

‘02,” Taxpayers Assn. member Ricchiazzi said. “I am not saying

Village Laguna did anything illegal. I am saying its dishonest for a

group to send out campaign literature or newsletters and raise funds

without identifying itself as a PAC, including its ID number.

“There are a significant number of questions raised when a person

reads Village Laguna’s [campaign statement],” he said. “I will

continue to ask the questions until I get answers.”

Ricchiazzi has filed no complaint with the Fair Political

Practices Commission, which polices violations of the state Political

Reform Act, which the council does not.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to raise this at the council level

and I am not a member of Village Laguna,” said Anne Johnson, who

worked closely with Ricchiazzi to successfully re-elect Paul Freeman

and Steven Dicterow in the 1998 council election. “I am a political

person, I love the political game, but once the election is over, we

have a town to run. I think this is counterproductive and

mean-spirited. You don’t kick somebody when they are down.”

In recent years, Village Laguna has endorsed only one successful

council candidate: Mayor Toni Iseman.

The May 6 council agenda is expected to include a review of the

city’s election code and a definition of PACs and their role in the

last election. The item is sponsored by Councilwoman Elizabeth

Pearson and Councilman Wayne Baglin and will also include a report

prepared by them on spending in the last election as reported by

Village Laguna, the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn. and the Laguna Beach

Firefighters Assn.

Mayor Iseman has sponsored a bill for the May 6 agenda that lists

every contribution to the five council members and to Melissa O’Neal,

a council candidate in the 2002 election.

Some Village Laguna members see Ricchiazzi’s questions as a

vendetta.

“Frank is out to get us,” Arnold Hano said.

At a previous meeting, Ricchiazzi contended that Village Laguna

raised money to defeat Pearson, Baglin, Cheryl Kinsman and Dicterow,

who was warmly received as the guest speaker Monday at the monthly

Village Laguna meeting.

In recent years, only two committees have been formed to defeat

specific council candidates: Norm Grossman and Ann Christoph, members

of Village Laguna at the time of the elections.

Village Laguna and the taxpayers association designate themselves

as general purpose committees on their campaign statements. Village

Laguna, involved only in local elections, files the statements with

the city clerk. The taxpayers association files with the county

because it also supports county supervisorial and judicial

candidates, Ricchiazzi said.

Ricchiazzi also has raised questions at council meetings about

Village Laguna’s practice of co-mingling funds spent on political

activities and charitable ones. He showed a pie chart at one meeting

that purported that Village Laguna spent $67,002 of the $70,252

raised during the 2001-02 City Council election cycle on political

contributions, polls, fund-raisers, newsletters and parties and only

$3,250 on charitable contributions.

“His figures are so far out as to be ludicrous,” Hano said. “He

sees everything as a political expense.”

Village Laguna does not claim to be a charitable organization.

“If you ask the average person in town, they will say that Village

Laguna gives thousands of dollars to charity,” Ricchiazzi said. “The

taxpayers not only keep their education fund and their political fund

separate, they keep them in different banks.”

Ricchiazzi’s remarks have had a chilling effect.

The Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Laguna Beach

Visitor’s Bureau stopped selling tickets to the Village Laguna Charm

House Tour, a fund-raiser for Village Laguna.

However, the visitor’s bureau has a sign on its door directing

ticket seekers to the nearby Golden Spoon, which is owned by chamber

President Ken Delino. The chamber has a tour poster in its window.

The posters do not identify Village Laguna as a nonprofit or as a

political organization. Brochures are available wherever tickets are

sold that include information that the group spends money to support

local candidates.

“I would say that local organizations took a look at their

association with Village Laguna and decided it is a political

organization and felt it necessary, as nonprofits, to sever their

connection,” Ricchiazzi said. “If my tax dollars [through city

grants] go to the chamber, and I know the chamber is helping a

political organization to defeat my candidates, are we on the same

level?”

No one has publicly used the word, but privately, “conspiracy” is

being whispered.

The whisperers don’t think it is a coincidence that the Festival

of Arts, on whose board are political supporters of Councilwoman

Pearson, denied Village Laguna the use of its frontage for staging

the buses for the Charm House, as has been custom for more than 30

years.

“The first I heard that we would be prevented from using it was in

a letter dated April 10 and received April 15, saying the board had

decided we couldn’t use the premises for a staging area,” Village

Laguna President Ginger Osborne said. “The letter said there was a

previous application for the same date.”

Music in the Park Inc., which is partially funded by the city

through the Arts Commission, applied for the date, although Village

Laguna has held the Charm House tour on same weekend for 31 years and

rents buses from the city.

Village Laguna had never before been asked to submit an

application, nor was it notified that it was now required, Osborne

said.

“I talked to [city Arts Coordinator] Sian Poeschl, who thought

there would be no problem because the tour ends before the concert

starts,” Osborne said. “So we asked that the festival board decision

be revised and we were told to apply next year.”

Ricchiazzi said he won’t stop asking his questions, even if the

council takes no action.