Council changes votes on campaign donations

Barbara Diamond

Councilman Steve Dicterow backed off Tuesday from his support for an

increase in the individual campaign donation limit.

“I have changed my position,” Dicterow said. “Before being elected

to the council, my experience was that elected officials didn’t

listen, and I didn’t want to be that kind of elected official. I have

found in the last month absolutely no support for my position.”

In fact, Dicterow did have support from Councilwomen Elizabeth

Pearson and Cheryl Kinsman, who had voted for the increase. However,

they went along with his new motion Tuesday to limit individual

contributions to $310 for the next two years, starting in January:

the $250 limit in place in Laguna since 1994, plus $60 that reflects

changes in the local consumer price index. The vote was unanimous.

Dicterow made his turnabout in a stylish, if rueful, fashion. He

still thought he was right, but hardly anyone agreed, he said.

“There was an unprecedented lack of support,” Dicterow said.

“People who normally oppose me were opposed to my position. People

who normally support me were opposed to my position.”

His action Tuesday caught the rest of the council, opponents to

the increase -- who thought it was a done deal and were talking

referendum -- and Dicterow himself off guard.

“I didn’t know when I came in here tonight that I was going to do

this,” he said.

He was thanked by Linda Brown, co-chair of the Laguna Beach unit

of the League of Women Voters, which had initiated the lower limit

and strongly supported it.

“I give you credit,” Brown said.

At the Oct. 7 council meeting, Dicterow had proposed a hike in the

donation limit from $250 anywhere up to $1,500. He said that the $250

limit made collection donations and reporting them too onerous.

The council voted 3 to 1 for an increase to $750.

Mayor Toni Iseman voted against the increase. Councilman Wayne

Baglin was absent. The council also voted 3 to 1 to lower the

voluntary spending pledge from $30,000 to $15,000.

The increase in the donation limit and decrease in the spending

pledge flummoxed league representatives and supporters of the limits,

Brown said. Most people thought the agenda item was meant to be a

simple review. No one claimed to have anticipated Dicterow’s action.

By the second reading of the proposed ordinance change at the Oct.

21 council meeting, more opposition was voiced.

“It was my agenda item, and I now believe $750 is too high,”

Councilman Dicterow said that night.

The $500 limit, which Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson had suggested

at the Oct. 4 meeting was approved 3 to 2 -- still too high to be

endorsed by Iseman or Baglin, who was on vacation when the original

vote was taken.

Baglin said donors of $150 to $250 made up about a third of the

contributions to the last of the seven campaigns in which he has

participated. Another third donated from $75 to $150, and the final

third donated $50 or less. Some of the most meaningful donations were

$5 or $10 from people who gave as much as they could, he said.

The donation limit approved Tuesday automatically relates

increases to the consumer price index for Los Angeles-Orange County

metropolitan area, as of Jan. 1 of each odd year, rounded to the

nearest $10: $310 starting Jan. 1, 2004.