Tips on election misconduct abound

The internet never forgets

In the first edition of this newsletter, I told you how lonely being a reporter can be; nobody wants to be your friend, and people speak in hushed tones when you enter a room.

What I neglected to say is that this phenomenon largely disappears during election season.

I have so many friends these days! And every one of them has some kind of tip or off the record nudge about the latest impropriety committed by a rival campaign.

This week’s tip was a little less cloak and dagger, as I was tagged in a tweet from former Councilmember Jeannine Pearce, who questioned whether her former colleague, Councilmember Suzie Price, was misusing taxpayer dollars by hosting a link to her mayoral candidate website on her official Long Beach city website.

The tweet included a video of someone clicking through Price’s website and clicking the link that directed to the mayoral page, which is a big no-no, as using city resources to further a campaign runs afoul of state elections code.

By the time I got off the phone with City Attorney Charlie Parkin, the link was dead.

Price’s chief of staff, Jack Cunningham, said Price personally paid for the initial website, suzieaprice.com, to better inform her constituents about district events and services. When she began her mayoral campaign, she redirected the traffic from that website to her mayoral campaign, but did not take the link on the city site down.

“When this was brought to our staff’s attention on Twitter that link was immediately removed,” he said.

We checked the Wayback Machine, an internet database that inventories old versions of websites, and Cunningham's explanation appeared to check out. When people say the “internet never forgets,” it really doesn’t.

There are a lot of campaign rules that govern elections, but the two big ones are that city resources can’t be used to help a campaign and city employees aren’t allowed to work on campaigns during city work hours. The latter is followed as closely as the rule requiring people to put 10% of their earnings into the collection basket at church.

Parkin said hosting a link to Price's candidate site is illegal, but so are a lot of other activities his office gets complaints about. Those yard signs you see all across town? If they’re on public property or the property owner didn’t consent to their placement, they’re illegal.

A unique twist this year has required Parkin’s office to hire outside counsel to handle these allegations, specifically about the city attorney’s race, to avoid a conflict of interest.

Complaints about election rules get sent to a chain of command that includes the outside counsel, the City Clerk and eventually the Fair Political Practices Commission and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office.

The process can take years to resolve a single case, Parkin said, noting that Pearce still has an open complaint against her from 2019 over non-reporting of alleged conflicts of interests while she served as a council member.

“How is this a deterrent to anyone when the process takes so long?” Parkin said.

In fact, the FPPC currently has 23 open and pending cases in Long Beach. And while violations of the Political Reform Act can garner fines of up to $5,000 per violation, they often don’t.

Will someone file a complaint against Price? Maybe. But even if the FPPC believes this rises to the level of an actual violation, Price likely won’t be reprimanded for years.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS WEEK:

Election season is upon us, and if you want to meet the candidates running to represent your district, there are a few upcoming opportunities. Saturday is the second candidate brunch being hosted by Dan Pressburg at his North Long Beach home. A 24-year-old tradition continues at 11 a.m. where residents can show up and meet candidates running for mayor, the five City Council races and the two LBUSD Board of Education races. Pressburg is asking people to RSVP in advance. A full list of upcoming debates and forums open to the public can be found here.

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT WEEK:

A long awaited project at the Port of Long Beach cleared a significant hurdle this week that will allow it to finally claim federal funding it intends to use to build a new rail yard that port officials say will dramatically reduce truck traffic at the port complex. The Pier-B on-dock support facility received its final federal environmental impact statement, and construction could start as soon as next year. Once completed the facility could handle multiple trains, which port officials said could equal 2,000 truck trips taken off local streets and freeways per train. The $1.5 billion project is expected to be built in phases and completed by 2032.