Elected officials in Anaheim in the New Year are slated to create an ethics officer position to oversee campaign finance laws, public records requests and a host of other good government practices in the wake of Orange County’s largest public corruption scandals this century.
“The Ethics Officer’s role would be to promote public confidence in the integrity of local government and its operation,” reads the staff report.
Their action comes as city council members are also expected to discuss potentially reforming their campaign finance laws next year after FBI agents and independent, city-hired investigators found the very Disneyland resort interests that heavily fund campaigns essentially control City Hall.
On Tuesday, the city council unanimously voted for staff to research the ethics officer position and bring back the proposal in either late January or early February – around the same time officials are expected to discuss reforming campaign finance laws.
The expected reform discussions also come against the backdrop of OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s investigation into city hall – the third corruption probe to be launched in the last few years.
[Read: OC District Attorney Confirms Corruption Investigation in Anaheim]
As opposed to an independent entity or commission, Deputy City Manager Greg Garcia on Tuesday night said the ethics officer would instead work under the City Attorney’s office and would be responsible for making sure the city complies with transparency laws, campaign finance laws and the city’s lobbyist ordinance – which was recently overhauled.
[Read: Disney’s Representative Could Soon be Considered a Lobbyist at Anaheim City Hall]
City council members spent more time promoting local businesses and local events on Tuesday than they did the ethics officer position – which wasn’t discussed by elected officials at all.
Disney’s Shadow
When the idea was first introduced in October, there was also an ethics commission proposed along with it.
But that took flak from Councilmembers Natalie Meeks and Natalie Rubalcava, both of whom were elected with overwhelming support – nearly $1 million combined – from Disneyland resort area political action committees, funding mailers and ads sent out to voters.
At the Oct. 17 meeting, Meeks said she’d rather have an ethics officer than a panel “opining on very technical issues.”
Rubalcava said the ethics commission could be used as a political weapon against sitting council members.
“We see some of the public comments that come up from some of our commissioners and we see it’s very one-sided depending on who appointed them,” Rubalcava said.
Meeks was heavily backed by Disney through it’s chief political spending vehicle, Support Our Anaheim Resort political action committee, in the 2022 election
SOAR spent $546,000 supporting Meeks in the 2022 election – the most on a candidate that year – paying for things like mailers and digital advertising.
Rubalcava got $380,000 in support from the Disney-backed political action committee.
At the October meeting, Rubalcava also said the California Fair Political Practices Commission can handle what the proposed ethics committee would.
“They are investigating and fining,” she said.
Yet no major fines or enforcement measures came down from the commission since the resort friendly candidates retook the city council majority in 2018 – when the corrupt and now-dead Angel Stadium deal started forming.
A Questionable History of Campaign Funding
Independent investigators allege there was illegal coordination between disgraced Mayor Harry Sidhu’s campaign officials and political action committees in 2018.
“While there seemed to be a full effort in 2018 to coordinate the Sidhu campaign with the PACs in Anaheim, this activity may have occurred before this election cycle and potentially continued thereafter,’ investigators concluded.
FBI agents allege – through a wiretapped conversation – that Sidhu tried ramming through the Angel Stadium land sale for up to $1 million in campaign support from team officials.
In September, the disgraced mayor pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for lying to federal investigators about that campaign support scheme, along with wire fraud and making false statements to avoid paying state taxes on a helicopter.
[Read: Ex-Anaheim Mayor Sidhu Agrees to Plead Guilty to Corruption Charges]
Councilman Jose Diaz, who was backed by $121,000 in SOAR spending in the 2020 election, said the ethics officer and ethics commission could work together.
“I strongly recommend the ethics officer and the ethics commission. We only have an ethics officer, it’s one person. The ethics commission is also supervising that ethics officer,” Diaz said Oct. 17.
He also pushed back against concerns the panel could be weaponized, citing the County of Orange’s ethics commission – created in 2016 – has not handled enforcement actions in a manner that lends itself to political hit mail narratives.
“It’s not used at the county as a weapon against each other,” Diaz said. “It’s not to punish anybody, but to correct when there’s discrepancies.”
Spencer Custodio is the civic editor. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio.
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