Campaigns need to be above reproach

Well, I can’t keep quiet any longer. I have read and re-read the

numerous articles over the last two months regarding our local

elections of 2000 and 2002. I am particularly annoyed at the swipes

taken at Joseph N. Bell and the time spent quibbling on incidentals

rather than the message of not only Bell’s article, but many of the

letters in the Pilot’s Mailbag.

With regard to phony phone messages: It is fact for the election

of 2000 that the night before voting day, a message went to a number

of voters from a man calling himself “your neighbor, Barry Stone.”

The message said that Bob Schoonmaker was the true Greenlight

candidate and that I had been meeting secretly with the Irvine Co.

and could not be trusted.

Several people called me with the message, and I immediately

called Schoonmaker. He denied knowledge of the recording, and I

believed him. On my request, an assistant district attorney, Mike

Fell, researched voter registrations for Orange and surrounding

counties and found no Barry Stone.

I believe Bell’s article intended to point out that dishonesty and

deceitfulness as a practice should not be tolerated.

In Newport Beach, City Council elections are nonpartisan.

Candidates are not allowed to run as Republicans, Democrats,

Libertarians, Green Party or whatever.

The weekend prior to the election in 2000, slick glossy campaign

materials showed pictures of Bromberg with Bush, Cheney, Cox and

Campbell. The same tactic in 2002 showed Ridgeway, Webb and others

with Bill Simon, Cox and Campbell.

All of these phony mailers featured cute little elephants and the

statement: Vote your Republican candidates and support your

Republican ticket. The person responsible for this mailer is trying

to dupe or deceive the public by figuring they won’t notice that the

Republican party’s logo (the elephant) has lost one of its three

stars. Now, the public is supposed to believe that the Republican

Party has endorsed these people.

And by the way, Bromberg’s name was also on a mailer sent to

registered Democrats in Newport Beach along with Gore and Feinstein’s

picture. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties endorse

candidates in our elections.

Campaign consultant Dave Ellis must figure he can get away with

this because the national campaign committees don’t want to get

involved in small town politics.

We are making a relatively simple election process into a scramble

where people are hurt, offended, mad and genuinely “un-neighborly.”

The creation of a “Greenlight Party” doesn’t help this situation. I

was a supporter of Measure S, the “Greenlight initiative,” but I did

not intend to help initiate a political party by that name.

People who feel they need to do “whatever it takes” to win an

election are undermining this process. We should be listening to

informed candidates who do their best in convincing us how they will

manage our city responsibly. Instead, we are establishing an opening

bid of $60,000 to $70,000 to enter a race and sign Ellis for “help”

in the campaign. You don’t pay someone thousands of dollars for their

services and not take any of the responsibility for what they do on

your behalf.

Each candidate should be held accountable for dishonest and

deceitful actions he has authorized. If we could count on people

doing an honest job of running on their merits, we wouldn’t be

dividing our city into smaller groups pitted against one another. It

sure is convenient to just “move on” when someone nails you. People

who use this expression generally don’t want to resolve a situation,

but rather would like it to just go away.

Fortunately, people are going to remember this stuff until our

city councilmen, Ellis or Barry Stone explain what election messages

were paid for and cease using deceptive campaign tactics.

* PAT BEEK is a Balboa Island resident who ran for Newport Beach

City Council in 2000 as a Greenlight-backed candidate.