POLITICAL NOTEBOOK:Tallying the spending

The final round of pre-election Campaign Disclosure Statements for the 2006 City Council race were due Oct. 26. Most of them were filed by the deadline.

The Laguna Beach Firefighters Public Awareness Group filed a statement of the campaign by the deadline for the Oct. 1-21 filing period, but filed a second statement on Nov. 1, reporting accrued contributions of $24,459.72 made from July 7-Oct. 21 and itemized spending.

An $18,523 payment to the Strategy Group in Pasadena was the major expenditure.

“They did our mailers,” said Andrew Hill, president of the Laguna Beach Firefighters Association. “Contrary to rumor, we did not do a poll in this election.”

One other payment, $1,187.78 to Firefighters Print & Design, was listed on the group’s statement.

Donations for the period totaled $14,920, but the group began with a $21,000 warchest.

All but four of the 36 contributors spread their donations out over a period of several weeks, each donation less than the $100.

Many of the individual contributions added up to $440, which exceeds the Laguna Beach limit of $330.

“The $330 limit applies only to contributions to committees controlled by candidates,” said campaign spending watch dog Linda Brown, a League of Women Voters member.

General Purpose Committees that make independent expenditures of behalf of candidates are not bound by the local limit.

Brown has voluntarily perused all of the statements filed for this election and has found some errors, which have been corrected.

Kinde Durkee, a political accounting management firm in Burbank, is listed as the firefighter’s group’s treasurer. Phone calls to the company and to the group were not returned by the Coastline Pilot deadline.

The Committee to Elect Kelly Boyd for City Council also filed an amended statement on Nov. 1. for Jan. 1-Sept. 30, with corrected addresses and cumulative contributions. Total expenditures for the eight-month period added up to $8,250 from reported donations of $22,612. The committee ended the period with a cash balance of $14,362.

However, the statement filed Oct. 24 for Oct. 1-21 listed total contributions of $32,301 and expenditures of $18,158.

Incumbent Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider’s committee reported picking up $15,385.90 from Oct. 1 to Oct. 21 for total contributions of $72,510.07. Pearson-Schneider had spent $66,272.19 all told this year.

Council candidate Verna Rollinger reported the next highest contributions for the campaign in the calendar year: $55,871. The retired City Clerk had spent $42,567 by the Oct. 21 filing period.

“The $55,000 is double what I spent on my most expensive campaign for city clerk,” said Rollinger, who served seven terms in City Hall. “There is no longer a limit.”

A $15,000 voluntary spending limit was adopted several years ago at the suggestion of Mayor Steven Dicterow. It replaced a $30,000 voluntary limit.

The lower amount makes the limit moot, according to Brown and was opposed by the Laguna Beach branch of the League of Women Voters.

Dicterow’s derailed re-election bid collected $23,147 and spent $19,516.44 before he pulled out of the race.

Incumbent Toni Iseman’s campaign reported total contributions of $44,145.31 for the calendar year and expenditures of $37,315.33.

Village Laguna of Laguna Beach filed a statement on Oct. 5 reporting monetary contributions of $20,020. However, that total mistakenly included a carryover from the previous year. Brown said the error was corrected in the statement filed Oct. 26, which listed contribution in this calendar year of $4,461.

The general purpose committee reported calendar year expenditures of $8,049: which included $4,924 for literature to support Iseman and Rollinger, $2,332 for mailer expenses and $2,477 to Bill Atkins for the mailer.

The Laguna Beach Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee reported starting with a balance of $8,836.94 and collected $3,214. They have spent $6,158.51: $3,875.51 for a joint mailing to support Boyd and Pearson-Schneider; the maximum $330 donation each to Boyd’s and Pearson-Schneider’s committees and a $200 donation to Pat Bates.