Anaheim City Council passes county’s toughest restrictions on lobbying

Anaheim elected officials and workers will be barred from lobbying the city for two years after they leave their jobs under a new “sunshine ordinance,” the strictest restriction on government lobbying in Orange County.

The new ordinance, proposed by Councilman Jose Moreno, also prohibits the city from hiring people from lobbying firms and requires paid lobbyists to register with the city and file quarterly reports.

It also would require City Council members and executive level staff to retain all email communications for 90 days, rather than the current 37 days, and calls for signs to be posted at the site of any large-scale development explaining the project.

At their July 25 meeting, council members exchanged barbs over provisions of the law, with some council members accusing the measure’s author of targeting them and their staff.

Councilman Steve Faessel, who supported the ordinance, said he asked to see drafts of the ordinance but was denied.

“This document is about openness and clarity, and yet I asked for some involvement, more than two months ago … and since it was considered a work in progress, I was denied,” Faessel said.

“I find that it was written in such a way that would cost three of our council members their aides and not the other council members their aides,” Faessel added.

One of Faessel’s part-time aides is an employee with the public relations firm FSB Core Strategies and could be affected by a provision in the ordinance that prohibits the employees of lobbying firms from working with the city. Jeff Flint, the company’s CEO, is a registered lobbyist with the county of Orange and has represented the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce.

Moreno said he did not intend to target any council member with the ordinance, although he realized some would be affected by it.

“While any ordinance will have unequal impacts on people … that doesn’t mean that it’s inequitable,” Moreno said.

The council voted 5-2, with council members Lucille Kring and Kris Murray voting no, to approve the ordinance.

Kring said the ordinance would “increase the load and expense to developers.” She said the city already is transparent, and she doesn’t believe there is a problem with lobbyists.

“You are looking for a solution to a problem I believe does not exist,” Kring said.

Murray, who called the ordinance “half-baked and not ready-to-go,” also introduced a number of amendments she said would strengthen the ordinance, although the council voted to exclude her amendments. Murray will introduce those changes to the ordinance as a separate item at the Aug. 15 council meeting.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait, meanwhile, praised Moreno for proposing the ordinance.

“I applaud you taking on the establishment and the lobbying establishment … this represents change at City Hall,” Tait said.

City Council Aides

While definitions of the term “lobbyist” differ, it generally refers to anyone paid to influence government decisions.

The Anaheim ordinance defines a lobbyist as anyone who receives $500 or more a month to communicate with city officials for the purpose of influencing legislative or administrative actions.

Council members each have a budget for hiring part-time policy aides, although the mayor has a full-time aide. Some members use that budget to contract with public affairs firms.

Councilwoman Denise Barnes’ part-time aide, Matthew Holder, is a registered lobbyist who has previously worked with Barnes’ campaign consultant, John Lewis, and is a public affairs consultant. Holder said the county database is outdated, and he has not been a registered lobbyist for the past year and a half.

Moreno argued at the meeting that aides who work for lobbying firms have access to sensitive city information that may give an advantage to the firm they work for.

City spokesman Mike Lyster said Faessel does not believe his aide should be barred from working in Anaheim under the ordinance and that he will seek a legal opinion from either the city attorney or an outside body.

“I think everybody else will likely have to go through the same process,” Lyster said of the other council aides.

Kring’s aide, former council candidate Steve Chavez Lodge, used to work for Hill International, a city contractor.

Murray, who works for the public consulting firm Willdan, has a contract with the company Communications LAB to provide both her city policy aides and to do work for her campaign.

Shirley Grindle, a citizen watchdog who has independently monitored campaign contributions to politicians countywide for years, said she would like to see the quarterly reports filed by lobbyists include disclosure of what campaign contributions they have made to the council during that period.

“I recently found out that some of you hire lobbyists as your staff to help you do your jobs … and I can’t tell you how bad I think that is,” Grindle said. “They do not have a good name anywhere … because they’re paid to get your vote, to get a project approved.”

Similar laws statewide

Many sunshine ordinances in California — such as ones adopted by Santa Ana, Oakland and Contra Costa County — largely focus on clarifying policies on public access to records and public meetings.

The state Political Reform Act generally restricts state officials and certain local officials, such as city managers and elected officials, from being paid to attempt to influence their agencies on matters they worked on while employed by the government.

The state “revolving door” restrictions on lobbying, which aims to limit the influence of officials who move between public service and the private sector, only applies for one year after a person permanently leaves their public sector job.

Anaheim’s sunshine ordinance is a hybrid that resembles regulations passed by some cities with their own ethics commissions, such as Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco.

Anaheim is the second city in Orange County to have a lobbyist registry; both the county of Orange and Irvine require lobbyists to register.

This story was reported by Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, as part of a publishing agreement with TimesOC. Contact THY VO at [email protected].