The Death of a Government Ethics Activist and a March on a City Ethics Commission
I've been remiss at covering the complex battles that have gone on in
and around the San Francisco ethics commission. I did, however, start a piece in
August 2009, which I have appended to this one, with an update.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/2010/02/10/joe-lynn-memorial-to…; target="”_blank”">an
article in the <i>Fog City Journal</i></a>, a week from this Saturday, there
will be a memorial service, and march to or upon the San Francisco ethics commission, in memory of
Joe Lynn, a former EC campaign finance officer and EC member who died
in December.<br>
<br>
According to the piece, Lynn "took his charge as a public servant
seriously and fought consciously
against the stereotype of the unhelpful, disinterested bureaucrat.
Indeed, the vigor with which he served the public brought him into
conflict with his superiors, who in their roles managing the government
agency charged with fostering public trust all too often found
themselves persuaded by private interests to drop complaints, rewrite
rules, and hide 'smoking guns' in window-office desk drawers. When, for
example, Joe discovered an illegal, $800 thousand campaign contribution
made by PG&E, his superiors ordered him to suppress the discovery.
Unswayed by the potential for reprisal, Joe released the information
and initiated a process that would result in the largest fine ever
levied by the Ethics Commission."<br>
<br>
Regular readers of this blog will recognize that largest fine as being
brought against the law firms of the man who is calling for the closing down of all city ethics
commissions in California (others can read about it in <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/escalation-ethics-war-san-diego" target="”_blank”">a
recent blog post</a>).<br>
<br>
Government ethics cannot do without people like Joe Lynn. According to
the article, he was honored for his work by the Society of Professional
Journalists, then-president of the Board of Supervisors Matt Gonzalez,
then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom, and others. Sadly, few EC members and
staff members are ever recognized for their work. You've got to catch
that big one.<br>
<br>
When things got too tough for Lynn as a staff member, the district
attorney appointed him to the EC itself. According to the article, he
"helped to usher in mayoral public
financing, expand supervisorial public financing, and strengthen the
Campaign Finance Reform Act."<br>
<br>
A former lawyer, disbarred due to a drug addiction that followed the
loss of his lover and many, many friends to AIDS, Lynn's comeback was
devoted to public service. According to <a href="http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/02/remembering_joe_lynn.php&qu…; target="”_blank”">a
blog post in the San Francisco <i>Weekly</i></a>, to honor Lynn, after his
memorial services, his friends "will march to the Ethics Commission
nearby on Van Ness. Organizers half-seriously mentioned carrying
'pitchforks' and 'torches.'"<br>
<br>
This will most likely be the first march on a local government EC in
the history of America. An historic moment. Read below to find out why
they're marching.<br>
<br>
<i>From August 9, 2009 and February 11,
2010</i>: What does a city
ethics commission do about a whistleblower in its own midst? This is
the situation for the San Francisco ethics commission, according to <a href="http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/08/ethics_commission_whistlebl…; target="”_blank”">an
article
in last week's S. F. <i>Weekly</i></a> (also see <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2009/07/no_ethics_in_ethics_commissi…; target="”_blank”">a
recent
article </a>in the San Francisco <i>Bay Guardian</i>). The EC's fine
collection officer, Oliver Luby, has filed three whistleblower
complaints against the EC. The first, in 2004, disclosed the
destruction of documents. In 2008, he disclosed the fact that a
database switchover would destroy a large number of documents. And in
May 2009, he said that the EC was overcharging an official for fees he
had already paid.<br>
<br>
According to the article, about a week after filing the most recent
whistleblower complaint, Luby "received an official reprimand for using
his office computer and
e-mail to write to the state's Fair Political Practices Commission to
offer his personal input on California campaign finance laws. This
exact charge was then mirrored in a subsequent anonymous complaint, as
was the threat of termination later echoed by [deputy director] Ng."<br>
<br>
In addition to the whistleblower complaints, last year Luby wrote <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/03/ED2813T8OR…; target="”_blank”">an
op-ed
piece</a> for the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i> about his attempts to
get the EC to deal with an apparent money-laundering scheme involving
campaign contributions, which the EC has jurisdiction over. It appears
that Luby went through the right procedures before going public:
He wrote a letter to the EC's executive director in late 2005, he wrote
a memo identifying delinquent major donors, and the next year asked for
authorization to contact these donors. Then, when he was told this was
not an EC priority, he wrote a memo to the commission itself about "the
decision to end enforcement of major donor delinquencies
and how such a delinquency had played the critical role in uncovering
the community college money laundering."<br>
<br>
A <a href="http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/we_wrote_earlier_today_abou…; target="”_blank”">February
2, 2010 S.F. <i>Weekly</i> blog post</a> reported that the Mormon Church
finally disclosed that it had contributed nearly $190,000 to pass
Proposition 8, against same-sex marriage. Oliver Luby is quoted as
saying that if a big-time donor opted to skip out on its local
ethics commission filings "there would be no repercussions. ... [Major
donors] are making late filings and there are no repercussions,
and some people are not filing at all -- and we can tell. And we are
not making any attempt [to pressure them into filing]."<br>
<br>
"Luby said that it's often as easy as cross-checking a donor's reported
contributions with the donations reported by recipient committees to
catch people or organizations failing to make major disclosures. And
yet, he alleges, there is no follow-through from his office; while
small-time donors giving 100 bucks may be run through the ringer, those
giving far, far more are treated with kid gloves."<br>
<br>
That's something to march about.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
---