The Vanguard has now learned over three and a half years later that there was significant merit to that complaint. On April 3, 2008 three amended statements using the Fair Political Practice Commission (FPPC) California Form 460 were filed with the Davis City Clerk, two and a half years after the termination of campaign papers were filed on January 31, 2006 claiming a zero balance and a final expenditure of $385,274.75 for the campaign that lasted from July 28, 2005 until December 31, 2005.
These three filing show the following additional expenses:
- Additional salaries of $75,627.26
- Additional literature expenses of $25,874 and $72,908.96
- Cable TV production and air time expenses of $22,000
- Call Center expenses of $18,136.66
- and some miscellaneous expenses
While an additional $215,930.93 is now acknowledged to have been spent on the campaign, there is no filing that accounts for where that money comes from. There were no additional contribution filings over and above what was documented on January 31, 2006.
In the November 3, 2005 Davis Enterprise article, both campaigns traded complaints about impropriety.
Claire St. John, the Enterprise reporter at the time wrote:
“On Wednesday before noon, Dick Livingston filed a complaint about the Smart Planning Yes on X campaign’s contribution reports with the California Fair and Political Practices Commission…
Livingston’s complaint alleges the Covell Village Company violated the Political Reform Act by omitting expenditures for frequent polling, listing inaccurate salaries and failing to disclose the true cost of more than a dozen glossy mailers sent to thousands of Davisites.”
We now know that these complaints are true. These filings acknowledge that the Covell Village campaign underreported their literature expenses by at least $98,700. We also know that they underreported by at least $75,000 their salary expenditures as well.
One of the spokespeople for Covell Village Partners was Nathan Ballard.
He told the Enterprise:
“There is not a shred of truth to these allegations, and we are confident that the FPPC will agree.”
In fact, we now know he was completely wrong. The Vanguard at this point in time does not know about the current status of the FPPC complaint filed by Davis attorney Bill Kopper on behalf of the No on Measure X campaign. However, it is believed that the FPPC’s inquiry led John Whitcombe, owner of Tandem Properties to revise his campaign filings. The Vanguard will be looking into the exact status of that complaint in the coming weeks.
Additionally at the time of the filing of the FPPC complaint, Kevin Wolf from the Covell Village campaign tried to make the argument that the No on X campaign had received $22,000 from unnamed contributors and filed a complaint with the city of Davis. However, that was shown to have no merit.
The Davis Enterprise reported in their article the following statement from then Davis City Clerk Bette Racke
“Campaign statement filing with the City Clerk’s Office by the No on Measure X Committee has been in compliance with the requirements of the FPPC and the City Clerk,” Racke wrote in late October.
In the Davis Enterprise article Mr. Ballard would go on to say:
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The No on X campaign has collected $22,080 of unitemized contributions. In other words, we have no earthly idea of where half of their money is coming from. We are following the law, and they are flouting it.”
We now know in fact Mr. Ballard was completely wrong on all counts.
It now turns out that in fact there were still over $215,000 of unreported contributions at the time the Covell Village Partners and their “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign made their amended filings on April 3, 2008 as they make no mention in those filings of the money needed to pay for the expenses they are then revealing for the first time. In other words, we still, over three years after the November 8, 2005 Measure X election do not know where the money came from to pay for those expenses as the amended filings made on April 3, 2008 do not disclose that information.
In addition it should be noted at the time of the election the Covell Village Partners and their “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign had not properly revealed between $478,150.39 and $485,752.09 in expenses and contributions for work and campaign materials which had all been essentially paid for prior to the election date.
On October 27, 2005 (only 12 days prior to the election), the Yes on X campaign filed a California Form 460 that showed that they had only spent a total of $123,054.75 for their entire campaign.
On November 2, 2005 they filed an amendment that showed that figure was actually just $115,453.05 and five days later yet another showing a total of $119,108.74.
It was not until January 31, 2006 that we learned the actual figure was $385,274.75. The campaign reported receiving an additional $140,000.00 in late contributions using Form 497 as well as an additional $113,984.43 using their final Form 460.
These contributions are all they have reported to have received, far less than was necessary to pay for what they have now acknowledged as somewhere between $478,150.39 and $485,752.09 in additional expenses they have reported since the campaign has ended.
It is inconceivable that they spent this money or paid for services and materials after the election. Much of these expenditures went to pay for the printing of literature, mail house services, US postage, newspaper ads, Cable Television buys as well as most of the money spent on salaries all of which would have required payment upon delivery of service (COD) if not in advance and all of which would have needed to have been reported at the time the service was generated not months or years after the fact.
This suggests that a deliberate deception was going on at the time of the election designed to mislead the voters as to how much was actually being spent to approve their housing project. They had a legal obligation to make most of this information available to the voting public prior to the election or at the very least by January 31, 2006. Most of it should have shown up prior to the election in those three filings that were filed prior to November 8, 2005.
These findings arise just as the Covell Village owners have ramped up efforts within the community to push for another version of Covell Village under their new name: Davis Neighbors. The Covell Village owners have spent tremendous amounts of time, and energy and money mobilizing support for a new project at the old Covell Village site. We still have no idea how much they spent on their previous project’s campaign three and a half years later.
There is a 3 year statute of limitation to sue for defective disclosure. I think that the recent amendment opens the statute to a fresh three year. From memory, it seemed that the Yes on X campaign ran a + $1 million campaign. So my guess is that a lawsuit against Yes on X should turn up discovery information as to where is the other + $500,000 in expenditures. There are obvious omissions. For example, where is the money for their attorney consultants? The No on X Campaign should sue.
Everyone who anticipates getting more money is beholden to the developers. This includes store owners, service providers, and care-home owners. They are all members of the community, as are the firemen who won’t be laid off etc. I don’t think that anyone is taking bribes.
If you want to fight this project, you have to approach those who will be disadvantaged by the project: homeowners who pay taxes and people who live close to the project who will be disadvantaged by the crowded streets. We need a house-to-house campaign with precinct walkers in the adjoining neighborhoods that will be affected.
Don Saylor, Ruth Asmundson and Steve Sousa all received thousands of dollars from these and other developers and their friends and families. So, yes, they are beholden to them. Don and Steve want to move to higher office and, unless you are independently wealthy, the only way to do that is to take money from special interests who are then going to expect your favorable votes.
We need to determine the true cost of the Covell Village Partner’s Yes on X campaign. Their deliberate efforts to conceal the majority of their campaign expenditures both during the election and even after the election are now apparent.
The CV campaign reported before the November 2005 election approximately 115K to 123K in election costs, yet by January 2006 they reported 385K and in April 2008 an additional 215K to bring their total to 601K. I do not trust this to be the true cost of that election, nor do most astute political observers.
During the Measure X election many of us made educated guesses that the CV campaign was in fact costing a million dollars or more. The massive amounts of campaign literature being mailed to households throughout Davis, the many newspaper ads, the cable TV spots and the phone surveys/solicitations stood out as prime examples of large amounts of money being spent. It became clear that the financial reports being filed by the CV campaign were grossly under-reporting the actual expense of that campaign.
Outstanding work Vanguard!
Another thought—
The No on X campaigns collectively spent about 90K. Those of us working to defeat Covell Village knew there was no way the Yes on X people were spending as they were reporting a few dollars more @ 115K to 123K than our bare bones campaign could muster
When is Souza up for re-election? He and his pro-developer paid for agenda needs to be stopped, he is dangerous for the future of Davis as we know it!!!!
Everyone: if the Yes on X is sued, and discovery shows that twice they submitted false declarations as to expenses, I think that those partners and their paid consultants are FINISHED in this town. Can you see the cable TV ads highlighting the false statements in their own documents? Who will believe a word they say in the future?
Hey Stephen: this week you were the third vote to order staff to include as formal evidence the collected “independent testimony” provided by the Covell partners via their paid consultants.
These are basically the same people who falsely under-reported +$300,000 in expenditures in 2005. Are you gonna take that new testimony data and believe it ?? (Frankly, I could not believe that the project proponents pushed you to vote for that stupid idea that leaves them exposed to huge charges during a later Measure J campaign. Arrogance showed its ugly face again … like in early October 2005 when they called me a stooge in a full page newspaper ad.)
Stephen, it’s all about your third vote, my friend. All of your years of good service to the community go down the drain if you continue taking us on this road to another community meltdown over a project that is DOA. Hate to say it, but the community only remembers your last vote ….
Great job, David, and thanks to Mike H., for his legalistic insights. Now to the future. All progressives know Saylor & Asmundson are pro-Covell Village (or Center or Senior ghetto), but Souza is the real snake in the grass. Think it is imperative to expose him so that “progressives” who bought into his “green” campaign before will never trust him again.
And, so, begins the next chapter in the Covell Village/Measure J battle. It is time to finally send Whitcombe & Streng packing off to their far-away ranches & vacation homes. This will be their last shot, so we need to start working now to renew Measure J and kick their butts by defeating the “new” senior housing sham.
Good sleuthing!
Is it known or knowable (in Rumsfeld’s jargon) whether any members of the City Councilare are beholden to the developers?
If this is true, it is shocking, and makes me very, very angry.
Did anyone hear John Whitcombe, a lead Covell developer, get up before the council and say that the nation’s medicare budget was exploding, and that this project would help keep medicare costs down? Then he gave some vague explanation about monitoring people electronically.
This whole thing is beginning to sound like a corporate-engineered cult.
“This whole thing is beginning to sound like a corporate-engineered cult.”
Did you notice the folks from UC Med Ctr and the guy from Intel kept talking about developing a cutting edge project having to do with medo-technology of some sort. Let’s face it – there is money to be had in developing such a medical program. Johnny and medical friends see those $$$$$$$$$ dancing before their eyes so tantalizingly close.
This reminded me of discussion of the Stem Cell Research Center along I-80 by Tsakopoulos. All of the very nice stem cell advocates came ot the county to advocate for it, the problem was this was a land use decision, not a research issue. The same thing is happening here, the Covell Partners have taken a page out of ATK’s book and mobilized a special interest to get behind their project in hopes that it will push them over the top. This disclosure will severely wound their effort, but people need to publicize it in the Enterprise as well.
Thanks Vanguard form sharing this information which really outrages me. After seeing Whitcombe admit he was “guilty” at the Council meeting, maybe he actually was talking about this. I watched him on cable TV tell the public last Tuesday at City Council that he was really just trying to build his “senior community” at Covell Village because he just knew that “we” really “need it”. Such altruism…such trustworthy sincerity.
Not disclosing these massive expeditures for years shows the arrogance of a multi-millionaire without much of a sense of responsibility. You can be darn sure that had No on Measure X neglected to file one nickel, the Covell Village Yes on Measure X group folks would have been on top of it with plenty of finger pointing. It sounds like that they got one of their main proponents (Kevin Wolf) to try that stunt and the false accusation that he made of the No on Measure X campaign went down like a rock and was proven to be completely untrue. Apparently, it was a case of Wolf accusing the No on Measure X campaign what HIS Yes on Measure X campaign group was guilty of! Good strategy….accuse the other (innocent) side of what YOUR side is guilty of to deflect attention.
Good work Vanguard for flushing out this story. This is just more evidence of how the Covell Village developers and their “numbers” can not be trusted. How could they “forget” to list hundreds of thousands of dollars? I wonder what else they are “forgetting” to tell the public now about their lastest Covell Village proposal?
Interesting to note that despite all the money spent on the Yes on X campaign, it was soundly defeated. Voters were not fooled. I doubt seniors will be either – as Souza pointed out. What did he say, seniors could not be led around by the nose? So Souza, do you really think seniors are not going to get that you stacked the deck of this new “committee” to assess senior housing needs? How insulting to seniors, that you are not willing to have an independent survey to see what it is seniors in Davis really want.
What is the pro/con of suing? Mike H?
test
Apparently it is true that the size of the new Covell Village II proposal is 800 units just to start with, and that would only be phase I. Then phases II and III would be added bringing it up to 1,400 – 1,800+ units. Two of my friends attended a Covell Village Partner’s “free lunch” meeting just for informational reasons. The developers pitched the 800 units, but did not mention that it was only phase I until pressed on this subject later. They later acknowledged when they were pressed that there would be a Phase II and Phase III. I have noticed that the Covell Village developers have remained silent when they can get away with it on the issue of “how many total units will your new proposal have?”
Get ready for the Covell Village Partners next “bait and switch”. They will pitch 800 units but are silent on the additional 600 – 1,000 units coming after that with all the problems and costs of the previous Covell Village project. I have not seen any denial from the developers about about the 1,400 – 1,800+ number of residential units that would ultimately be coming with the new Covell Village proposal. Here we go again, with another version of Covell Village, which is equally as large and as bad as the last version and with all the same problems and impacts.
Great “heads up” articles on this whole Covell Village mess this week Vanguard. I especially appreciate the exposure about these guys trying to hide their huge expenditures during the Yes on Measure X campaign.
If No on X sued on the recent disclosure, they would get all of the financial documents, emails, etc. T
Any “citizen volunteer” paid consultants and other corrupt rpresentatives would be exposed.
Falifying disclosures is a illegal, so there might be a referral to the Yolo District Attorney and possibly the State Attorney General.
Attorneys fees and litigation costs could be recovered.
Folks, one thing that is interesting to me is why didn’t the city disclose that the amended disclosure was filed? The Davis Enterprise keeps track of these things, and the paper never ran a story about it.
You would that that someone in City Hall would find it troubling that a major campaign failed to disclose + $300,000 in expenses during the hardest fought election ever in this city.
I think that the City Council should ask some hard questions of staff who received the late disclosure and overlooked or buried it.
A good process would have been for staff to put the amended disclosure in the City Council packet, FYI to the CC members and public.
When I was on the CC, and a red-hot piece of information came in, staff would put copies in our mail boxes, at the minumum.
I am sure that this is not the case, but it makes staff look like they are in collusion with Covell Villlage Partners to get that new project approved no matter what has to be done to win. Obviously, the illegal late disclosure is going to have a seriously negative effect on the new project, and I can see why the proponents would want to bury what they did in the fall of 2005.
One more thing: can someone get the FPPC investigative report and order requiring the Yes on X to file the amended disclosure? DPD, can you post those documents?
I am fairly confident from the barrage of 4-color glossy mailers and other expensive campaign communications that we might still be missing at least $500,000 in additional expenditures.
And …. where are the lawyer fees? I am certain those hords of lawyers they hired to beat the Davis voters into passive submission did not work for free ….
How did they account for the extra expenditures, when they had a zero balance in their checking accounts on the previous disclosures? It has to balance out. How did they account for having the additional money to spend?
You can see at the bottom of the article the links, they simply reported the additional spending without filing the paperwork for additional contributions.
The 2008 amended filings are defective as the Yes on X campaign does not identify the contributions made to pay for the previously unreported expenditures of $215,000.00. All campaigns are required to report both expenditures and contributions.
The Yes on X campaign was maybe 99% self-funded by the project applicants. It would be easy to just total up the checks, so their disclosures balanced money in, money out. So the glaring omission of the contributions necessary to balance the books suggests there were other interested parties and persons who put money into the campaign kitty, and who dont want to be disclosed.
Now, who would that be? Just speculating, but maybe Lewis Homes? Everyone knows they want Covell Village developed, so they can get road access across the northeast to Poleline. What would that access be worth to Lewis, which would free up more of their 100 acres for housing lot sales since they could reduce the pro-rata share that would be dedicated to necessary streets?
To Lewis and its paid local consultants: any CC approval of rezoning for residential on your site should be on the ballot for citywide approval. Get used to that idea, as we will do it for you, if the CC won’t do it. I told you (Jones and Topper and your other consultant) this 2-3 years ago, and I have not seen anything to change my mind about it.
After looking at the amended returns it looks to me like the amended returns are for expenditures made on behalf of the campaign. In this case, it was Capital Campaigns, so that is the contributor. Since the money did not run through the campaign bank account, it does not appear as income for the campaign. Apparently, the campaign did not pay Capital Campaigns for the individual salaries listed. (I’m guessing.) I’m assuming that the salaries were merely a cost of service for Capital Campaigns, but it looks like the FPPC required that the salaries be disclosed as contributions to the campaign.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Capital Campaigns was the company that Yes on X campaign hired to run their campaign. This was the company that Nathan Ballard worked for and apparently hired and paid people on behalf of the campaign.
So what is Capital Campaigns?
More questions have arisen about the amended filings by the Covell Village Partners and their “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign.
The FPPC campaign disclosure form required for use by both the Yes on X and No on X campaigns was California Form 460—Recipient Committee Campaign Statement which includes the Cover Page, Campaign Disclosure Summary Page and any required Schedule pages.
The “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign in every statement filed in 2005 and 2006 used a Cover Page; Campaign Disclosure Statement Summary Page and the necessary Schedule pages.
For example the committee on January 31, 2006 filed their final report marking it their Termination Statement. They used California Form 460 which included the Cover Page; Campaign Disclosure Statement Summary Page; Schedule A—Monetary Contributions Received; Schedule C—Non-Monetary Contributions Received; Schedule E—Payments Made; Schedule F—Accrued Expenses (Unpaid Bills).
On April 3, 2008 the “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign amended their previous campaign statements in which they revealed that they had in fact spent an additional $215,000.00 to pay for: (1.) Additional salaries of $76,627.26; (2.) Additional literature expenses of $25,874.75 and $72,908.96; (3.) Cable TV production and airtime expenses of $22,000.00; (4.) Call Center expenses of $18,136.66 and some miscellaneous expenses.
Evidently the Campaign Committee had Capitol Campaigns (one of their political consultants) prepare the amended forms as an “agent:” on behalf of the campaign. They then filed three amended California Form 460 statements using only a Cover Page and for the first time a Schedule G—Payments Made by an Agent or Independent Contractor (on Behalf of This Committee). What is missing from these filings is the Campaign Disclosure Statement Summary Page; a Schedule A—Monetary Contributions Received Page and a Schedule E—Payments Made Page which would have disclosed where the money had come from to reimburse Capitol Campaigns and when it was paid to them for these additional campaign expenses.
Nearly all campaign expenditures are paid for prior to an election, usually on a COD or advance payment basis. It is important to know from who and when Capitol Campaigns received the money to pay for these “Smart Planning – Yes on X” Campaign expenses. Stated another way, regardless of whether the campaign paid the vendors or employees directly or through their agent Capitol Campaigns it is important to know where the money came from to the campaign and when either the campaign or their agent used that money to pay for those expenses.
“What is missing from these filings is the Campaign Disclosure Statement Summary Page; a Schedule A—Monetary Contributions Received Page and a Schedule E—Payments Made Page which would have disclosed where the money had come from to reimburse Capitol Campaigns and when it was paid to them for these additional campaign expenses.”
So how can we get the Yes on X campaign to cough up the required information?
“How Do We Get There?”
By insisting that the FPPC demand compliance by the Yes on X committee. Currently it is not known what has become of the FPPC complaint filed in November 2005 as to whether it is still open or not. It is my understanding that the complaintant and the No on X attorney will be asking the FPPC for a full accounting of the investigation as well as its current status. After all they are entitled to it and did not receive it.
BTW any citizen can request the same of the FPPC.