Potential boost for local candidates Potential boost for local candidates (June 24, 2005)

City may pay some campaign costs, but with conditions

By Jon Wiener

An infusion of public money into Mountain View City Council elections could make sure the record prices candidates paid for their ballot statements last year become a thing of the past.

The council procedures committee backed a campaign finance reform package Tuesday that includes a bonus of more than $2,000 toward the cost of the ballot statements for candidates who abide by the city's voluntary spending limit.

"This is the one thing everyone reads," said committee chair Greg Perry.

Perry tried and failed to get the council to pay for the statements at the start of last year's campaign (he was not running), when the county registrar announced the fee would nearly quadruple from $581 to $2,140.

The increase was due to the cost of translating the ballots into five different languages -- English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Tagalog.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend that the council approve the measure, which would charge candidates $500 to print their statements and pay for the rest with city funds. To be eligible for the funds, candidates would have to pledge to abide by a voluntary spending limit -- last year it was $16,882.

If candidates violate that limit, they would be forced to pay the city back an amount based on how much they went over. This would be the first tangible incentive or penalty associated with the spending limit. As with most of the city campaign finance rules, the spending limit's influence has depended entirely on candidates' desire for positive newspaper coverage.

At one point during the meeting, committee members discussed moving a filing deadline so that documents would be available to the Voice for the paper's pre-election issue.

"We're going to have to have some real, enforceable penalties," said Perry.

At the same time, the committee also recommended doubling the length of the ballot statements to 400 words, a move that could drive the cost of the ballot statement to more than $3,600, according to the staff report. Mayor Matt Neely expressed hope that a longer statement "would elevate the level of discourse."

First-year city council member Laura Macias and several prospective candidates lined the walls of the city clerk's meeting room Tuesday to watch as Pear, Neely and council member Mike Kasperzak deliberated over a host of reforms aimed at keeping the city's elections relatively low-budget affairs.

Committee members struggled to balance concerns about making campaign rules too complicated with the goal of preventing political parties, developers and labor unions from being able to dictate future elections in Mountain View.

In addition to the ballot fee, the recommended reforms included a provision that would force outside groups to report their expenditures to the city and another that would make it harder for winning candidates to pocket campaign contributions after the election.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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