The on-again off-again debate over establishing a campaign
ethics committee in San Benito County may be back on just one week
after the Board of Supervisors voted to scrap the idea that seemed
to be going nowhere.
Hollister – The on-again off-again debate over establishing a campaign ethics committee in San Benito County may be back on just one week after the Board of Supervisors voted to scrap the idea that seemed to be going nowhere.
At a board meeting Tuesday morning, the supervisors asked staff to schedule additional discussion about the committee on the agenda for their June 7 meeting. The board discussed reviving the committee after Hollister resident Paul Grannis told the board he was disappointed in their decision to kill the committee last week and warned the action would be a “dead weight on their shoulders come election time.” During the impromptu discussion, Supervisors Anthony Botelho and Don Marcus admitted they were not entirely happy with the decision to end the committee permanently.
“I wasn’t really satisfied with the conclusion I came to last week,” said Supervisor Don Marcus, who was one of the four votes to scrap the committee last week. Still, he said, he maintains his position because he’s worried a board-established committee could create further bureaucracy.
“The only way I’ll support this is if the government remains at arm’s length,” Marcus said.
Supervisor Anthony Botelho agreed, saying he’d rather see organizations such as the Farm Bureau, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Vision San Benito collaborate to put together an ethics committee. Still, he said, while ethics should obviously be a priority in San Benito County, “We have some other priorities right now that we need to look at” such as finding and hiring a new County Administrative Officer and a permanent County Counsel.
“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” Grannis said after the meeting. “We’ll just have to see how serious they are as time goes on; not just the board but other groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and LULAC, if they’re interested. We’re (San Benito County) getting a bad name and we don’t look good, and the community’s getting tired of it.”
Supervisor Pat Loe, the only board member to vote against killing the committee discussions last week, reminded her fellow supervisors she still believed it was “very important” to get plans back on track.
“I think it’s a good idea that we look at it again and take the proper time to study it,” Loe said after yesterday’s meeting. “I really do think that it would be a great benefit to the community.”
Originally proposed in August 2004, the idea of creating a local campaign ethics committee has been sporadically discussed by the board ever since. The committee was intended to serve as an outlet for voters to air concerns about candidates campaigning on false information. The idea originally surfaced just a few months after then-Supervisor-elect Jaime De La Cruz beat incumbent Bob Cruz for the District 5 supervisor seat by 10 votes amid suspicion of election fraud.
But last week, the board voted 4-1 to kill the committee, saying the county has already devoted too much time and too many resources to an idea that seemed to be going nowhere. Putting the issue on the June agenda did not require a vote.
“We need to abandon this effort because we’re just going to incur financial problems, and I think we could spend our time on something else,” Botelho told the board last week before its decision.
While no financial costs have been associated with the formation of a committee yet, Deputy County Counsel Darren Bogie has told the board it could cost about the same as forming a criminal grand jury.
“(Those costs) are minimal, but they’re still costs,” Board Chairman Reb Monaco noted last week.
The ethics committee will come back for board discussion on June 7.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
