City lobbyists’ work reports fall years behind
By: Joshua Sabatini
Examiner Staff Writer
July 26, 2009
Lobbyists paid with San Francisco taxpayer money have failed since 2005 to report their activity to a city commission in an apparent violation of local open-government laws.
Any lobbyist who’s paid by The City to work on its behalf is required by city law to file a quarterly activity report with the Ethics Commission. Those reports should detail how many tax dollars they were paid, how much they billed San Francisco and any expenses they incurred, such as gifts, food, flowers or tickets to events. They are also required to list who their contacts were and what they were lobbying for.
An Examiner investigation into lobbyists’ spending led to the Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign and lobbyist regulations, and revealed that the law was being violated. After an inquiry from The Examiner, the commission discovered no reports were filed in 2008, 2007 and 2006. Just one report for one quarter was filed in 2005, and so far none was filed this year.
The failure of lobbyists to file with the commission is not because of a lack of business in trying to influence decision makers in Sacramento. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office alone reported that payments to lobbyists during the 2007-08 California legislative session were at least $472,728, according to financial records filed with the state. That’s up from the $388,252 spent during the 2005-06 legislative session.
When Garrett Chatfield, an investigator for the Ethics Commission who recently assumed the role of overseeing lobbyists, realized the violation, he immediately contacted the Mayor’s Office and other city departments, requesting a list of any lobbyists they have paid since the local reporting law approved by voters went into effect in 2000. Chatfield could not explain why it was violated.
“I can only fix it from this point,” he said.
Ethics Commission Director John St. Croix said, “We all dropped the ball on this.”
“It’s only my fault we didn’t go after it,” St. Croix said. “I don’t think there was an attempt to hide anything.”
And while the lobbyist activity was reported with the state, Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Chair Richard Knee said it does not change the issue.
“If they are supposed to file locally, they should file locally,” he said.
Knee said the failure is the fault of several people.
“There’s a responsibility that rests both with the Mayor’s Office and with the lobbyists themselves,” he said.
Lynn Suter, a lobbyist with a firm currently working on behalf of the mayor, had no idea there was such a local law.
“We never even knew about [the reports],” she said.
Newsom spokesman Joe Arellano said, “It was brought to our attention that The City’s lobbyists have not filed their quarterly reports. The City’s lobbyists have been made aware of this requirement and we expect them to file their reports in the very near future.”
jsabatini@sfexaminer.com
