Gonzalez's campaign team agrees to $3,300 fine

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Officials with Matt Gonzalez’s 2003 campaign for mayor agreed to pay a $3,300 settlement in the wake of a finding that the former Board of Supervisors president failed to provide required donor information for 234 financial contributions during his race.

In a stipulation order dated July 9, The City’s Ethics Commission staff noted that, while there was no evidence to suggest that any of the violations were committed intentionally or with the intent to deceive or defraud the public, complete donor information for contributions totaling $36,860 was not disclosed on finance disclosure statements for the Gonzalez campaign.

“The failure to obtain complete contributor information, while representing only 8 percent of the [campaign’s] 2,837 contributions, is significant, because it deprived the public of full disclosure as to the sources of contributions to the committee,” the Ethics Commission report noted.

During the Ethics Commission investigation, officials with the Gonzalez campaign provided answers regarding the missing contributor information for all but 14 of the donors, the report also noted.

Of the 234 contributions lacking complete information, six were lacking the name of the donor, and campaign officials told the Ethics Commission that these were credit card contributions made via PayPal, which refused to release the names due to privacy concerns.

Of the remaining 228 contributors, campaign officials were able to provide the missing information — either a street address instead of a post office box or missing information regarding the contributors’ occupation or employer — for 220 of them.

The other contributions for which information remained incomplete were all instances in which the contributor listed a post office box and campaign officials said they were unable to subsequently reach the donors.

Gonzalez, a Green Party member who garnered 47 percent of the vote in a runoff election against then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom in 2003, has told political allies that he has not ruled out a second run for The City’s top office. On Monday, Gonzalez referred questions about the Ethics Commission ruling to his campaign treasurers, lawyers Randall Knox and Enrique Pearce.

“We did feel it’s important to address whenever there was even an appearance that information was not provided to its fullest,” Pearce said.

beslinger@examiner.com

Advertisement