Turlock Council to weigh competing Tin Cup ordinances

Turlock City Council members will consider dueling proposals to limit the influence of money in council politics at their meeting Tuesday. Charges of conflict of interest, raised during the farmers market controversy, brought the issue to the fore.

Up for discussion are three submissions. Two are similar, one by former mayor and council members Brad Bates, Mary Jackson and Ron Hillberg; the other, a 2014 proposal by Councilman Steven Nascimento. Both are listed as options for city staff to bring back for a vote.

Key points of those proposals were brought up at four City Council district meetings held earlier this month on the topic of Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics (Tin Cup) ordinances. The third, submitted by Mayor Gary Soiseth and Councilman Bill DeHart, did not get a hearing at the meetings, though it is the only version presented in finished form and could be adopted on Tuesday.

The Bates and Nascimento proposals, which were submitted but later withdrawn from active consideration, focus on restricting action by a sitting council member that might benefit contributors. They include money spent by groups outside the candidate’s control as able to disqualify him or her from voting, and put the city clerk in charge of enforcing the ordinance.

The Soiseth-DeHart ordinance seeks to limit campaign contributions in the first place and strengthen disclosure requirements. It bases enforcement on a voluntary code of ethics and campaign limits to be signed by candidates and leaves it to the city attorney to pursue civil fines against rule breakers.

State law already prohibits elected officials from voting on issues they might benefit from directly.

Individuals behind the two themes for reform stood on opposing sides of the city decision to put the downtown farmers market up for a bid, and echoes of that heated debate can be heard in the introduction of both recent measures.

Bates, Jackson and Hillberg say in a summation that their initiative “will put an end to appearances of favoritism to campaign contributors” that undermines trust in government.

In a letter with the resolution, Soiseth and DeHart say current laws are too vague, allowing critics to mount “highly coordinated attacks on the Council’s integrity.” They say their ordinance, which calls for disclosure of all contributors and a “Top 10” list of major donors, would be among the most stringent of any California city.

The farmers market debate started when Peter Cipponeri applied to hold a farmers market on Saturday mornings, the time and place of the longstanding market by a nonprofit community group. The council voted to create a bidding process to evaluate the two markets. In the end, the nonprofit withdrew its bid and moved its market to the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds. Cipponeri took the downtown slot. Both are Saturday mornings.

Throughout the often acrimonious process, backers of the nonprofit demanded Soiseth recuse himself because of contributions he received from Cipponeri and his extended family. All the council members had received some money from someone connected to Cipponeri, but Soiseth received more than the rest put together, a total of $12,000.

This story was originally published June 27, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Turlock Council to weigh competing Tin Cup ordinances."