Urge Escondido to restrict campaign $$ from developers and those with financial interests

Escondido will be considering some significant changes in its election rules at the Oct 21, 2020 meeting (item 10, pg 302-3060).  Sierra Club supports staff recommendation for the reduction in campaign contributions–even though they are still quite high compared to other areas.

But, the staff is not recommending restrictions, such as San Marcos has, that would limit campaign contributions to persons and entities with a financial interest in front of the city Council within a year of that decision.

Please take action now. Submit a comment to support restrictions for campaign donations from developers and other entities with financial interests  File your comment here

We strongly support campaign dollar and time limitations for persons with decisions in front of the City Council. San Marcos has a working policy (Section2.16.070) that can be used as a model. As our city moves in a more positive and visionary direction, our decisions must be as ‘clean’ as possible, meaning the public needs to have confidence in them. This will come with strict limitations on financial beneficiaries of these decisions and not allow undue influence.

We have an excellent current example of how this policy would benefit our decision-making. The excessive donations by Safari Highlands LLC to candidates in the up-coming election should trouble everyone.  In a fair and trustworthy democracy, representatives should be required to refuse donations that could, in reality or appearance, seem to compromise or direct their actions, or recuse themselves.

We have previously raised our concern over candidates Joe Garcia, Mike Morasco, Tina Ostrem Inscoe who have received $4,300 each in campaign donations from Solana Beach-based Safari Highlands LLC (proposers of Harvest Hills).  This is a disastrous project for our region and, should these candidates serve on the Planning Commission or the city council, they will be, in our view, compromised.

Please submit a comment to support limitation on entities with financial interests such as has been adopted by the City of San Marcos. File your comment here

Previous posts on this topic  https://sierraclubncg.org/sierra-club-calls-on-escondido-candidates-to-return-developer-money-dont-be-bought/ 

http://sierraclubncg.org/ncg-campaign-election-reform-letter-filed-calls-out-donations-from-harvest-hills-developers/