While campaigns for next month's Santa Fe municipal election so far have been low-key and relatively low-dollar, a city board impaneled to keep an eye on fundraising and spending has more power than ever.

But is it accomplishing anything?

A city Ethics and Campaign Review Board member and at least one city councilor say the panel doesn't closely scrutinize campaigns and hasn't been aggressive enough in dealing with problems uncovered from past elections.

"It's useless," said board member Fred Flatt, who has appeared at City Council meetings to rail over how the board carries out its mandate to keep local campaigns clean and transparent. But he's not convinced anyone is listening.

"Our board is not even reactive," he said during an interview this week, "and they don't want to know what is going on. When I try to get things looked at, they are not interested."

Most of his fellow board members disagree. Chairman Fred Rowe said Flatt has been a constant, sole voice of discontent.

"Disclosure is the mantra, the essence of holding free and fair elections," said Rowe, an attorney. "The board has been very effective because of the realization by candidates that there is now a monitoring mechanism in place."

The City Council created the board in the wake of anonymous, last-minute ads from a group identified as Grassroots Santa Fe that attacked incumbents just days before the 2004 election. The first election under board oversight came two years later, when four candidates ran for mayor in 2006 and four council seats were on the ballot.

The city hired the Barraclough and Associates firm to do an independent audit of campaign finance statements in the mayoral race, which broke city spending records. The audit raised a red flag concerning $11,000 deposited for losing candidate David Schutz after the election.

Additional information requested by the board revealed Schutz had raffled off an antique car before the election but didn't report the proceeds until later. Although the board subsequently found Schutz, a former city councilor, didn't follow disclosure rules, the board decided to treat the matter as educational and take no further action, Rowe said.

Schutz said in an interview this week that various campaign volunteers had sold tickets over several weeks before the election, and he reported the entire raffle proceeds on one day instead of noting each individual contribution.

He thought the board treated him fairly, he said, but he never got direction about how to report raffles in the future.

Flatt says post-election reports of campaign contributions is another matter that should be examined because the reports might include donations that people wanted to keep secret until after the election.

Mayor David Coss logged in excess of $9,000 from contributors more than a week after the voting stopped. In other races, one individual gave $4,500 to Coss and five council candidates the day before or on the day of the election.

Coss said this week that he reported the dates on which the donations came in. The mayor also said he finds Flatt's persistent implication of deceit regarding the issue "tiresome."

"Nobody cares about that election anymore," said Flatt. "But it's a way to create safeguards for the next one. It's too late for this one."

Rule changes

The board is not revisiting the last city election because the ordinance at the time didn't allow the board to take punitive action in the absence of a complaint filed by the public, according to Rowe.

"It was the first time around for the board and for the candidates, and it was a mutual learning experience," said Rowe, noting the board constitutionally can't act as a prosecutor, judge and jury to fine a candidate.

Few people from the community have lodged complaints, he said, and those were filed concerned campaign signs.

Last year, however, the council amended the rules so the city attorney has a role in investigating and bringing complaints to the board.

Board member Rebecca Frenkel said she hoped that change would allow for more scrutiny of campaign practices. "So far, there has not been anything," she said. "There are always rumors out there, but if nothing is formally brought to the board, then the board cannot act. ... It looks to me like so far things are going smoothly."

Frenkel said she recently asked the city attorney and the board about a possible investigation into accusations that District 3 Candidate Martin Lujan doesn't live in the district.

City Attorney Frank Katz said that issue isn't within the board's purview, so Frenkel dropped it, she said.

Jim Harrington, an attorney who works with Common Cause, a voter advocacy group, has attended most of the ethics' board meetings. Harrington said he also looked into whether some action should be taken to determine whether Lujan is violating any ethical rules by renting a house in the council district while also living with his wife and son in a house outside the city limits.

Common Cause decided against getting involved in the issue this late in the election cycle, president Steve Allen said Wednesday.

Harrington said the board was hampered during its review of the last election. At the time, he didn't want to file formal complaints because he was on the record as financially supporting some candidates.

This year, Harrington did not make contributions so he could file complaints without a conflict of interest if the same issues were to arise, he said.

"I know there is a view out there that (the board is) just a paper tiger and won't do anything," he said. "I don't share that view. I think the reason that happened last time is that they couldn't."

Councilors weigh in

Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger said she sees the board as a success and has not heard complaints about the process from anyone other than Flatt. At the inception of the board, which called for each councilor to appoint one member, Wurzburger said some people were concerned it would end up a "witch hunt."

"But as a candidate, I never felt that," she said. "You do realize there is a group out there whose responsibility is to make sure you are doing what you are doing, so that puts an additional pressure on you to do it."

Councilor Karen Heldmeyer, one of the councilors who the target of the 2004 attack ads, said she has serious concerns about whether the board is more lapdog than watchdog.

"We have not had something yet that has been as underhanded as that," she said of the anonymous ad campaign. "The reality is that board is pretty much taking what people tell them at face value."

Heldmeyer said one area that needs more oversight is reporting of in-kind donations such as food, meeting space, printed products or services. She said she agrees with a proposal from Councilor Chris Calvert that the board might look at products and events of a campaign compared to the reported expenditures to check for "big picture" discrepancies.

Heldmeyer, who is stepping down next month after eight years in office, said she hopes to see more aggressiveness from the board now that its powers have been clarified.

"This becomes all the more important if the city goes to publicly financed campaigns," she said, referring to a proposed city charter amendment on the March 4 ballot. "If this committee does not serve as a vigilant watchdog about what is really being spent and what is really being done, the question becomes: Is (public) campaign financing just going to hurt the people that are honest?"

The board's newest member, Patricio Larragoite, is optimistic the board will be more effective moving forward but he does not want to ignore the past.

"I do have some concerns with what happened last election, because history has a tendency of repeating itself," said Larragoite, who as a former county commissioner helped pass campaign spending limits in Santa Fe County that have since been overturned.

"We should go back and look at past indiscretions to send a strong message that no rock will be left unturned and everything will be done in the light of transparency," he said. "We are going to look at anything and everything."

One board position remains vacant because former Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina, appointed by Councilor Matthew Ortiz, recently resigned. Oritz said he's had trouble finding someone to serve as his appointment on the board because it has a reputation for minutia and some members who are "overzealous."

"These people are a bunch of people who are looking for conspiracies when there aren't any," said Ortiz, who is running unopposed for another four-year term.

The board has been effective in assisting with language in the city's election ethic's code, Ortiz said, but has made some demands that were not necessary, such as requiring the donor's occupation to be listed with their contributions.

"I think most candidates do follow the laws on the books," he said. "What more scrutiny can they have except for what the laws give them? What else is needed? Where is the palpable need that has been identified to do that?"

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.



IF YOU GO

• Who: City Ethics and Campaign Review Board
• What: Review of latest round of campaign-finance reports, due Feb. 26
• When: 4:15 p.m. Feb. 28
• Where: City Hall, 102 Lincoln Ave.

CITY CAMPAIGN REPORTS

To view campaign finance statements online, log on to www.santafenm.gov, click on "March 4 Municipal Election" on the left, then "Campaign Finance Statements."

Updated reports are due from candidates Tuesday, March 3 and March 18.

To file a complaint about campaign practices, submit a notarized letter with the city clerk. To report a campaign sign in an illegal location, call the city's political-sign hot line, 955-6324.

VOTING INFORMATION

To vote absentee in-person for the municipal election, visit the City Clerk's Office on the second floor of City Hall, 102 Lincoln Ave. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Absentee voting ends Friday. About 20 polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 4. Voter registration closed earlier this month.