Who's Counting?
City Council candidates say they agree with financial disclosure laws

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City Council candidates are facing financial disclosure laws for the first time this year.

While most of the candidates agree with the ends, they're finding the means a little cumbersome. Some think the new city ordinance just needs some tweeking; others would rather do away with it altogether.

All six candidates except Cecil Garcia, who, upset with the recent coverage he's received in this paper, declined comment said they appreciate at least one of the ordinance's main objectives: to let the public know how much the candidates are spending on their campaigns.

"The citizens have a right to know how much a candidate is spending to get into office," said Councilman Bill Nechero, who's running to hold on to his northside seat for a second term. "If they're spending more on their campaign than they would make in the seat, you might question their motives for running."

Denise Gallegos, who, along with Garcia, is challenging Nechero for his seat, agreed.

"It's a neat thing to see what people are spending, who they're getting money from and what they're spending it on," she said.

Funding sources
The other candidates don't all agree with her on the second point, however, the part about knowing who the candidates are getting their money from.

That's odd, since it was one of the reasons Mayor Bob Rosebrough proposed the ordinance back in November, the same ordinance Butler and Nechero voted for. Armijo missed that meeting.

When Rosebrough ran his successful and very well funded campaign for mayor in 2003, he came under some fire for accepting donations from groups suspected of trying to buy themselves some political capital in City Hall. Rosebrough has rejected the charges, and no wrong-doing was ever proven. But being the target of those charges, the mayor said, did encourage him to make financial disclosure mandatory in future elections.

Although the new ordinance allows candidates to conceal the source of any contributions less than $100, it requires them to deposit all their contributions into a bank account designated specifically for their campaigns. They also have to deduct all their campaign-related expenses from the same account, which the city may access at any time. While it helps the city and, in turn, the public detect any suspicious discrepancies between what the candidates spend on their campaigns and what they're receiving in contributions, the accounts also provide a record of where the contributions are coming from, so long as they're $100 or more.

"It stinks," said southside Councilman and candidate Pat Butler of the requirement to identify campaign contributors.

Butler says he believes in the need for accountability, but thinks Gallup is too small to model its financial disclosure ordinance after Albuquerque's, which City Attorney George Kozeliski used as a guide.

Raising the bar for anonymous contributions to $250, he said, would still expose the influence of special interest groups, but admits those groups will probably find their way around the ordinance no matter where the city might try to cut them off.

Contribution conflicts
But the problem with exposing the identity of contributor, he insisted, whoever they are, is its tendency to pit individuals against one another when they begin to question why someone decided to contribute to one candidate and not the other.

Nechero says he's also heard donors complain about being exposed, and would at least consider raising the bar on anonymous contributions.

"People are reluctant to have their names in the paper," he said.

Despite the hardships, Butler and Nechero say they're running all their contributions and spending through a designated account. Garcia wouldn't comment for this article, and Gallegos hasn't received or spent enough money to fall under the ordinance's strictures.

Eastside Councilwoman Mary Ann Armijo, who's running against Butler for the southside seat, said she's deposited all the contributions she's received into her designated account as well, except for the money she's spent out of her own pocket. A candidate's personal funds are considered contributions under the ordinance, however, and Armijo said she'll report them on the final financial statement they have to file, which will come after Tuesday's election.

Mendoza's line
Harry Mendoza, Butler's other opponent for the southside seat, thinks even less of the new ordinance than the others.

"I don't think we really need it," he said, and called the need to run all campaign contributions and spending through a single bank account "ridiculous."

It's so cumbersome, Mendoza said, that he hasn't even bothered using the account on occasion, simply cashing some of the donated checks instead.

While circumventing that part of the ordinance, Mendoza hasn't been shy about naming all his contributors, even the one's who have given less than $100.

A good number of Mendoza's contributions have come from businesses or established business owners, and he's counting on the ordinance to spread the news.

"I think people will say, "Look at all these businesses donating to this candidate," and what will it do to the other candidates? I think it will demoralize them," he said. "I hope so, anyway."

For those keeping track, by the way, Mendoza has easily outspend all the other candidates in either race. Based on the latest financial statements the candidates filed Wednesday, he's received $6,850 in contributions and spent $6,948. That's nearly twice what his opponents for the southside seat, Armijo and Butler, have spent combines.

Like Armijo, he's quick to insist that none of the money he's been donated was solicited. Mendoza added that he's turned down as many contributions as he's received because he didn't need any more.

If the city does stick with a financial disclosure ordinance, though, he'd rather make it look more like the one candidates running in state-level elections follow, which he says doesn't require the exclusive use of a designated account.

Penalties
But since there are rules, there are also penalties.

By the city's own admission, however, those penalties aren't much. At the same time that the Council did away with the city attorney's initial suggestion to impose contribution and spending limits, it removed a section from the draft that would have made violators liable for a $500 fine, per violation, the most state statutes allow. Anyone found to violate the ordinance could still, however, be in for a public reprimand.

Rosebrough, who suggested removing the fines, believes the ordinance to be more of a tool for the media than for the city.

"The effectiveness of this ordinance is in the power of the press rather than the city giving fines," he said in November.

Capped at $500, past elections elsewhere have proven the fines a poor deterrent to breaking the rules anyway, Kozeliski added.

Any candidate who makes it into office, can still be removed by two-thirds of the Council if it decides he or she broke the rules to get there. The ordinance does not spell out precisely what sort of indiscretions would justify such measures, however, and Rosebrough says they'd have to be rather severe.

"It would have to be a gross violations that is not corrected after a candidate is given an opportunity to make a correction," he said, if the candidate fails to account for spending far more money than he or she put in, for example.

For all the spending that's going on, however, it may not be enough to guarantee any of the candidates an outright victory Tuesday, especially in the southside race. If none of the candidates win 40 percent of the total votes in either race, there will be a runoff in 30 days between the top two vote-getters. And with more campaigning comes more campaign spending.