City’s Website in Violation of California Campaign Law
Failure to Post All Bauters Campaign Documents
Election campaign forms for Emeryville City Council candidates are supposed to be kept on file for public viewing but campaign documents regarding former Council candidate John Bauters are entirely missing from the City’s website, a violation of state law. The City is required to make all of these documents available to the public on its website but Emeryville is in violation because at least two are not viewable at all the Tattler has learned.
The FPPC Forms 460s, filed with the state of California as well as the City, detail how much money a candidate has received and from whom. As it stands now, Mr Bauters’ campaign for re-election for City Council, abandoned by him last summer, is missing half of his required documents. An attempt to download the missing documents at the City’s website is stopped and the site brings up a notice that the connection is not secure when an attempt is made. Other documents are working, just not two of the Forms 460s.
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| From the City of Emeryville's website: Half of Bauter's Forms 460 are not viewable on the site: a violation of state law. |
The Tattler alerted the City of the problem via email but the City Clerk, April Richardson, said she never received the email. A check of her email address revealed it was correct. After giving up getting the documents from the City’s website or through email, ultimately, the Tattler conducted an official Public Records Request for the missing public documents, a request the state grants a municipality ten days for compliance.
Hearing about the document disclosure problem in person, Ms Richardson volunteered that the Tattler should not try to get any information from the City of Emeryville via email in the future, an interesting if unusual request. After 15 years of information gathering from City Hall, this is the first time a department head has told the Tattler to not use email.
Mr Bauters abandoned his run for Council in favor of a run for Alameda County D5 Supervisor, a race he lost last November. Bauters is currently not in elective public office.
The City Council majority has stated that it is very important that the public be able to view every candidate for Council’s Forms 460s so it is assumed this problem will be fixed soon.
The Tattler will report on how this violation gets fixed. Stay tuned.
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| A click on Mr Bauters' Forms 460 is disallowed and this warning comes up. |
Sounds rather fishy.
ReplyDeleteBecause the city's website won't let us see some campaign documents doesn't mean they are trying to hide them. It's probably just a glitch.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bauters is a private citizen now. Focus attentions on current public elected officials violating finance laws.
ReplyDeleteWhere are the Form 460, Kalimah Priforce, who is currently in office and is delinquent for non filling? He has not filed any during the period of the November 2024 general election and he has used campaign funds for mailers and flyers.
Council member Priforce's delinquency with his FPPC filings were covered by the November 27th Tattler story. As reported, Mr Priforce is late (on his April-June 460) and he reports his accountant is working on it. He is "working with" the FPPC and not in any trouble with them as of today. And to your first point: knowledge of history is imperative for any democratic body politic. The people need to know what happened in the (recent) past so they can make informed votes and to inform them in their engagement with their government.
DeleteBecause Mr Bauters was such an influential leader of Emeryville, expect more stories on him and his polity in the future just like how Council member Nora Davis still gets coverage. If you don't want to read about Mr Bauters (or Ms Davis), I suggest you skip those stories.
a Councilmember half way through his 4 year term still hasn’t worked out his outstanding and current and 2024 finances? Is this what you are admitting for Priforce? The FPPC will have a field day knowing Priforce’s accountant and Priforce still is working out 2024 funds he was using from April 2024-Dec 2024 that he didn’t file and was using for Mia and Calvin and his non-ballot mayoral campaign.
DeleteWorking with the FPPC for the 2022 open case doesn’t prevent Priforce for being up to date on Nov 2024 election period’s filings. You know this. The deadlines are very clear. Priforce’s excuse is flimsy. Stop defending his campaign finance fraud.
DeleteI don’t defend Mr Priforce’s FPPC late filings, I report it. If you have evidence of fraud as you hint you might have, please send it to me and if it checks out, I will report it. That goes for all of them.
DeleteBesides Council member Priforce, here are the known Council members that have been late with their FPPC filings over the last decade: Ally Medina, Christian Patz, Gary Caffey, Dick Kassis, and Ken Bukowski. There were more before them. Late filing with the FPPC is quite common for Council members in Emeryville and beyond. I didn’t report on most of these violations because they weren’t newsworthy. I did report on the Priforce late filings because his colleagues censured and sanctioned him for it. That action has turned this former common peccadillo into a much bigger deal and I will therefore report all Council members who violate this in the future. I will also report on Council members like Courtney Welch and others who violate the Code of Ethics in large ways and small in the future for the same reason. The new ‘zero tolerance’ policy at City Hall should make for lots of interesting reporting. The Tattler is made for just this kind of thing.
RE: the 7:27 comment- I’m not “admitting” anything. This is what Council member Priforce reports. If the FPPC has a “field day”, then the Tattler will report that. If you have any tips about this or any other newsworthy subject, please send them to me. The Tattler will investigate and if there’s anything of substance, anything that holds up to scrutiny, will be reported on. I will even post claims of impropriety, without direct evidence, as long as the claims come from at least two independent sources that are in a position to know. Mr Priforce is only late on one filing: the April -June. He is current on the filing after that.
DeleteWhat kind of accountant is still working on finances for two years that cause Priforce to be still be late on reporting finances? Priforce was late the entire 2023-2024 until Reddit, not the Tattler, called him out on it and he coughed up a late filing to cover multiple years before becoming late again. All very sus. Either the accountant is a fraud or Priforce isn’t letting on something. No competent accountant or transparent elected official operates on such a continued sus pattern.
ReplyDeleteAnd why did Priforce lose access to his finances in the first place in 2022? He said it was his ex partner’s fault. Convenient. So is he still not having access years later? Is this ex partner taking off with Priforce’s campaign finances?
Who knows. His ex partner locked his access.
Then his accountant is taking two years to still sort it out?
All so convenient.
Who’s this accountant Priforce has hired? Time for Eville Eye and FPPC to contact the accountant to get the true story.
I’ll tell you again: If you have evidence of fraud, send me what you have and it if checks out, the Tattler will report. You can do an investigation yourself alternatively and submit a ‘Letter to the Tattler’ story and as long as you observe the journalistic principles we need to see, your story will be posted. You will have to provide your real name and if you use sources without direct evidence, you’ll have to provide at least two people who provide their names and they must be in positions to know. I will allow them to use ‘anonymous’ for purposes of the story but I will need to vet them so I will need their names and interview them. Get in touch with me if this is what you want to do. If you want Rob to do the story, that’s good as well. Good luck.
DeleteThanks for all your reporting, Brian. Just to clarify, when filing a PRA, the government agency has 10 days to inform the requestor if it has any responsive records. This does not mean that it has to provide those records within 10 days. Once the office informs the requester that it has responsive records, there is no statute stating when those documents need to be provided by, which is very unfortunate and frustrating if you're a reporter.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Last time I did a public records request, I had to hire an attorney and the EPD took eight months to get me the documents. Read about it here: https://emeryvilletattler.blogspot.com/2024/09/tattler-forced-to-lawyer-up-to-get.html
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