Page One

While the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce is raking in thousands of dollars to battle for candidates and oppose ballot measures, there’s no record on file anywhere to show who’s giving or getting the money—and there probably won’t be until right before or after the Nov. 7 election. 

Meanwhile, the likely targets and beneficiaries of the chamber’s largess have all filed extensive statements tracking every dollar they’ve raised and spent. 

Why the disparity? The simple reason is that the chamber is raising its funds through a PAC, a Political Action Committee, which has yet to make any endorsements—even though its parent, the chamber, has already taken stands on local candidates and ballot measures. 

“It’s outrageous. The citizens of Berkeley have a right to know” said former mayor Shirley Dean. “It appears that someone is trying to hide something.” 

The Chamber of Commerce’s political campaign financing arm is not likely violating city election laws, although it has in the past.  

But ambiguities and differences in two regulatory regimes—the city and county—may have reduced any potential infraction to a violation of the spirit rather than letter. 

The PAC—Business for Better Government (BBG)—held a $250-a-head fundraiser Sept. 21, attended by 37 or so chamber members and invitees to an event described in the invitation as “one of the most important fundraising events for the future of Berkeley.” 

Mayor Tom Bates and two City Council candidates attended at least part of the meeting—Raudel Wilson, who is opposing incumbent Dona Spring, and George Beier, who is challenging incumbent Kriss Worthington. 

In part, discussion focused on how much of the funds raised were to be used to oppose Measure J, the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance initiative, according to event organizer Jonathan DeYoe and others. DeYoe is listed in the Chamber’s fall newsletter as the incoming Chairman of its Governmental Affairs Committee, and organized the event for BBG. 

It took place at 720 Channing Way, property owned by Michael Golden, an outspoken foe of Measure J, the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance initiative opposed by Mayor Bates. 

While DeYoe, a self-employed wealth management consultant, said BBG hadn’t decided on candidates or measures it would support, the chamber itself has already come out in opposition to Measure J and in support of Bates, Wilson, Beier and Gordon Wozniak for the mayoralty and city council. 

“We’re opposing Measure J,” confirmed chamber President Roland Peterson.  

One of those in attendance for the September event was Oakland Attorney Rena Rickles, a land use attorney frequently hired by developers working on projects in Berkeley. Rickles said she contributed because she opposes Measure J. “It’s a good government question,” said Rickles, whose daughter runs the Beier and Wozniak campaigns. 

Rickles said she didn’t know what comments were made about council race endorsements because “as soon as they started talking about the council races, I went out of the room.” 

Bates, the leading opponent of Measure J, said he attended to support the fight against the measure. If they talked about candidates, Bates said, it wasn’t in his presence. “It would have been inappropriate to be there,” he said. 

Wilson said he attended the event briefly, but during that time they were not discussing candidates, he said. The mayor confirmed Beier’s presence. Beier did not return Daily Planet calls. 

Miriam Ng, the realtor who chairs the Business for Better Government PAC, said she couldn’t comment about the event because she’d been out of the country at the time. She said the members of the PAC get together to decide which candidates or measures they will fund. 

Know nothings? 

But by not stating who it plans to support, the chamber’s PAC appears to have skirted the city’s campaign reporting requirements, which are more focused on donations to candidates and issues rather than on PACs. 

One thing is certain: BBG filed no campaign report with City Clerk Sherry M. Kelly by Oct. 5, by which time Measure J. Proponents had filed two detailed reports listing all of their contributors and expenditures. 

Nor has BBG filed any reports with the city since 2002. Instead, the reports the group filed were lodged with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. The reason? “We may want to support assembly candidates,” said DeYoe.  

Lowell Finley, a Berkeley attorney who specializes in campaign finance, said it is appropriate for the PAC to file in Alameda County if BBG does, in fact, fund measures or candidates outside the city. But if it funds only city measures, it should register in Berkeley, he said. 

DeYoe, whose name appears on the invitation of the event, said he didn’t know which candidates or ballot measures the group might support, nor who runs BBG. 

“I’m sure I know all of them, but I don’t know who is on the board,” he said. 

The chamber itself issued endorsements earlier this week, and those originated in the Government Affairs Committee which DeYoe chairs. 

Asked if BBG had ever supported anyone the chamber hadn’t, DeYoe responded, “I don’t know.” 

DeYoe also said he didn’t know anything about the filing requirements, beyond his understanding that BBG had made the appropriate filings. He referred the Daily Planet to Stacy Owens, the PAC’s accountant. 

“My understanding is that there are appropriate windows in which activity reports are filed, but I don’t know what those windows are,” he said. “But the requirements are there for a reason, and we believe in” following the requirements. “We’re following the requirements as they are set up.” 

But a search for who has to file what, where and when can resemble a stroll through a convoluted wilderness of legislative and regulatory mirrors. 

Different rules require different filings with different agencies. 

Anyone can walk into the Berkeley City Clerk’s office or sign onto the clerk’s website to see who is funding Measure J and where the campaign is spending its money. 

But the Measure J opposition is shrouded in mystery. That’s because BBG has been filing with Alameda County, rather than with the city. Under the county’s looser requirements, BBG doesn’t have to disclose the money it takes in until it spends it—even though it has been raising big bucks for the defeat of Measure J. 

In races for city offices and for city ballot measures “if an organization is a committee and is raising money and making expenditures of more than $500, they are obligated to make a disclosure,” said Deputy City Attorney Kristy van Herick, who serves as secretary to the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission (FCPC). 

But the county requirements set the trigger at $1,000, twice the city level. 

DeYoe and PAC accountant Stacy Owens said they would file candidate and ballot measure expenditures of more than $500 on Oct. 26 with Alameda County and with Berkeley. They file regular twice-yearly reports with the county if no expenditures on candidates or committees are made. 

Their latest county semi-annual report listed an $800 in-kind contribution by Owens, the value of accounting services donated to the PAC. No similar filing was made with the city. 

One question still to be answered is the cost of the September event. 

DeYoe said he didn’t know how much the fundraiser had cost, but the invitations were printed in color—a not inexpensive process, though BBG cut their costs by using a non-union printer, evidenced by the lack of a union bug on the invitation, normally considered a faux pas in Bay Area politics. 

Campaigns typically list donated space as an in-kind contribution, and the invitation also announced that cocktails and light refreshments were served, another potentially significant expense. 

When to report?  

One issue further complicating reporting requirements in the Berkeley code is that BERA doesn’t apply the same standards to PACs as to candidate and initiative committees. 

Under BERA, rigorous reporting requirements kick in only when a PAC gives to a candidate or a ballot measure committee, and not when the committee takes in money. 

In the Nov. 7, 2000, general election, BBG clearly ran afoul of BERA. 

Meeting on Nov. 16, 2000, the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission heard from staff that BBG had breached regulations twice in that year’s elections, failing to meet deadlines of Oct. 5 and Oct. 26 in an election when BBG had already made donations during the reporting period. 

The required documents were eventually submitted Nov. 3, four days before the election, though the commission had sent a mailing to all committees reminding them of their filing obligations, according to the minutes of the FCPC’s Nov. 16, 2000 meeting. 

Rachel Rupert, then as now BBG’s legal agent, appeared at a Dec. 14 FCPC meeting, saying she hadn’t realized the group had to file pre-election campaign disclosure statements. 

In the 2002 election—the last recorded BBG filing with the city—the group did file on time, recording an $8,500 contribution to Coalition for a Livable Berkeley, the group that led the successful fight to defeat Measure P, which would have limited building heights outside the core downtown. 

That donation was recorded on Oct. 24, the day after the coalition logged the donation on its books, as required by city statute, but the organization made no filings disclosing the source of the contributions. 

No donations were reported to the city during the 2004 election cycle. 

According to records on file with the California Secretary of State, BBG filed its incorporation papers on Jan. 19, 1998 with offices at 1834 University Ave.—the chamber’s address.