Barney Brantingham's On The Beat column at the Independent is covering Good Gov't $$$ this week. Here is the excerpt:
Good Gov’t $$$: In this era of corruption, it is indeed heartening to find evidence of business investing in good government. If not for their passion for civic betterment, why else would developer Mike Towbes and the Keston family donate dollars to Goleta City Council candidates? Towbes, wife Anne Smith, and Towbes’s VP Craig Zimmerman and his wife Amy Zimmerman kicked in a total of $11,400 to Michael Bennett, Eric Onnen, and Roger Aceves, who ended up ousting the slow-growth incumbents. Bennett, Onnen, and Aceves also received $16,646 from Michael Keston, who, according to Independent reporter Martha Sadler, has been trying to develop the sprawling Bishop Ranch for years. In all, the three challengers got $120,000 from developers with both projects and lawsuits pending before the City Council. Much of this came in the last two weeks of the campaign in the form of donations between $900 and $999, just under the $1,000 reporting requirement and allowing the donations to be hidden until — guess when? — after election day. But heck, it’s all in the interest of good government.
For Barney's Complete Column, Click Here.
Who will be the first on the Goleta City Council to come forward with a full list of the campaign donations they received, including the donations under the $1,000 reporting requirement? Shouldn't there be a full-disclosure law about this?
