Video [Remix]: HMB City Council considers campaign finance

The Half Moon Bay city council is considering changes to its campaign finance ordinance.

The changes are pretty small.  Mainly, businesses owned by a single individual will be able to donate up to an aggregated total of $500 (instead of $500 per business) in addition to a personal limit of $250.  This puts some limits on individuals who own businesses, but it still means that they can contribute three times as much as an individual who does not own a business. In 2005, several city council candidates benefited from this loophole.

The size of the limits is still under discussion. Some city council members have said that there should be no limit on individual contributions, or that the limit should be as high as $1,000. But no one has declared themselves strongly for a particular individual spending limit.

Now that Coastsider is taping city council meetings and breaking the recordings out by agenda item, it’s much easier follow a story as it develops in the city council. This is our first remix, showing two meetings’ worth of discussion on campaign finance. The descriptions below are the ones that originally appeared on each item when we first published them.

• October 17: Discussion of campaign finance limits, including higher limits on contributions and consolidating personal and business contributions.  This discussion was very interesting and worth watching. [ Quicktime | WMP ]
• November 7: Discussion of proposed revision to campaign financing ordinance. The council is considering aggregating contributions for all the companies a person owns, and limiting that number to twice the limit for individuals. Discussion was continued until the first meeting of December, but the council seems to want to finish this project this year. [QuickTime | WMP]

The public discussion is informative as well, including comments from 2005 candidate George Muteff, and former CCWD board member Jim Marsh, who operates MCTV’s camera at city council meetings.