Ellis charges Greenlight leader OK’d city grant

June Casagrande

Breaking his silence to go on the offensive, campaign consultant Dave

Ellis has accused Greenlight leader Phil Arst of a convenient change

of heart about a 2001 city grant for airport education.

Arst has led the charge against Ellis for working on the campaigns

of council members who had approved the grant that would ultimately

benefit Ellis’ firm.

Just this week, Arst and Greenlight leaders launched a sweeping

new campaign reform initiative to regulate city elections that they

hope would bar such practices.

But documents disclosed to the Daily Pilot by Ellis show that

Arst, who has criticized city officials for agreeing to give Ellis

the grant money without publicly announcing their ties to him, had

originally approved of the spending plan that would pay Ellis’ firm

more than $300,000 for consulting and media services.

“My point is that Phil using this grant to further his Greenlight

cause is disingenuous because Phil was part and parcel of this

grant,” Ellis said in a phone interview.

Ellis also noted that, though his firm received about $458,000 of

the grant, the portion actually paid to his firm was $320,000,

because the remainder was used to pay subcontractors such as TV

commercial production companies and literature printers.

Arst defended his position, saying that his support of the

spending plan in 2001 is not inconsistent with his current position

that Ellis had an appearance of a conflict of interest with the city.

In May 2001, the Airport Working Group Executive Committee

approved a proposed spending plan for the $3.6-million grant. At the

time, the committee included Arst and working group vice president

Richard Taylor, who is now a Greenlight steering committee member.

The spending plan called for $10,000-a-month fees for Ellis’ firm

over 13 months, plus $32,400 over the 13 months for labor costs and

$19,928 to pay interns.

The spending plan also included a pre-approved 18% commission for

Ellis’ firm on expenditures for TV production and air time, a fiscal

analysis for the proposed Great Park plan, direct mail and other

services.

“I am fiercely protective and loyal to AWG,” Ellis wrote in a fax

he sent a Pilot reporter. “I take great offense at the suggestion --

perpetuated by your newspaper [the Daily Pilot] -- that the grants or

any fees I received was some sort of payback by city councilmen that

I have worked to elect.”

He also noted that the grant went through extensive legal review

and public processes before the City Council voted in 2001 to award

it.

Arst said that is not the point.

“Our issue is not that [the grant] was payback,” Arst said. “We

say that the city council members who having voted to give him the

money should have announced their hiring of Ellis as a campaign

consultant. ... There’s definitely an appearance of a conflict of

interest in how they did things.”

Last week, the City Council held a study session on how to help

avert improper campaigning in local elections. Prompted by Greenlight

Councilman John Heffernan, they considered, among other measures,

requiring disclosure of relationships such as the one Ellis had with

council members whose campaigns he worked on.

That idea was shot down by other council members. That’s when Arst

and Greenlight decided to launch their own campaign reform

initiative.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

[email protected].