No decision on Mansoor conflict

Deirdre Newman

Without deciding whether Councilman Allan Mansoor violated the city’s

conflict of interest code, the acting city attorney said Monday that

similar actions would constitute a conflict in the future.

One tenet of the city’s conflict of interest law characterizes as

a conflict any campaign contribution of $250 or more during the year

before a council decision involving the contributor. Mansoor

appointed Joel Faris as his planning commissioner on Feb. 18, after

Faris had contributed more than $250 to Mansoor’s 2002 election

campaign.

Acting City Atty. Tom Wood said his office does not make rulings

on past decisions that may have involved a conflict of interest. Only

a judge could make that decision, if someone files a court challenge

alleging a conflict of interest against Mansoor. So Faris’

appointment will stand unless a judge nullifies it.

Wood said he really couldn’t predict how a judge would react to

the case, but is satisfied that his report lays out guidelines for

the future.

“It’s helping set forth a test used for future decisions,” Wood

said. “I put enough in there for people to make their own decision if

it meets the test or not.”

Wood released his opinion to the council on Friday and to the

public on Monday.

His opinion states that it would be a conflict of interest for a

council member to appoint a contributor to a city commission or a

mayorship if “it is reasonably foreseeable that the

appointment/election would affect the commissioner, mayor or mayor

pro tempore by at least a penny.”

Planning commissioners get a stipend of $75 per meeting, which

comes out to at least $150 a month.

The decision did not sit well with former mayor Sandra Genis, who

wrote the part of the conflict of interest law in question, because

she doesn’t think Mansoor is being held accountable.

“I really don’t think it was the case where he was intending to

[violate the law], but I find it extremely disturbing that after it

was pointed out, he keeps trying to [avoid it] and doesn’t want to be

accountable for his actions,” Genis said. “If he had come forward and

said, ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, but I

don’t know how to undo it,’ people would probably have said, ‘Just

don’t do it again,’ and you kind of acknowledge that there was an

error and you move forward.”

Genis added that she’s not sure if she will file a court

challenge, but will ask the council to look into the matter.

“The written response speaks for itself,” Mansoor said in response

to Wood’s opinion.

Faris contributed $100 on three separate occasions to Mansoor’s

council campaign.

In February, Mansoor appointed Faris to the Planning Commission.

Based on a new process that hasn’t received its final approval, Faris

serves at the will of Mansoor, who can remove Faris from the

commission at any time.

Despite Wood’s conclusion, he said there was some uncertainty if

this particular case violated state law based on whether the

financial effect on Faris is direct or indirect and whether or not

“salary” is considered an effect.

“The city attorney’s office has insufficient information to make

the final analysis of whether there is any reasonable foreseeable

financial impact from salary or another source. This determination

would best be made by [Mansoor] and the contributor,” Woods’ report

states.

Faris said he did not intentionally break any law.

“I know personally I didn’t intend to do anything wrong,” Faris

said. “They make laws for good reasons, but I don’t think we

intentionally broke any laws.”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].