County records reveal a candidate did not vote in the Measure M election, and several did not vote in the school parcel tax election.
By Jonathan Friedman/Staff Writer
According to the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office, City Council candidate Jay Liebig did not vote in the November Measure M election. When asked about this, Liebig said it was not true, and that he voted with an absentee ballot. Marcia Ventura, a media relations officer from the registrar’s office, said Liebig requested an absentee ballot. She said it was sent to him, and he never returned it. Liebig said he and his wife were in Europe at the time of the election. He said they made sure to return the absentee ballots.
Liebig has made Measure M, the failed Malibu Bay Co. Development Agreement, one of the central issues of his campaign.
“I voted against Measure M, and I think very little of a politician in the city of Malibu who was in favor of it,” Liebig said at the Feb. 4 candidate’s forum.
Also, it was revealed that Pamela Conley Ulich and Bill Winokur did not vote last June in the school parcel tax election. Conley Ulich said she does not remember if she voted. Winokur admits he did not. “I was not super duper involved politically prior to last summer,” he said. “I woke up.” Both candidates have said they are supporters of education. If the parcel tax had not been approved, the school district would have had to go through with drastic cuts, including the laying off of nearly 100 teachers. Also, the registrar’s office did not have Liebig recorded as voting on the school parcel tax measure.
The registrar’s office records are not immune to flaw. They originally stated that another candidate did not vote in the Measure M election. However, after that candidate and Liebig said they had voted, The Malibu Times requested the office to look further into it. The research revealed that, according to the office’s records, the other candidate had in fact voted, while Liebig had not.
Also this week, Liebig failed to turn in his first financial statement that covers expenditures and money raised through Feb. 28 by the March 4 deadline. Winokur also did not meet the deadline. Liebig said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he would get the information to the city’s clerk’s office later that day. He also said he had some questions about the form, and thought he would have been able to meet the deadline. Liebig said he has raised $825 and spent $75. Winokur said his assistant had been out last week when the form was due. He said he had lost the form, and had requested a new one. He did not know at the time that he could have downloaded one from the city’s Web site. Winokur also said he would have his form in before the end of the day on Tuesday. He said he has raised $2,025 and spent none of it, but he has used $2,950 of his own money for his campaign.
Of those who turned their statements in on time, Mayor Ken Kearsley has raised the most money, at $23,441. That includes a loan of $10,000 he made to the campaign. Kearsley also has $78 leftover from his 2000 campaign. Kearsley has spent $19,279. Councilmember Jeff Jennings has raised $8,863 and spent $2,424. He also had $183 left over from his 2000 campaign. Walt Keller has raised $4,910 and spent $1,404. He had an additional $1,943 from his 2000 campaign. Political newcomer Conley Ulich has raised $2,675, and loaned herself $235. She has spent $1,250. Among the contributors to her campaign are Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Barovsky and Kearsley. The two councilmembers said that does not mean they have endorsed Conley Ulich’s campaign. They said they believed she needed the money.
Also this week, it was revealed that Liebig did not sign a form called “Code of Fair Campaign Practices.” The form is on two sides of a sheet of paper that includes a pledge that the candidate will campaign openly and publicly, and will not defame other people’s character or conduct a whisper campaign. All other candidates signed it when they turned in their papers to make their candidacy official.
Liebig said he did not sign it because when he asked if he had to do it, the city clerk said he did not. “Without really knowing what it was, I decided not to sign it,” he said. “I don’t recall the context. It seemed like a strange document.”
In other campaign news, ethics consultant Xandra Kayden released a statement that it appears Malibu Community Action Network activist Ozzie Silna is working as an agent for Liebig and Winokur’s campaigns. She wrote this is because Silna picked up the candidate papers on Liebig’s behalf in January and that Silna represented Winokur at a candidates’ informational session.
“Under these circumstances, the FPPC [Fair Political Practices Commission] may presume that any expenditures of Mr. Silna are made at the behest of these candidates,” she wrote. “Assuming that Mr. Silna has not made any other campaign contributions to these candidates, any cost beyond $100 would be in excess of the city’s $100 maximum campaign contribution.”
Silna said he only picked up the papers for Liebig and attended the informational sessions in case any documents were distributed that Winokur might want. But he said he did not work as an agent for either of them.
“Not only do I disagree with her [Kayden], my attorney disagrees with her,” Silna said. “For anybody to make those kinds of accusations is totally unethical.”