Travis Kiger is pictured here accepting $100 from a Chevron land development project manager not long before voting to give Measure W, which would open West Coyote Hills to development by Chervon, the ballot title of the “Sweetness, Light, Prosperity, Patriotism, and Anti-Evil Communism Act of 2012” in this artist’s fevered, doctored, and false depiction of events. Oh — that’s not the real ballot title, either, but the rest is true and it still sucks.
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[DISCLOSURE– I work for a major competitor to Chevron and I own Chevron stock. I do not stand to gain financially from either outcome of measure W and my statements do not represent the opinion of my employer and shall be considered wholly my own.]
Everyone has seen Chevron’s most recent ad kick right? Here’s their newest one I stole from someone’s drafting board.
Politicans’ political contributions shouldn’t have the appearance of impropriety.
<<STAMP>> — We don’t agree.
I guess they’re beginning a new campaign. I don’t think it’ll be as well received . . . maybe more so if they have cool blue shirts and free burgers. We’ll see.
So the first round of contribution disclosures came due last week, and guess what? Councilman Kiger took $100 from a Chevron land development project manager.
What was that vote on the questionably legal and unquestionably unethical ballot re-naming on West Coyote Hills again?
Oh, right– a vote to slant measure W in a very lopsided way towards Chevron.
You can view Mr. Kigers latest 460 form here. See page 5 for the donation in question.
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Now, to be fair, this is really more of a “yellow” flag vs. a “red” one. The contribution is for a whopping $100 and the job title of the contributor is front and center– so it’s not like I had to do any real investigative reporting to post this to a blog. It doesn’t appear that anyone is attempting to hide anything, so we’ll call it a venial sin.
That said, the wholly ethical thing to do would have been to decline the contribution, particularly for this election cycle. The not so wholly ethical option would be to post it on traviskiger.com with a brief explanation for when the contribution came in (pre or post vote), how many conversations Mr. Kiger has had with Mr. Developer, what the conversation included– and why this isn’t a violation of any laws or practical ethical standards.
I’d say this is the bare minimum required to not get me all fired up in a . . . let’s call it “Diamondeque” fashion, but Fullerton voters have a right to know why Mr. Transparency himself took the cash. As many commenters over at FFFF would state, it’s not necessarily impropriety (or nepotism or whatever their beef of the day is) that’s of concern, it’s the appearance of impropriety that matters.
Well, let’s see if we get demands, a free pass, or just apathy. I’m betting apathy (due to the venial nature), but maybe I’m wrong and we’ll get some quality discussion on campaign fundraising ethics.
Speaking of– I sure do see plenty of corporate donations on the first round (all candidates, not necessarily Mr. Kiger.) Two notables so far– one from CARE ambulance and another from a local towing company. These actually require a bit of research, so maybe we’ll have a little more for you next week.
So you are like a liberal hedge fund manager of some sorts? You work for a different company but you own stock in Chevron? What kind of a no life, parasitic, capitalistic Douche Bag are you? Follow the money Douche Bag, but try to act non-complicit at the same time! You should try sticking some real Diamonds up your ass and be a little more like Greg instead of keeping those rotting marshmallows up your behind that obviously have been infecting your pathetic hormone levels.
He’s not a liberal, 2xI, he’s one of our reasonable conservatives over here. Do you even know Ryan?
Dude, you’re gonna have to bring it down to my level if you want to insult me. All I’m getting out of this is that you think I have some sort of infection from a marshmallow fetish– which while intriguing, I do not.
That said, thank you for the comment.
Or was he talking to Travis? I couldnt tell. Let us know if you want us to delete all this when you wake up, double eye.
Note for future reference: don’t admit that it was intriguing!
Ryan. and I’m not trying to be sarcastic, I sometimes need a little more explanation – are you saying Travis is accepting money from Chevron as a sort of “incentive” for him to vote for that prop W? and that Travis is gladly taking it from them?
No, if that were the case, $100 clearly wouldn’t be sufficient. The facts don’t add up to that . . . and if they do, it’d be so sad as to not be worthy of criticism.
It’s more of a nod to FFFF commenters who get really up in arms any time there’s any appearance of an ethical code being broken by a public official. This kind of furor isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but given the vitriol– it’s a standard that ought to be applied to friend and foe alike. <– That's my point.
I'm happy to give you the Cliff Notes version of Measure W, which is a post I'm working on this evening. For now, the short version is that Chevron wants extraordinary property rights granted to them, something that's well above and beyond what you or I would receive for our own parcels. In exchange, they're offering what they're already legally obligated to provide to the city under state and federal law (e.g., education funding, public safety funding, library funding, etc.) So, Chevron gets a few million and the taxpayer gets squat.
It's no so much that they demand special treatment . . . it's that they're audaciously lying or telling half truths about the benefits they claim the electorate will receive. They don't need special help with erroneous ballot titles, they don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on direct mailers and signage, and they don't need to make up bogus facts to sell their plan.
They need to tell the truth and they need to not give money to local officials. Just my two cents.
Oh, could you give the 12th grade version of neasure W too? I don’t live in Fullerton but sure would like to know about this, Thanks
*Taking money from Big Oil is an honor…..those guys are really cheap and only support the candidates they think are going to win. He probably should have held
out for Exxon-Mobil……hee…hee.
Cheveron has been and remains one of the most powerful voices in development in the past 25 years in North OC.
I have two words: La Floresta.
Although I dont have a problem with developing 750 homes, as Chevron has owned this land since 1913 when develpment of homes really wasnt needed,
here is an old 1989 commericial from Chevron-to me, it sounds a bit two faced from them. The “we care about people” message sort of is a direct conflict on them wanting to develop
PS-I don’t really see a problem with Travis accepting $100 for his campaign from anyone, including Chevron…it probably looks bad but money is money, and anyone who knows Travis knows he wouldnt be swayed by $100 or any amount to vote a specific way but thats the problem, not everyone knows him.
http://youtu.be/bReBO55XzZc
The point seemed to be that at a minimum it created the appearance of impropriety, coming as it did in close proximity to a City Council vote to call the substantial reduction of “nature reserve” a proposal to “build a nature reserve.” I don’t think that Ryan is saying that Travis said “pay up or I vote the other way!”, although the idea of tough Travis shaking down poor Chervron is sort of fun to imagine.
Greg, I don’t think Ryan is saying that either, but what I do believe is,after reading this story a few times, is that it looks like he trying to vilify Travis and accuse him of taking a bribe from Chevron regarding this measure W issue, but if I’m wrong I’d like Ryan to answer that, since he wrote the piece. I’m just saying.
Ah, then I wrote it correctly! (Well, that’s a stretch. I’ll settle for I didn’t completely screw it up.)
There’s certainly no accusation here, particularly of something so severe as a bribe. (One, I don’t think he’s that stupid. Two, bribes don’t exactly fit into this politik. Three, if he were that stupid and bribes did fit into his political toolbox, I don’t think he’d take $100 bucks and list it on a 460 filing.) If I’m accusing anyone of anything, it’d be some commenters over at FFFF of being wild hypocrites . . . but that’s another discussion.
The bigger question is what do we expect of our local elected officials? It sounds like you’re willing to tolerate Mr. Kiger accepting $100 from an individual that had a potential direct and material benefit from a vote that Mr. Kiger cast.
How does this differ from Ms. Flory accepting money from the FPOA? They have a similar financial stake. How about Ms. Fitzgerald and CARE Ambulance? When it comes time to discuss that contract, what will her position be?
If we want transparency and accountability from our local officials, we owe them a consistent and clear expectation. I posted what my expectations are with this donation in the post (return it or explain it.) What are yours?
*What is funny about all money from Special Interest is …..you may never know why they are giving the money to who! In some cases, it is just the lesser of two evils. In some cases it is a direct buy off….not usually for $100 dollars mind you. In some cases it is to disgrace the candidate to a certain constituency. It is up to the candidate to be careful. There was a case not so long ago when the Log Cabin Republicans gave some candidate money with the express intent to take away their very Conservative base.
Hey…”it’s complicated!”
Thanks Ryan, I get your point now. It does look hypocitical to accept money from Chevron if he were against it, but I don’t think he is and that’s no big surprise or at least it shouldnt be to anyone.
Yes, of course I want tranparency/accontability from elected officials, I wouldn’t be an effective activist for taxpayers if I didn’t want that, however IMO, it’s very valuable and important to me to get both sides of a story before making a decision olr jumping in someones grill, on anything, separate from having your own opinion (A tool to making a good/fair post)
Looking into this Coyote Hills issue more, myself, it looks like (per the on hold lawsuit) that certain portions of the hills are up for development and others aren’t, it also seems they went from wanting to develop over 1500 homes to 760.