(First posted at 3:22 PM on April 3,2010) On Saturday, April 03, 2010, Santa Clarita City Council candidates David Gauny and TinBen Boydston held a rather impromptu press conference in front of The Signal headquarters on Creekside Drive. The purpose of the press conference was to point out the blatant and potentially disingenuous way that the City Council incumbents are being supported by a Los Angeles based Political Action Committee (PAC) and the fact that the newspaper has refused to cover the story.

In fact, it was obvious to many that the local so-called newspaper of record has been sidestepping any story that could have a negative effect on the incumbents. The Signal appears to report biased versions favoring the incumbents only after it has been widely reported by the local electronic media. The candidates not only acknowledged this but thanked The Beacon and SCVTalk for getting both sides of the stories out to the public.

Both Gauny and Boyston want to see The Signal investigate and report on “Citizens for Integrity in Government 2010” which is based at 8687 Melrose Avenue, 7th Floor in Los Angeles and is the entity behind at least five mailers supporting the incumbents. They both pointed out that to date The Signal would not cover this story so they decided to hold the press conference in front of the papers aging headquarters to spotlight this fact and apply pressure to the newspaper to report actual news and not make up stories out of thin-air or base them on rumors.

Citizens for Integrity in Government 2010 a appears to be run by Armando Azarloza who also spearheaded the independent expenditures supporting the Laurie Ender in her run for the City Council. Mr. Azarloza is the former campaign manager for Councilman Frank Ferry.

In documents handed out by Boydston and Gauny at the press conference, which included the state Form 460 campaign disclosure statements, Citizens for Integrity in Government 2010 received a $20,000 contribution from Beverly Hills based G&L Realty. You may recall that G&L Realty is the developer involved with the commercial office space expansion at the site of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

On schedule D of the form, summary of expenditures, $13,133.91 of the $20,000 is being divided equally to support the incumbent candidates; Ferry, Weste and McLean. That breaks down to $4377.97 towards the re-election of each of the incumbents. Since the three are running as a block the entire $13,133.91 was spent on phone banks, polling and survey research, and campaign literature and mailings for all three incumbents together.

Now, the incumbents are not supposed to be aware of any of these independent expenditures nor who is funding, creating and mailing them. Yet it is clearly stated on the forms that Armando Azarloza, Councilman Frank Ferry’s former campaign manager, is running Citizens for Integrity in Government 2010. That would certainly appear to test the limits of City voters’ gullibility as to whether or not Ferry, at the very least, is aware of these activities.  

The question now is whether The Signal will cover this story and just how will they spin it in favor of the incumbents whom they support? We’ll have more on this in the coming days!!

The Following are bullet-points used at the press conference by David Gauny:

History of G&L Realty

• Four years exposing the facts of the G&L expansion plan at Henry Mayo’s campus
• Facts are this:
  • No commitment to build an expanded hospital
  • Closure of our TCU for Seniors
  • Delayed talk of a Regional Medical Center for a decade
• G&L –and their lobbyists— did a very good job of confusing these facts for our public: they called it a NIMBY issue.
• When this failed, they used a PAC –Cit for Integrity in Govt- to pump $29,500 to buy candidate Laurie Ender’s seat in our 2008 CC campaign.
  • Rub: Residents were unable to identify who funded her election because the CIG failed to file within the city as required by FPPC rules – this was illegal.
• FPPC rules state that pre-election filings from PACs must be made with local election office where the expenditure is made.
• In 2010, between 2/27 thru 3/27: G&L has contributed $20,000 to the incumbents.
  • Refused to file locally: TBB drove to Downey
  • They also claim that only 13K was spent:
    • Roughly 2,000 on polling and robo-calls
    • $12,000 spent on FIVE mailings
  • [SHOW MAIL] – This amount is highly questionable.
  • My belief is that you will see a MUCH higher spending amount – long AFTER this election – THIS IS WRONG!
• To put things in perspective, as a challenger, I raised roughly $8,000 in this reporting period through hard work and lots of small checks – nothing more than $360, lots were under $100
• To date, I’ve raised roughly $25,000 and put in $15,000 of my own money as a personal loan to my campaign.
• Yet the incumbents received $20,000 from one company that does not even reside in our city!
• A single company –G&L Realty- has now substantially bankrolled four of our five City Council members
  • Our public needs to know that this is happening
  • Our public needs to ask why they are hiding their reports from the legal requirement placed on ALL candidates
  • Our public needs to rid ourselves of incumbents –who are running as a voting bloc for the sole purpose of being financed by such an ourtside interest.
• Make no mistake: this is precisely how so many other cities have given way to LA’s urban sprawl: outside companies first buy the elections, then the vote and ultimately our future.
• Close: The only guaranteed benefit to our people in the city’s contract with G&L was a paltry $250,000 check toward a new Transitional Care Unit.  We all know this would by nothing.
• G&L could have used their $20,000 to help our seniors – instead they chose to buy our elections so they wouldn’t have to give anyone here another dime.
• If I am elected, I will fight to put every curb and every control in place to limit PAC contributions and to maximize transparency in our local elections
  • In my view, this is a virtual fraud on our electorate – it is a manipulation of the will of our people.