Submitted by Marv Heinze
On August 15th, our City Council approved the first reading of updates to Municipal Code Chapter 1.84 to update our City Campaign Regulations. I believe the Council’s changes will uphold and improve on the three policy goals which I think are important to our local elections.
Our local Coronado campaign regulation should:
- Maximize transparency. Everyone in Coronado should be able to easily see who is contributing to a campaign. Online posting of the state forms or electronic online filing will be a big step in expanding accessibility from the two paper copies currently available at city hall and the library.
- Maximize public participation. Make it easy for our citizens to support the candidate of their choice, while maintaining state required contributor records and disclosures. The addition of credit cards as a legal payment method is a good step in moving into modern funding methods. It will allow greater participation and will be a good change as long as the implementation rules ensure that each transaction will document the name of the person who is making the contribution so that citizens will be able to see who is funding our campaigns.
- Minimize the cost for a citizen to run for public office. Maintaining the $200 contribution limit will help minimize the cost of participating in a Coronado campaign. We need to keep our election costs as low as possible to encourage non-politicians to run for office in our community.
Although I had trouble understanding each council members vision during the discussion, the policy guidance council is providing with these changes will help establish a vision of future campaigns that is good for Coronado. As was evident by the public comment, there are widely differing opinions in our community, so it is most important that this ordinance be updated and implemented soonest to establish improved rules before candidates start fundraising for the next election.
Marv Heinze
