The FPPC finally gets the truth out of Patrick Jones (satire).
The California Fair Political Practices Commission fined Shasta County District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones and campaign treasurer Lyndia Kent $10,000 for two violations of the Campaign Reform Act in a stipulation issued at the commission’s monthly meeting on Oct. 17.
The violations, involving sketchy recordkeeping and unlawful cash contributions, were committed during Jones’ failed campaign for the Assembly District 1 seat in the 2019 special election.
“When a stipulation is approved by the commission as one of our mainline items, the respondents have agreed to the settlement, and the commission has already received payments resulting from the penalties resulting from the stipulation,” explained Cole Smith, an executive researcher for the FPPC.
Cole added that the violations were discovered by a commission-initiated investigation, not a public complaint.
Under the Campaign Reform Act, cash donations of $100 or more are prohibited. According to the FPPC’s stipulation the regulation promotes transparency by ensuring that recipients and expenditures are “fully and truthfully disclosed in order that voters may be fully informed and improper practices may be prohibited.”
For example, if a candidate or committee holds a fundraising dinner and charges $50 per person, an attendee is not permitted to pay with a $100 bill. The payment must be made with a personal check, a debit card or a credit card. A surfeit of $100 bills in a campaign’s coffers can serve as a red flag for unlawful cash contributions, which appears to be the case with Jones’ 2019 AD-1 campaign.
The FPPC’s regulations for collecting donations are strict when it comes to recordkeeping. As donations rise, the commission requires progressively more information about donors.
All donations of $25 or less must be included in a continuous computation of campaign account balances reflecting dates and daily totals of the contributions. For contributions ranging more than $25 but less than $100, recipients must also record the full name, street address and total amount donated by the contributor. For contributions of $100 or more, recipients must also record the occupation and employer of the contributor.
According to the FPPC, the Patrick Jones 2019 for Assembly recipient committee reported raising $94,456 between June and October of 2019. Of that amount, $21,262 was cash, including 116 $100 bills totaling $11,600 and $9,662 in smaller bills. Yet the campaign’s records only accounted for $4,155 in cash contributions from approximately three dozen contributors.
“If these records are accurate, they account for approximately 19.5 percent of the cash that was received by the committee,” the FPPC stipulation states. “Respondents [Jones and Kent] did not keep a ledger identifying the dates, sources, amounts and occupation/employer information for the remaining 80.5 percent of the cash that was received, which included numerous $100 bills.”
With no records for more than 80 percent of the cash raised by the campaign, FPPC investigators pried the information out of Jones and Kent, according to the stipulation.
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- Campaign treasurer Lyndia Kent
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- Dist. 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones
Kent admitted receiving 25 $100 dollar donations in the form of envelopes filled with cash. She refunded each donor $1, reasoning wrongly that reducing the donations to $99 negated the necessity for recording donor names and addresses.
It doesn’t. As noted above, donor names and addresses must be provided for all contributions over $25. The lack of proper recordkeeping constituted count 1 against Jones, Kent and the Patrick Jones 2019 for Assembly campaign committee in the FPPC’s stipulation. The commission fined Jones and Kent the maximum $5000 for the infraction.
“Providing change in this manner does not allow respondents to accept these contributions,” the FPPC stated. “The denominations of the bills that were used to make these contributions are unknown. At most, these contributions could account for roughly 25 of the 116 $100 bills deposited by the committee.”
Using the campaign’s QuickBooks records, the FPPC identified eight individuals who had made donations of $100 or more, totaling $3,009. While the denominations of the bills are unknown, investigators estimated as many as 28 of the 116 $100 bills could be included in the total.
That left an estimated 63 $100 bills unaccounted for, which constitutes an unlawful cash contribution violation, the second count against Jones, Kent and the campaign. As with count 1, the FPPC fined Jones and Kent the maximum $5000 for the violation.
Why did the FPPC charge the maximum amount for both counts? Chalk it up to aggravating circumstances.
Even though the FPPC acknowledged Kent did not have “significant campaign reporting experience” at the time, it noted that numerous other violations were committed but not being charged. Instead, it presented the violations as aggravating circumstances to support the maximum penalty for the single recordkeeping charge.
The FPPC found that “at least some failure to keep required records was deliberate with respect to concealing the identities of contributors who wanted to remain anonymous.”
Patrick Jones has experience steering the ship of state.
For count 2, receiving unlawful cash contributions, the FPPC again turned to aggravating circumstances to justify the full $5000 penalty.
“It is unlawful to make or receive contributions of $100 or more—in the form of cash—because cash contributions leave no paper trail,” the FPPC states in the stipulation. “The public harm for this type of violation is very similar to what is described above for recordkeeping violations.”
When it came to the unlawful cash contribution charge, the FPPC put the onus on Jones. The former two-term Redding City Councilman should have known basic campaign finance regulations despite Kent’s relative inexperience.
“Although it appears Kent was inexperienced, Jones was an experienced candidate who had reason to be familiar with the [Political Reform] Act,” the FPPC stated. “He was responsible for selecting Kent to be his treasurer. The violations in this case appear to be closer to intentional than negligent.”
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At the October meeting of the FPPC Commission, Chief of Enforcement James Lindsay explained that he hadn’t charged Jones and Kent for numerous recordkeeping violations but included them as aggravating circumstances to justify the maximum $5000 fine for the two charges.
Commissioner Catherine Baker thanked the enforcement officer.
“It could have been considerably more, and I understand for the ones you are charging you’re putting it at the highest amount,” Baker said. “I agree with that and just wanted to say, again, when we see this aggregation of claims, it’s nice to know when it’s a count and when it’s not. I just want to thank you for recommending the penalty for the full amount.”
Jones and Kent did not respond to questions emailed from A News Café.
District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones
The $10,000 FPPC fine is a stinging rebuke to Jones, who’s still reeling from losing the District 4 seat to Matt Plummer in the March primary. After running roughshod over Shasta County for nearly four years, Jones is finally being held accountable, by voters last Spring and now by the FPPC.
Jones’ last day in office is Dec. 31, but the lame duck supervisor’s next day in court, specifically Shasta County Superior Court will be Dec. 5, if the civil trial over his proposed High Plains Shooting Sports Center stays on schedule.
On Aug. 22, Jones’ attorney Shon Northam filed an answer to the Millville Plains and Anderson residents seeking to require Jones to conduct a full environmental impact report on his massive 152-acre, 160 shooting positions gun range project. Northam asked Judge Benjamin Hanna to dismiss the case with prejudice.
Hanna’s decision was delayed, perhaps because the $435 check Northam wrote to cover the court fee for the answer was returned due to lack of funds on Aug. 29. Hanna has now denied Jones’ request to dismiss the case. The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Davis-based environmental attorney Donald Mooney, filed an opening brief in the case on Monday, Oct. 21.
Diagram of proposed High Plains Shooting Sports Center.
The gun range project was enabled by rezoning the 152-acre site 3 miles east of Palo Cedro from a Limited-Residential combined with Mobile Home and Building Site 40-Acre Minimum Lot Area (R-L-T-BA-40) zone district to a Commercial Recreation (C-R) zone district. The Shasta County Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors approved the zoning change last spring and generously provided Jones with a mitigated negative declaration, which allows Jones to build as long as he, say, avoids damaging the protected wetlands and endangered species on the property.
Thus Jones avoided conforming to the California Environmental Quality Act and spending the time and money a full EIR would require.
Shasta County is abusing its discretion, according to Mooney.
“The County’s approval of the Project, based on an MND instead of an EIR violates CEQA as substantial evidence supports a fair argument that the Project may have potentially significant impacts,” Mooney’s brief states. “CEQA requires full disclosure of a project’s significant environmental effects so that decision makers and the public are informed of consequences before a project is approved, to ensure that government officials are held accountable for these consequences.”
Jones’ project is ambitious, featuring long-rifle firing lines, handgun bays with berms to serve as 3 backstops, clay target trap and skeet shooting ranges, a 4,975-square-foot primary clubhouse with a 3,272-square-foot attached covered patio area, a 1,025-square-foot attached caretaker’s residence, and a 699-square-foot law enforcement clubhouse with a 270-square-foot attached covered patio.
If the project goes through, Jones plans to host competitive shooting events on the weekends, featuring 30 to 200 shooters at a dozen events and 500 or more shooters twice a year.
Not so fast, Mooney says.
“Petitioner respectfully requests that the Court grant the Petition for Writ of Mandate and issue a writ of mandate directing the County to vacate and rescind approval of the Mitigated Negative Declaration and the Project,” Mooney states.
Sure looks like outgoing Shasta County District Supervisor Patrick Jones is going to be busy this holiday season. His Dec. 5 court date is coming down fast.
