Santa Paula Officials Learn Price of Service

SANTA PAULA —  City Councilman Don Johnson says he has learned the price of public service.

It’s $53,304.39.

That’s how much the former mayor and publisher of the town’s newspaper may end up paying to resolve a lawsuit against him.

The suit accused Johnson of violating conflict-of-interest laws by publishing advertising and legal notices for the city of Santa Paula while sitting on the council.

In October, Johnson voluntarily returned $37,953.19 to the city for ads placed after he joined the council in 1994. But that settlement wasn’t enough to appease his accusers, who also want him to pay $6,898.20 in interest on the ad money and half of their $16,906 in legal bills incurred in the lawsuit.

In February, “Friends of Don and Debbie Johnson” began pitching in to help the couple recoup their losses. The campaign, which has received free ads in the Johnsons’ Santa Paula Times, has raised more than $12,000 from 200-plus donors, Debbie Johnson said.

“People we don’t even know walk in this door” with checks, she said, calling the contributions “heartwarming.”

Money aside, the Johnsons and their supporters say the larger issue is whether the publisher-cum-councilman’s predicament will deter others from running for public office. In a small town like Santa Paula, many businesspeople have dealings with the city. Excluding them from holding office would deprive the voters of the best representation possible, they say.

But Johnson’s critics say he invited his problems by taking the ads. They also question how the man whose twice-weekly newspaper covers Santa Paula and its government can sit on the city’s council and remain impartial.

Johnson could give up his $300-a-month council seat and the very next day resume taking city money for ads. But he said he’s sure his resignation is exactly what his opponents want.

“Giving in to this would have been giving in to negative forces, and I just didn’t want to do that,” Johnson said. His paper is losing $4,000 to $6,000 annually by not accepting the city’s advertising, but, he said, “it’s more important for me to set a course for the future of the city for the next 20 years.”

Law Prohibits Doing Business With City

Richard Francis, the Ventura attorney who handled the suit against Johnson, doesn’t have much pity for the councilman, his wife and what he calls their “oh-poor-me” ads soliciting contributions. He said Don Johnson knew that doing business with the city was illegal, and if he didn’t, any competent lawyer could have told him it was.

Specifically, Francis maintains, Johnson violated Government Code 1090, which prohibits politicians from profiting from city business.

“I don’t think anybody could reasonably read section 1090 and not understand,” Francis said. “It’s pretty simple.”

Johnson said he was repeatedly told by the city attorney and other legal advisors that he had no reason to worry, so long as he abstained when the council voted whether to pay his newspaper’s bills.

“I got bad advice,” he said.

Johnson predicts that because of his situation, fewer people in the farm town of 28,000 will step forward to run for office.

“You can’t even own a hardware store, because you might have to sell the nuts and bolts to the city somewhere,” Johnson said.

Francis and plaintiff John Stockdill are still pursuing a conflict-of-interest suit against current Santa Paula Mayor Jim Garfield, a real estate broker whom they accuse of profiting from council land-use decisions. That case is scheduled to go to trial in June.

In a county where most elected positions are part-time, officials often find that their day jobs prevent them from making certain decisions. Recently, Moorpark Councilwoman Debbie Teasley, a real estate broker, recused herself from votes on the Hidden Creek Ranch development. Francis, a former Ventura mayor, said he often abstained from votes on the city’s redevelopment area because he owned property there.

Kay Wilson-Bolton, a former Santa Paula councilwoman who is leading the “Friends of Don and Debbie Johnson” effort, said that if elected officials avoided every possible conflict, potential candidates from many professions--including her own, real estate--would be excluded from the council.

“There’s tremendous value that professionals bring, no matter what profession they’re in,” Wilson-Bolton said. “It’s just a tremendous pool of information, and to sacrifice that could mean an inferior end product.”

Conflict Prevents Use of Local Press

The sad lesson from Johnson’s situation, Wilson-Bolton said, is: “Do not even consider public service unless you’re willing to divest yourself of your livelihood.”

The city had advertised with Johnson’s Santa Paula Times since he and his wife, its advertising manager, started the paper in 1993. For more than a century before that, the Santa Paula Chronicle, which folded in 1992, had published the city’s advertising.

Both papers’ low advertising rates and their reach in the community made them the logical places for the city’s legal notices, help-wanted ads and other announcements, said Johnson, who was the Chronicle’s publisher before its closing.

“I never solicited the legal notices . . . or any advertising,” said Johnson, a 20-year Santa Paula resident. “The city just placed them.”

Now, because of Johnson’s potential conflict of interest, he cannot provide even free advertising to the city. Unable to use the smaller local paper, the city is paying several times more to advertise in other newspapers. Johnson’s paper is delivered free to 9,000 homes on Wednesdays, and to 2,000 paid subscribers on Fridays.

“I can’t help but think that losing the opportunity to use the local press is a hindrance in a variety of ways,” said City Administrator Peter Cosentini. “The Santa Paula Times has done a lot of things for us for free that have benefited the community, and it’s unfortunate that we have lost that opportunity.”

Neither Francis nor Stockdill has seen any evidence that Johnson solicited the city’s advertising or that his position as a councilman brought him any more advertising revenue than before he was sworn in. But, Francis said, “Conflicts of interest are conflicts of interest.”

Francis led the landmark campaign last fall for Ventura County’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources growth-control measures. Johnson, who opposed SOAR, paints Francis as a meddling outsider who tried to sell Santa Paula a growth-control measure it didn’t want. Francis and Stockdill’s lawsuit was only political retribution, he believes.

Francis said his lawsuit brought to light an illegal “feeding at the trough” that is common in small towns across the country.

“I think the rules are well founded,” he said. “They help protect the foundations of democracy, and I don’t think we should have exceptions because a town is so small.”

Councilman Says Post Is Justifiable

Defending the city of Santa Paula, Johnson and Garfield in the lawsuits has cost the city’s liability insurance almost $90,000. The bulk of the legal fees came after Johnson’s voluntary repayment to the city in October, after which Francis continued to push for payment of interest on the ad money and the plaintiff’s legal fees.

“[Francis] took money away from the city by continuing a lawsuit that wasn’t necessary,” Johnson said. “I think he did a terrible disservice to this community.”

Francis said he was forced to file suit after the city failed to respond to his initial alert before the City Council that Johnson was committing a “flagrant violation of the law.”

Stockdill, a retired Santa Paula High School teacher and coach, acknowledges that he is among those in town who would like to see Johnson and Garfield off the council. But, he said, suing the men was not a vendetta.

“We weren’t trying to hurt anybody,” Stockdill said. “We were just trying to make that point and prevent these people from continuing.”

Being a participant in politics and not just an observer or commentator is something those in journalism should avoid, said Bryce Nelson, a professor of journalism at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications and a former Los Angeles Times reporter.

“There might be cases where you could justify it, but I think the general rule should be that people who are involved in reporting the news or running news organizations and editorializing should refrain from direct political activity.”

Johnson maintains that his is one of those justifiable cases. All city government stories are written by reporter Peggy Kelly, who he said decides what issues she will cover and how she will cover them. Johnson said he only proofreads Kelly’s stories.

“She treats me like any other council person; if she wants a quote, she calls me,” he said.

The Santa Paula Times does not take editorial positions; instead it only publishes readers’ letters to the editor. On that page, Wilson-Bolton said, “Don has printed as many nasty letters about himself as have been submitted about anyone.”

“You would be hard-pressed to find anybody to say I have used this as a political tool,” Johnson said.