Warning from FPPC to RSM City Councilwoman Gamble

To briefly summarize, Councilwoman Carol Gambles campaign finance disclosure form 460 in 2017, she had an item listed to reimburse herself over $3000 for travel, lodging and expense, I detailed it in this article. I sent her an email in April 2018 asking for details, this was my 2nd email topic to her of the year, she ignored it and my two follow-ups over the next 2 months. In late August 2018, I told her I’d be filing an FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) complaint, and she ignored that as well, so about a month later I filed the complaint. Carol’s response to the FPPC mostly consisted of talking about how I am a two time failed city council candidate, but the FPPC didn’t find that to be a valid reason for the problems with her 460 form and opened an investigation and yesterday I received the results of that investigation.

The entire letter from the FPPC is detailed below, it is worth reading her initial response however to have context, essentially this is what happened. Carol used her campaign finance money to pay for her Lincoln Club membership and attend their week-long “Legislative Briefing” conference in Washington DC. This is apparently a valid use of campaign funds, although if I had donated money to a campaign I think I’d be upset that the money was used like this, in any case, this is what the problem was. Carol paid for everything with a personal credit card and then just reimbursed herself in one lump sum and didn’t itemize it. You are supposed to itemize anything over $100, which is what I was asking her for originally, and if she hadn’t been so arrogant and complacent, she could have done it right originally or responded to my request, but she ended up getting a warning from the FPPC, which easily could have turned into a $5,000 fine if she hadn’t corrected the problem very quickly. She had to spend however much money on the Sutton Law Firm, which had to be somewhere between $400 and $1000 an hour.

This continues to underscore the arrogance of many of those in power, they start to think they are public MASTERS and not public SERVANTS. If Carol had just remembered that she serves the residents and doesn’t rule the residents, then she could have avoided all this trouble. Somehow I doubt I’ll be getting a thank you from her for helping her straighten out her 460 forms though.