Published on: Thursday, February 02, 2012

By Helen Hocknell

ROCKVILLE - “Transparency” and “disclosure” were the buzzwords at the Rockville election wrap-up meeting on Saturday. 
The Board of Supervisors of Elections met with candidates, citizens and councilmembers to go over the turbulent 2011 election and discuss proposed changes to the city election laws.
“It's time for major review of Chapter 8 of the Rockville City Code," said Dave Celeste, chair of the Board of Supervisors of Elections. “We had a number of things come up this election cycle that code doesn’t really address directly, so this was essentially a brainstorming session. We weren’t going to solve any of these problems today, but we had a great discussion, and heard from a lot of different points of view. This was just the beginning of a very long process.”
Topics receiving the most attention included campaign finance report submission deadlines, campaign donation limits for individuals and corporations, the definition of in-kind contributions, procedures for removing a candidate from the ballot once they’ve withdrawn from the race, and fixing the “LLC loophole.” Councilmembers Mark Pierzchala, Bridget Newton, John Hall, and Tom Moore; Rockville citizens and activists; former councilmember and 2011 mayoral candidate Piotr Gajewski, and several other candidates from the 2011 election attended the meeting. 

Former councilmember Anne Robbins characterized the 2011 election as “very negative and very different” from previous elections, a sentiment echoed by many Rockville residents. “There were accusations all over the place – we’ve never seen that kind of thing before,” said Robbins, who served on the council from 1999 to 2009.
Campaign finances were a source of controversy throughout the fall, and Gajewski faced sharp criticism from some voters for accepting donations from local real estate developer sources. In October, city activist Drew Powell filed multiple allegations of campaign finance violations against former councilmember and mayoral challenger Piotr Gajewski, who lost to incumbent Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio. The Board of Supervisors of Elections voted unanimously to clear Gajewski of one violation pertaining to the market value of his campaign headquarters, but has yet to resolve another regarding the sources of two $600 in-kind contributions for his office rent. 
“We’ve never had quite that number of complaints before,” said Celeste. The number of allegations has prompted many to ask whether it’s time to review the current limits on donations and the rules regarding financial disclosure by candidates.
Councilmember Tom Moore said it is important that spouses of candidates, who are exempt from the $1,000 donation limit, be required to disclose financial information to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. 

Drew Powell said he is most concerned about the “LLC loophole.” Currently, individuals and corporations are permitted to donate up to $1,000 to any one candidate, so a business owner could contribute as both an individual and from their company. Powell said it gets tricky when it comes to a Limited Liability Corporation, because theoretically, an individual could set up a number of LLCs and donate the max from each. He says the solution is simple:
“Election law needs to follow tax law. If an LLC is 80 percent or more owned by parent company, they’re bundled together and taxed as one entity. So if an LLC is a ‘paper company,’ it shouldn’t be considered a separate entity for donations. One individual with small collection of LLCs could have large impact on an election because four or five thousand dollars gets you one heck of a mailing.”
But not everyone feels the same urgency about the issue. “When it comes to financing campaigns, there’s no question that it takes money to communicate to an electorate. But money only buys the marketing – I raised the most of anybody and I lost. If you’re a lousy candidate, you’re still not going to win. At the end of the day, the voters are the ones pulling the lever.”
Gajewski said he felt that, overall, it was a tremendously well-run election. “The result was what it should have been. We need to be vigilant, but I would caution against spending too much of our resources trying to fix something that’s not broken,” said Gajewski.

Gajewski said he felt that, overall, it was a tremendously well-run election. “The result was what it should have been. We need to be vigilant, but I would caution against spending too much of our resources trying to fix something that’s not broken,” said Gajewski.
 “I’m tired of hearing that nothing ever happens in Rockville,” said Ginsberg, “This is a wake-up call that things can happen that the code doesn’t address. We can’t keep our head in the sand like an ostrich. The code needs to be updated to reflect what’s happening in the world.”
Anne Robbins said that she was surprised by the number of large donations from companies outside the city. “Back when I was running a decade ago, $25 and $50 were common size contributions, just small amounts from so-called ‘regular people’ who were city residents,” said Robbins. She said it would be wise to revisit the limits, but that it was a “tricky issue.”
 “If you make it too restrictive, only people who can self-finance can afford to run,” said Christine Ginsberg, president of the Twinbrook Citizens Association. “I think the campaign limits are fine the way they are, but if we’re going to fiddle with them, the safeguard for the citizens is disclosure disclosure disclosure.” 
To that end, Powell also suggested moving up the deadline for submitting campaign finance reports to allow the print media more time to analyze the data prior to publication deadlines. For the 2011 election, the pre-election campaign fund report was due the Thursday before the Tuesday election for the period through Oct. 30. 
 “Where is the money coming from? This is an important part of a voter’s ability to make an informed decision about the candidates,” said Powell, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2007 and served as executive director of the now-defunct political action committee Neighbors for a Better Montgomery. “Most citizens aren’t going to go on the Rockville website to view the reports and research everything – it’s the media’s responsibility to do that kind of analysis before an election. The downside is that you’d be truncating the data, but that’s the cost of increasing general transparency.” 
Celeste said the Board would be meeting again to go over the ideas proposed in the wrap-up meeting to determine which would require legislative action and at some point present its recommendations to the Rockville Mayor and Council.
“Rockville is growing up,” said Celeste. “It has changed and expanded. It’s not the same city it was 30 or 40 years ago, so we need to take a look at the code to see what things need to be addressed.”