Former Alhambra Councilman Luis Ayala (Photos – cannadems.org, Frank Qiu).
Public records show that in Nov. 2018, because of the statute of limitations, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) declined to consider administrative action against recently termed-out Alhambra Councilman, Luis Ayala, for potentially violating the Political Reform Act.
By Sean McMorris
The FPPC opened an investigation in March 2017 into whether Ayala’s campaign committee for city council violated the reporting requirements of the Political Reform Act. The investigation was prompted by an anonymous complaint, obtained by Colorado Boulevard.net, that alleges Ayala’s campaign incorrectly reported over $100,000 in campaign funds.
The bulk of the donations in question appear to have come from Ayala’s abbreviated 2012 run for State Assembly. Ayala dropped out of the State Assembly race with $102,681 left in his campaign account. Ayala could have donated the funds to charity or returned the money to donors, but he chose instead to transfer the money into his city council campaign account. The complaint alleges that rather than reporting those funds as transferred from another campaign account, Ayala and his campaign treasurer, David Gould, improperly reported the funds as “unitemized monetary donations.”
The complaint contends that this reporting error was deceptive and made the funds harder to track because donor information like name, address, and occupation for unitemized monetary contributions, which are less than $100, is not reportable. The complaint states:
This is troubling for several reasons. First, reporting over $100,000 in transferred funds from another campaign as unitemized contributions leads people to believe that Councilman Ayala raised a tremendous amount of money in small donations. Second, and more importantly, it prevents the public from tracking the source of Councilman Ayala’s campaign cash.
The complaint goes on to allege 11 other instances from 2006-2009 where Ayala violated reporting requirements under the Political Reform Act. Those allegations were likely not considered given the 5 year statute of limitations for violations of the Political Reform Act.
Nonetheless, the FPPC was concerned about something since they notified Ayala and his campaign treasurer in 2017 that they had initiated an investigation based on the allegations in the complaint.
It appears that the statute of limitations had not yet been reached for the alleged misreporting of $102,681 in funds that were transferred from Ayala’s assembly campaign account to his city council campaign account. According to the complaint, that transfer took place during filing period 07/01/2012 – 12/31/2012. Since the investigation was initiated in March 2017, the FPPC would have had about 8 months before the statute of limitations was reached. However, the law requires that administrative action brought against a violator of the Political Reform Act must commence before the statute of limitations is reached. It appears that because the FPPC did not conclude its investigation before Jan. 2018, the statute of limitations prevented further investigation and any enforcement action that may have come as a result of the investigation.
Had the FPPC determined that Ayala improperly reported over $100,000 in campaign funds before the statute of limitations was reached, the fine would likely have been hefty since the misreported amount was so large.
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