I’ve previously posted on this site about the endorsements that have been made in legislative races by current City Managers. It is my belief that it violates the spirit of the code of ethics of the International City Managers Association.
Certainly city managers are individuals with first amendment rights like anyone else. However, most reasonable local government types would conclude that a truly professional city manager would want to avoid directly being involved with political campaigns for candidates in their jurisdiction.
So what about a City Attorney? I think most people would also conclude that a City Attorney would not want to be making contributions to candidates or independent expenditures that would shape the elected body that they serve as legal counsel.
As the hit pieces keep coming in the Victorville City Council race I started to get curious about the Committee Against Corruption. They have been attacking candidate Ryan McEachron, the top challenger to the three incumbents up for re-election on Tuesday.
So after doing a little digging on line I found that one of the contributors to the Committee Against Corruption was Neighborhood Preservation Coalition.
Who are they?
Well on October 17th this group gave $3,000 checks to the campaign committees for incumbent Victorville City Councilmembers Rudy Cabrielas, Bob Hunter, and Mike Rothschild.
It is pretty easy to find on the Secretary of State’s website.
Amazing to me as a local elected official and attorney is that two days prior to that the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition got a $9,000 check from Green, Debortnowsky, and Quintanilla.
Why is that interesting? Because they are the firm that provides City Attorney services to the City of Victorville. Andre De Bortnowsky is the City Attorney of record in Victorville. Steven Quintanilla is the Deputy City Attorney.
Some strange things go on in politics. San Bernardino County is the place where they seem to happen more than any other.
When the City Attorney is making campaign contributions that practically go directly to the incumbents on the City Council I have seen it all. It is wrong for so many different reasons that Jon would not give me the space to write it all out.
Pathetic. Pathetic on behalf of the law firm for doing this. Worse on the three incumbents for accepting the money. Another black eye for San Bernardino County.
This is the kind of thing that cost Republicans control of Congress two years ago and should cost these three incumbents their job on the Victorville City Council
For disclosure — I am a consultant on the Ryan McEachron for Victorville City Council campaign.