Advertiser sheds light on "anonymous donations" by Steve Kidd - Penticton Western News December 01, 2009
Allegations about financial irregularities in the campaign financing of all seven members of Summerland council have been laid to rest thanks to a businessman coming forward to take responsibility for the series of ads at the centre of the controversy.
The six councillors and mayor have been under fire since their Nov. 9 meeting, when Penticton Herald editor James Miller called into question anonymous in-kind donations declared by each successful candidate in excess of the $50 limit set out in the municipal elections act.
Miller’s allegations of discrepancies in the candidates’ campaign finances rest upon a series of ads run by the Citizens for Smart Governance, particularly one that ran on Nov. 14, 2008, endorsing Mayor Janice Perrino, along with other candidates, for council.
“Last October and November, I wrote and paid for four advertisements to run in the Summerland Review and one to run in the Penticton Herald,” said Mark Ziebarth in an open letter to all media outlets. The Citizens for Smart Governance, he continued, was not a “shadowy group” it was just him having fun by running the ads under a fictional banner.
“Miller clearly didn’t do much, if any, investigative digging on this topic, and compounded this failure by getting his facts wrong,” said Ziebarth. “All he had to do was walk down the hall from his own desk at the Herald offices in Penticton and ask his publisher who paid for the ad that ran in his own paper on Nov. 14, 2008. He would have found out that that person was me.”
The Herald ran a succession of articles on the topic, including an editorial in which Miller wrote “The whole slate thing stunk.”
Ziebarth contends that there was no “slate,” just his personal recommendations for mayor and council.
“Miller has launched a series of personal, ad hominem attacks on Summerland’s duly elected mayor and council, attacks based on incorrect facts and improper assumptions, and inflamed by a collection of gullible media partners — including CBC Radio’s As It Happens — willing to pass along Miller’s bile without bothering to check into the facts of the matter themselves,” said Ziebarth, a part owner of Bongarde Media.
The Vancouver Sun, in a front-page opinion piece by Daphne Bramham, went so far as to declare Summerland council illegitimate.
“They all ran down the same rabbit hole without stopping to look,” said Ziebarth. While he was mentioned in two Herald articles, Ziebarth said he was never contacted by anyone at the paper.
“I think the Herald is being too virtuous by a factor of a thousand,” said Coun. Gordon Clark, who was acting mayor when Miller confronted council about the disclosure statements. Mayor Perrino was on sick leave at the time, recovering from minor surgery.
Clark explains, that in a “super-abundance of caution,” the seven successful candidates decided to each declare a portion of the estimated cost of the Herald ad.
“We all determined that the careful thing to do would be to disclose the notional costs of what we thought those advertising expenses were by this group called the Concerned Citizens for Smart Governance,” said Clark.
Summerland’s municipal clerk, Gillian Matthews — who was the returning officer for the 2008 election — confirms this is what happened, and that the candidates were acting on her recommendation.
“They were all aware of them (the ads) and they wanted to acknowledge them in the interests of being open and transparent,” said Matthews, adding that since they weren’t involved in the placing of ads, they needn’t have acknowledged them at all.
Adding to the confusion is another group of ads that ran in the Summerland Review, endorsing a slate of candidates. These, however, were not run by Ziebarth, but by an ad hoc group of citizens, with 90 names listed at the bottom of the ad in one case and 250 on a second run of the ad.
“There was another group in Summerland that ran ads,” Ziebarth said. “They collected money from dozens of people to run those ads, and they ran some of their names at the bottom of the ad. I have a feeling Miller mixed up his facts with his wishes.”
“Citizens for Smart Governance is just me,” he said. “I did it just to poke fun at the groups calling themselves the smart growth people, and had great fun with it. And I’m still having fun with it.”
Allegations about financial irregularities in the campaign financing of all seven members of Summerland council have been laid to rest thanks to a businessman coming forward to take responsibility for the series of ads at the centre of the controversy.
The six councillors and mayor have been under fire since their Nov. 9 meeting, when Penticton Herald editor James Miller called into question anonymous in-kind donations declared by each successful candidate in excess of the $50 limit set out in the municipal elections act.
Miller’s allegations of discrepancies in the candidates’ campaign finances rest upon a series of ads run by the Citizens for Smart Governance, particularly one that ran on Nov. 14, 2008, endorsing Mayor Janice Perrino, along with other candidates, for council.
“Last October and November, I wrote and paid for four advertisements to run in the Summerland Review and one to run in the Penticton Herald,” said Mark Ziebarth in an open letter to all media outlets. The Citizens for Smart Governance, he continued, was not a “shadowy group” it was just him having fun by running the ads under a fictional banner.
“Miller clearly didn’t do much, if any, investigative digging on this topic, and compounded this failure by getting his facts wrong,” said Ziebarth. “All he had to do was walk down the hall from his own desk at the Herald offices in Penticton and ask his publisher who paid for the ad that ran in his own paper on Nov. 14, 2008. He would have found out that that person was me.”
The Herald ran a succession of articles on the topic, including an editorial in which Miller wrote “The whole slate thing stunk.”
Ziebarth contends that there was no “slate,” just his personal recommendations for mayor and council.
“Miller has launched a series of personal, ad hominem attacks on Summerland’s duly elected mayor and council, attacks based on incorrect facts and improper assumptions, and inflamed by a collection of gullible media partners — including CBC Radio’s As It Happens — willing to pass along Miller’s bile without bothering to check into the facts of the matter themselves,” said Ziebarth, a part owner of Bongarde Media.
The Vancouver Sun, in a front-page opinion piece by Daphne Bramham, went so far as to declare Summerland council illegitimate.
“They all ran down the same rabbit hole without stopping to look,” said Ziebarth. While he was mentioned in two Herald articles, Ziebarth said he was never contacted by anyone at the paper.
“I think the Herald is being too virtuous by a factor of a thousand,” said Coun. Gordon Clark, who was acting mayor when Miller confronted council about the disclosure statements. Mayor Perrino was on sick leave at the time, recovering from minor surgery.
Clark explains, that in a “super-abundance of caution,” the seven successful candidates decided to each declare a portion of the estimated cost of the Herald ad.
“We all determined that the careful thing to do would be to disclose the notional costs of what we thought those advertising expenses were by this group called the Concerned Citizens for Smart Governance,” said Clark.
Summerland’s municipal clerk, Gillian Matthews — who was the returning officer for the 2008 election — confirms this is what happened, and that the candidates were acting on her recommendation.
“They were all aware of them (the ads) and they wanted to acknowledge them in the interests of being open and transparent,” said Matthews, adding that since they weren’t involved in the placing of ads, they needn’t have acknowledged them at all.
Adding to the confusion is another group of ads that ran in the Summerland Review, endorsing a slate of candidates. These, however, were not run by Ziebarth, but by an ad hoc group of citizens, with 90 names listed at the bottom of the ad in one case and 250 on a second run of the ad.
“There was another group in Summerland that ran ads,” Ziebarth said. “They collected money from dozens of people to run those ads, and they ran some of their names at the bottom of the ad. I have a feeling Miller mixed up his facts with his wishes.”
“Citizens for Smart Governance is just me,” he said. “I did it just to poke fun at the groups calling themselves the smart growth people, and had great fun with it. And I’m still having fun with it.”
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