The Orange County Register’s Martin Wisckol and Peggy Lowe reported today that County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has finally disclosed the names of the three “Mystery” donors to her legal defense fund.
County Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s increasingly high-profile delinquency in disclosing three campaign donors ended with an apparent fizzle on Thursday, when the disclosure was filed and the contributors appeared uncontroversial.
The disclosures came 50 days after the deadline mandated by the county’s campaign finance ordinance. An accompanying letter from her attorney, Phil Greer, questioned whether the “reporting obligations are applicable to the situation.”
Shirley Grindle, author of the county’s campaign finance ordinance, has said that Nguyen was in violation of the law and urged her to comply.
In response to calls for an interview, Nguyen issued a statement through her political consultant and laid responsibility for the issue at Greer’s feet.
“I am happy the issue is now behind us,” the recently elected Nguyen said.
On Total Buzz Martin Wisckol has provided additional coverage late this morning of SupervisorJanet Nguyen’s tardy disclosure of her donors.
And here is the letter that her attorney, Phil Greer, gave to Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley yesterday — the letter in the Adobe file is preceeded by copies of three of the donor refund checks and one of the donor’s original checks. Greer makes the argument that perhaps those contributions were exempt from campaign finance law.
After all of the speculation over who the contributors were, there just seems to be no rational reason for the delay; other than “Amature Hour” in the First District Supervisor’s Office.
Two of the contributors – lobbyist Chris Townsend and the Rancho Mission Viejo development company – are donors to many local GOP officials. The third donor, parking lot operator Parking Concepts, is an infrequent contributor.
So Janet, Curt and the rest of us want to know…
Why did it take so long?
In the Register article Martin and Peggy corrected the running total of the number of days we waited from 53 down to 50. At this point, it has been so long that I really don’t care.