Months ago, we reported that Santa Ana Planning Commissioners Eric Alderete and Sean H. Mill, planning commission chair and vice chair at the time, has failed to comopletely file their statements of economic interest on their Form 700 disclosure forms for 2013. After getting the runaround from the City Manager’s and City Attorney’s office for nearly three months to ask why these commissioners — proponents of new retroactive disclosure requirements for ex-parte communications — were exempt from filing these statements. All city staff could say was according to Mill and Alderete, the forms were correct. And what they filed then was correct, but incomplete.
New disclosure forms filed by both men for 2014 paint a much different and more complete picture. They include employment information and investment disclosures not provided on the 2013 reports.
Eric Alderete’s 2014 Form 700 discloses his employment at US Bank and his September 2014 hiring at Public Storage. It also lists stock options held in both companies, as well as a real estate investment in Santa Ana he held for two years. None of this is listed on his Form 700 for 2013 which you can see here in this file (alderete 700.
We filed a complaint against Alderete and Mill with the Fair Political Practices Commission. On April 1, the FPPC declined to pursue an investigation against Alderete due to an error on our part. We focused on Alderete’s new job with Public Storage when we should have focused on US Bank. On April 7, we filed a request for a reconsidered investigation into Alderete’s failure to disclose his economic interest from his employment at US Bank citing his 2014 filings as evidence. We simply asked the FPPC why Alderete’s 2013 form doesn’t disclose his compensation, stock options and real estate holdings he disclosed in his 2014 filings. We believe the Commission will compel Mr. Alderete to file a revised Form 700 and perhaps pay a small fine.
There’s no letter from the FPPC regarding our complaint against Sean H. Mill who also completed his 2014 Form 700 with much more detail than his 2013 filing. Mill’s 2014 form 700 (Mill700-2014disclosure) can be found here. Like Alderete, Mill changed jobs in 2014 and earns less than $100,000 a year in salary and bonus with his new employer in the title business. He also holds an investment believed to be a time share in Lahania on the Hawaiian Island of Maui because the property is valued at under $100,000.
Alas, we have no letter from the FPPC regarding our complaint about Mr. Mill so we have to believe there is an investigation underway. Mr. Mill used his public comment time at a recent planning commission meeting to complain about the FPPC complaint we filed and it was captured on this YouTube video. Mill lamented about wasted tax payer money on a complaint, having convenient amnesia about complaints he filed with county government over this blog in the past that resulted in two separate investigations into Chris Prevatt’s work computer. Two separate scans of Prevatt’s machine failed to reveal any evidence that Mill insisted Prevatt blogged on Taxpayer time. The cost to taxpayers was more than $1,000 for each complaint, which when asked, Mill refused to reimburse taxpayers for his petty political witchhunt.
We’re also still waiting for any evidence of the “scores” of articles Mill claims he’s published in local newspapers in support of Santa Ana’s and Orange County’s LGBT community. A link, a photocopy with the byline and dateline and publication name, or a complete file documenting more than 40 stories would suffice — or Mill could simply admit he lied.
We applaud the full disclosures both men made for the most recent filing period; simply refilling their 2013 forms to match the detail in their 2014 forms and paying a small fine is the fastest way to resolve the missing data both must disclose.
Who watches mommy when Sean is in Hawaii? He still lives with his mother. Hahahaha