Council hassle erupts: Can a council forum sponsor endorse candidates in city of Calabasas?

Council hassle erupts: Can a council forum sponsor endorse candidates in city of Calabasas?

By Michael Picarella

Acorn Staff Writer

Calabasas City Council policy states that council candidate forum sponsors must not endorse candidates. But Calabasas Park Homeowners’ Association (CPHA), which sponsored a candidate forum earlier this month, wants to endorse a candidate now that the forum is over. And CPHA wants that endorsement to air with their forum broadcasts on CTV, which is scheduled to be telecast until Election Day, Tues., March 4.

The city council last week tried to decide whether CPHA should be allowed to make endorsements. Some Calabasas residents said that forums––if they’re to be conducted fairly and without bias––shouldn’t include any endorsements.

"Thinking back in terms of the discussions that happened in 1997 and 2000 in the adoption of these policies," said City Attorney Charles Vose, "it’s my recollection that I had advised staff that until such time a group has officially endorsed one or more candidates, that it’s appropriate to program and televise the forum. However, once the sponsoring group takes a position of endorsing a candidate or candidates, the forum should no longer be programmed and televised on the CTV channel."

Calabasas resident Tracey Arnold said CPHA would be getting free political advertising if it can endorse a candidate on CTV.

"This discussion reminds me of the reason my family left Cuba," said another Calabasas resident, Marci Ronka. "It’s like muzzling free speech. The analogy I can give you is the L.A. Times may endorse someone for governor two weeks before the actual election and then what? We’re supposed to close our eyes whenever we see an article or they’re not supposed to be writing anymore—it’s just silly ... The product stands on its own."

But some people worry that if the sponsor of a forum knows from the onset that it can later endorse a candidate after the event that they’ll run their forum with bias. Sponsoring groups shouldn’t ever be allowed to endorse candidates, some speakers said.

Councilmembers Dennis Washburn, Janice Lee, Michael Harrison and Mayor Pro Tem James Bozajian said they thought the CPHA forum was fair.

CPHA president Helene Regen said if anyone thought it was biased, they should have said so after the event and not after they heard that the association wanted to do endorsements.

"There is no appearance of bias in this matter," Harrison said. "The CPHA forum was as fair as it gets."

But some people want the telecasts killed because of a possible lack of objectivity.

"To threaten to stop the broadcast of that forum is purely wrong," Harrison said. "The real motivations here are clearly political."

In the end, after public comment and after more than 45 minutes of discussion on the matter, the council determined that "The sponsoring group shall not endorse any candidate," isn’t descriptive enough because it doesn’t specify how long the sponsoring organization cannot endorse. That could mean forever, some said.

The council also decided that the issue—with Washburn and Lee running for office—might be inappropriate for them to decide. The council made a motion to pass the topic to the city communications and technology commission for its recommendation.

The motion passed, 4-1, Harrison opposed. He wanted to vote on it, once and for all.

The city communications and technology commission met on Monday and approved 3-2 to pull the forum tape if CPHA endorses a candidate. The recommendation will be forwarded for final consideration at the Feb. 5 city council meeting.