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SLO developer fined by state ethics watchdog

April 28, 2014
Caren Ray

Caren Ray

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

A San Luis Obispo County developer has drawn a fine from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) for not identifying himself as a major donor to the election campaign of County Supervisor Caren Ray.

The FPPC voted during its meeting last week to fine Gary Grossman $400 for failing to properly disclose political contributions totaling more than $10,000 last year. Grossman is working to develop the San Luis Obispo County property formerly owned by rancher Ernie Dalidio.

Anyone who donates more than $10,000 total to election campaigns in a single year is required by California to form a major donor committee. The donor must file a disclosure with a county clerk reporting the committee and its contributions.

Grossman donated $10,000 to Ray’s election campaign on Nov. 11, 2013. He also made a $3,686 nonmonetary donation to Ray when he hosted a fundraiser for her later that month.

Gary Grossman

Gary Grossman

Additionally, Grossman donated $1,000 to Supervisor Adam Hill’s election committee in 2013. Hill is not yet up for reelection, but he kept his 2012 committee open during 2013 and accepted a $1,000 donation from Grossman on Sept. 26.

Adam Hill

Adam Hill

State regulations required Grossman to report all three donations on a major donor form by Jan. 31 of this year. But, Grossman waited until March 21 to properly disclose the donations to Ray. He then amended the donation report on April 1 to include his contribution to Hill.

Grossman had the opportunity to contest the fine at an FPPC meeting on Thursday. He did not make an appearance, though, and the committee voted 4-0 to fine him.

Grossman is currently planning a residential and commercial project on the 131-acre property that sets on Highway 101 near Madonna Road. Grossman’s plan, known as the San Luis Ranch, would include 46 acres of housing, a hotel, a convention center and commercial office space.

After Dalidio fought for years and failed to gain approval to develop the property, Grossman appears to have support for his project from both from the county and city of San Luis Obispo.

Grossman’s assistant, Monte Cool, also donated to Ray’s campaign. Cool, the chief of acquisitions for Grossman’s Coastal Community Builders, contributed $5,000 to Ray.

In a recent candidate’s forum, Ray criticized one of her opponents, Lynn Compton, for accepting big money donations. But, between just Grossman and Cool, Ray accepted nearly $20,000 in contributions.

Ray also received a $10,000 contribution from Andy Mangano, a developer with Mangano homes. Mangano did file a major donor disclosure before the reporting deadline.


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I wonder if Grossman is a fellow Hash Harrier….just curious.


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http://www.gotothehash.net/ the answer is there.


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Chief of Acquisitions ?


Acquiring what? Politicians???


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Show me the money!


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Over $34,000 in contributions from developers. $25,000 from just two!!! We know which side Caren’s toast is buttered on…. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


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Well that sounds impressive until you look at the other candidates.


Mike Byrd with $31,500 for a single donor. And over $14,000 from the real estate industry. Between the two the account for almost 90% of his donors.


Lynn Compton with a personal (her and her husband) contribution of over $39,000. The there is the ag and wine industry with over $36,000 in contributions and virtually all from the north county or outside the county.


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I wasn’t aware of the big Byrd contribution but I am glad you put all these out there. I wish that the majority of voters in this county would do more to investigate candidates than just listen to or read campaign ads. If they did, maybe we could actually elect candidates who won’t have an incentive to pay back the special interests that pay for the ads once they are in office.


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Yeah, and not get their “facts” from the Tribune. More on that to come…


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It can be difficult for regular citizens to stay on top of who is contributing to whom. In order to make it easier I’ve posted the link to the reporting website. Hint, visit often because large donations must be reported within 24 hours of acceptance. http://www.byrdforsupervisor.com/follow-the-money/


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EXCEPT, Byrd’s donor doesn’t have numerous multi-million dollar projects in front of the county. I don’t believe he even has one. So the difference is HUGE.


EXCEPT, Compton is not “over $39,000”. That’s erroneous. Furthermore, what’s wrong with loaning your own campaign? Shouldn’t candidates have a chunk of their own skin in the game? Ray put in a measly $500.


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Not a single one of the developers have a project before or submitted to the county. Name one!

Dalidio is submitted to the city of SLO and the county will have very minimal impact.


So the difference is Bryd has more invested by a single person. To what gain, I don’t know. Perhaps since he is a Maldonado supping Republican it is to buy votes away from Ray.


No, there are more than $39,000 from the Compton’s in loans, cash, and buying stuff like car wraps. It’s all in the filings available on line. Open the file, every time you see Compton write down the number and them add. It’s very easy.


Nothing wrong with a candidate investing in themselves especially when they can’t get community buy in.


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Let’s correct your lies (whoops!)… let’s call them “mis-statements”:


#1: Caren Ray’s megabucks developers DO have issues in front of the county.


#2: Byrd’s major donor is not a Republican.


#3: You need to learn to add. Your number is inflated.


#4: Caren Ray is littering public property with signs because SHE can’t get community buy-in to put her signs on private land.


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#1. I have asked for names of projects, non are ever provided. It your statement was true it would be easy to prove.


#2 in every online resource he is republican and public records show him supporting Maldonado and Zimmerman.


#3 Byrd provided a link. Look then up. Do I have to list everyone to prove it.


#4 or Ray has so many enthusiastic supporters that are not large land owners that they look beyond their modest lives to make an impact.


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Not everyone lives in the rarefied air of the Nipomo Hills, Kev. Some of the peons only have $500 to loan themselves. But stay tuned, I hear there will be more BIG LOANS and BIG TIME FUND RAISING coming from the Republican if she doesn’t win the Primary! There will be no working class people running SLO County if she can help it!


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Oh, I thought the Nipomo air was all unhealthy with dust. Except when Caren Ray votes with her developer friends to put more elderly people there. Then the air is “Just Ducky”!


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Sorry Kev, up where your Republican lady friend lives, I’m sure you must know, there is a lovely sea breeze and it is elevated enough that the dust from YOUR dunes just hits the peons below. To your Republican friend the air is definitely JUST DUCKY!


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Caren Ray obviously doesn’t believe dust is a problem at Cypress Ridge, otherwise she wouldn’t have voted to build more houses there… or was it the developer $$$ campaign contributions?


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That’s right just ignore one candidates faults.


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How many of Byrd and Compton’s contributors have been fined by the FPPC for not identifying themselves as major donors?


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Monte Cool sounds like a made up ‘Hollywood’ or rapper name.


Pretty suspicious !


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skid greasing 101.


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Just bend over, SLO… take it again.


Dalido must be fuming. I know I would be. I was quite upset when I learned of Jan Marx’s abject failure as a human being in double-crossing Dalido after the arbitration. I do not expect much from Marx in any capacity, and it clearly showed then. Now we have the City/County rolling over for the carrots that Grossman is dangling. Real class acts we got “serving” the public. About time we got more housing and office space in this town, what with Cal Poly deciding to nuke our infrastructure over the next 4-5 years. Huzzah! All the corrupt cronies win again!


…and we’re told the republicans are the ones who do this, and the democrats have to “protect us” – yeah. No thanks.


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r0y, can you give more detail about what your talking about, “I was quite upset when I learned of Jan Marx’s abject failure as a human being in double-crossing Dalido after the arbitration”. Thanks.


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This is what he is talking about. http://calcoastnews.com/2011/01/state-probe-casts-a-shadow-on-new-san-luis-obispo-mayor/


It’s getting downright ridiculous. These pseudoliberal “progressives” roll into the area and, playing into the themes of environmentalism, community, and openness (all good things) convince people to elect them. But the truth is they’ve just been setting up shop making the local government infrastructure gigantic as well as paying huge salaries. They throw out the existing custom software and spend millions on garbage. They throw money at other top heavy organizations. But the worst, the worst thing they do is that they are so interested in both themselves and increasing their power with more property taxes that while they prevent anyone LOCAL from building single family homes, or spec homes, or smaller retail developments, under the guise of their supposed principles, they whore our town out to developers who build HUGE developments who expense ultimately requires corporate tenants who drive local businesses into the ground.


The loss of real estate speculation on a smaller scale, the movement of profit out of the community on account of the chains, the elimination of our local businesses, leads to the increased destruction of the middle class and guarantees that we will all be struggling to afford the crappy homes these people build.


Arggh.


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I don’t know how accurate the theories you put forth are but they ring pretty true to me. However, it would be nice to have some sort of verifiable evidence to back them up.


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This is my personal observation beginning from when I first started getting interested in what was going on at the age of 17, when local developer Fred Baur invited me to join Ron Dunin’s campaign for re-election. I think it would definitely be worthwhile for me to compile some verifiable presentable evidence if for no other reason than to try to verify my perceptions. However, simply being local and knowing a few people here and there, I have been privy to a certain amount of inside information here and there, and have been exposed to a lot of different perspectives locally. I have been giving some thought to documenting this narrative a bit more and getting it out there (unless of course I find evidence that I am mistaken).


The anecdotal evidence (if you want to call that evidence) is abundant though. Also it’s pretty hard to ignore that in the 1980s we had about 40,000 people in SLO. Today we have maybe 47,000. The growth of the city infrastructure and staff dwarfs our population growth. The rhetoric during the days of Dunin was no growth vs. controlled growth. The no growth people were on the left and the controlled growth people were on the right. The no growth people did not want our environment destroyed nor our population to overwhelm our resources, the controlled growth people were local businesses and contractors that wanted to still make some money. The no growth people smeared the controlled growth people, but ultimately the no growth people were the ones who made all the deals with the bigger developers, out of area developers, and large corporations presumably because the property tax revenue was too attractive.


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Thanks for the reply. Again, I think you are probably right. I have been in the area for 30+ years but didn’t pay as much attention to the local politics for about half of that. What I have seen tends to support your views.


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Well it looks like they are getting close to approval for the project. At one time the former owner of the property next to the Dalidio property said it took him $25k to get his zone change. I don’t think anybody even heard about it while it just happened. It may really be the nicest place to live if you can afford to pay the price when playing the game.


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Well if 3-5 years and endless public hearings to go mean it’s close.


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It’s about who got the money. You could make contact with someone in Wadsworth, Ohio and he may tell you who. Or we can wait for the trial and he may tell all.

Evidently the price was right.


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I was boiling mad at the Trib’s non-story regarding Dow the other day. Let’s see if they have the guts to do what’s right and cover this ACTUAL story.


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Answer: NO. It is not “guts” that the trib is full of…


They sat on the crooked Jan Marx back-stabbing until a week or so after the elections; they’ll not do anything to “tarnish the message” or whatever psychotic political “maneuvering” they call it now.


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I am fully suprised that the Trib is still in busines.


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The Dow story is a non-story and this is???


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Dow violated no laws. Grossman was prosecuted and fined by a state commission. The Dow story was a manufactured smear piece. Grossman is actual reality.


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Oh, my Kevin… Tsk! Tsk! What shall we do with you?


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You can BEGIN by realizing this is a PRIMARY ELECTION. Take an HONEST look at Mike Byrd who is a true independent and not hotly repudiated by either partisan side.


Since you appear opposed to Compton, you next need to realize that voting for either Byrd or Ray is an equal vote against Compton. That’s because there is a run-off in November. You should be supporting the BEST candidate now, not the second best. That comes in November.


Byrd states his positions. Ray plays it safe. Byrd encompasses a wider spectrum of non-partisanship. Ray is a party favorite.


So, if you can elucidate HONEST ISSUE-BASED REASONS for your candidate instead of going with the knee-jerk favorite, that would be a good start. Byrd would fare better in a November race than Ray, and I am presuming that would be preferable to you. I could be mistaken.


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Grossman was not prosecuted by anybody. He was fined for not filing a form in a timely manner as required.

Dow knowingly took money from an opposing lawyer during an active case. Dow is the one who said the appearance of impropriety matters.

There are lots of examples of people skirting the law like that but it does not make it right. Oversized Compton signs, multiple per parcel all in violation. Apparently there is no one on the Ray or Byrd teams to set up web sites and track them on google maps but it doesn’t mean they are ok.


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Gary Grossman was “prosecuted” by the FPPC.


Direct quote:


The Commission has prosecuted this case, and copies of the Stipulation, Decision and Order may be viewed at the FPPC website, at http://www.fppc.ca.gov, by clicking on the links provided on the April 2014 Commission meeting agenda.


—Gary S. Winuk, Chief, Enforcement Division


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Well if that’s the words used then you should use them too.


That distraction does nothing to support Dow’s integrity here.


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Let’s be clear that you veered off-topic to the D.A. race.


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Actually no, I responded to Scarlet’s original post on the trib story about Dow.


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I stand corrected. +1.


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