Ex-GOP chair under fire - Tip of the Ice Burg

Ex-GOP chair under fire
Donna Schalansky denies critics’ accusations of fiscal wrongdoing in county post
By Stan Oklobdzija - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, April 22, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1

The resignation of former Sacramento County Republican Party Chairwoman Donna Schalansky has become the flash point in an internal party battle that centers on whether thousands of dollars of reimbursements she received were in violation of state law.

Schalansky said her March 8 resignation was unrelated to questions regarding the expenses and that any allegations of wrongdoing are a ploy by dissidents who have tried and failed to take control of the party.

“My reason for resigning is simple, but very personal and family-related, and I don’t care to discuss it with the press,” Schalansky wrote in an e-mail.

But some in the party, including a former treasurer, say mounting pressure about her financial practices, brought by a conservative faction of the party, led to Schalansky stepping down.

“She got caught with her hand in the cookie jar,” said Jay Evans, who served 18 months as the party’s treasurer and is part of the self-described conservative camp.

Evans said he based his accusation on disclosure forms on file with the secretary of state’s office and his own experience as treasurer, and that he and at least one other party member have brought their concerns to the attention of the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

State law requires information about “third-party payees” be disclosed for reimbursements of $500 or more. But financial disclosure forms filed with the secretary of state’s office show Schalansky received 29 payments of $500 or more — a total of $35,922 — between 2003 and 2006 without receipts showing who received the payments for which she was reimbursed.

Tom Scott, the party’s current treasurer, said receipts for third-party vendors were on file as far back as 1991, but denied The Bee’s request to review them.

Scott said the receipts are available to all Sacramento County Republican Central Committee members. But Evans and Jeff Allen, a committee member for five years and another member of the conservative group, both said their requests to see the receipts have been denied.

The reimbursements — as well as $27,000 the party paid to Schalansky for political consulting — became an issue in the party’s recent selection of a new chair.

One e-mail circulated among members and provided to The Bee said Schalansky retired under a “cloud of mismanagement.” It criticized then-acting Chairman Craig MacGlashan because he had not allowed a panel, formed to audit Schalansky’s finances, to do its job.

MacGlashan said the panel was not formed to audit Schalansky’s finances, but to decide on general fiscal policies and practices for the party’s future. He declined to comment about anything the committee has done since its formation.

On April 12, MacGlashan fended off a challenge from Craig DeLuz, who was supported by Schalansky’s critics, to win the chairmanship of the central committee.

Schalansky was chairwoman for 12 years. Her daughter, Amber Schalansky-Fretwell, who served as second vice chairwoman, also resigned. The resignations became effective April 2.

According to Form 460 documents overseen by the FPPC, Schalansky’s reimbursements of $500 or more included a cumulative $12,256 for office supplies and $11,185 for literature.

Violations of the law requiring a third-party recipient on reimbursements of $500 or more can carry a penalty of up to $5,000 per occurrence, said FPPC spokeswoman Whitney Barazoto. She said the FPPC would neither confirm nor deny an investigation of Schalansky or the Sacramento County Republican Party.

Evans and others critics charge that Schalansky had a free hand with the party’s checkbook and used it to reward herself.

Schalansky and current party leaders say that is nonsense. Scott, the current treasurer, said all expenditures are approved by either the executive committee or the full committee, depending on the dollar amount.

But Allen said that “none of (Schalansky’s) expenses were explicitly made or voted on as a body. … She had never brought forth the fact that she was going to pay herself for any services whatsoever.”

Evans, who as treasurer served on the executive committee, was more blunt.

“It doesn’t happen,” he said. “To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never seen an expense come to me other than the (biennial) budget.”

Evans said that when he was elected the party’s treasurer in January 2003, he found “the treasurer is not allowed to be a treasurer in the conventional sense.”

He said he was not allowed access to the party’s finances. He said only Schalansky and Executive Director Karen Atteberry, a paid employee, were allowed access to the checking accounts, and one of his only duties was to read at meetings a monthly report prepared by Atteberry.

“A lot of us for so many years put our blind faith in (Schalansky) for the superb leader we thought her to be,” he said.

Atteberry did not respond to phone calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Schalansky, in an e-mail, said the criticisms of her are just sour grapes by Evans, Allen and their conservative faction.

“In politics, as in many other aspects of life, one doesn’t always win the battles they fight,” she said. “This is certainly the case between Mr. Evans and me. Unfortunately, this time he has chosen this method as a means to vent his anger toward me.”

Schalansky said she is not concerned about any possible investigation or appearance of impropriety, because “all activities are reported to the County Central Committee in regular treasurer reports as well as properly disclosed with the Secretary of State.”

The central committee currently has 31 members who were elected from the five county supervisorial districts. Also, Republican elected officials who represent part of Sacramento can serve on the committee or appoint a member. There currently are 13 of these ex-officio members, making a total of 44 members.

The committee meets monthly and is charged with supporting Republican candidates and advancing party issues.

The Tides of War are a Changing, the Winds of Opinion are Dying

جماعة الحوثي ويدعوها لتسليم أسلحتها

“The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this button.”

Tax Cuts

Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

* The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh $7.
* The eighth $12.
* The ninth $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”

So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share’?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being ‘PAID’ to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
* The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

The history of Los Angeles Republican’s Coalition

My name is Jeffers Dodge. I became involved in politics in early 2004 when I joined Townhall’s Meetup.com and found a local group of likeminded people meeting once a month in the Westside. I joined the group and immediately assumed the leadership role and motivated several members to take action rather than just talk. I devised a clever scheme to annoy Democrats while promoting the reelection campaign at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, We set up a site that included tables and a 4′ by 5′ large box covered with 8″ by 11″ posters of the Protest Warrior’s genius anti liberal solgans. This was one source of my inspiration. With the help of Jeanne Miller, Glen Ratcliff and Genevieve Peters, PopUpUSA was born and I immediately created a website to document the incredible experience. It was my first blog.

When I learned about and became members of the San Fernando Valley Republican Club, The Southern California Republican Club, and The Hollywood Congress of Republicans the door was flung open for me to utilize my talents that I developed working in the Music Industry to help the Republicans get their message out.

Coming directly from the music business I immediately recognized the buzz on the streets regarding the Republicans. There was so much pent up energy from the ordinary and” lonely” Republicans we met on the promenade as well as so much enthusiasm in the Westside and the San Fernando Valley activist, (I also visited the Beach Cities Republican Club and was impressed and have a sincere admiration for James Crean and Jessamine Campbell who keeps it together down there) that I devised a plan on how to harness this energy and try to sustain it.

At every meeting I stood up and gave a report on PopUpUSA’s activities and encouraged everyone to visit our blog at PopUpUSA.com and view the comments, photographs and videos. I also encouraged everyone to start building their own personal homepages because, “The Democrats have gotten a head start on utilizing the internet to get their message out….” MoveOn.org and Howard Dean were examples I sited.”

Now some automatically interpreted my encouragement as me being an opportunist, “just into it to make money” scamming gullible republicans I suppose. I just reminded them of the oil experts in the White House, Bush and Cheney , and how glad we have them trying to put together a domestic oil policy rather than, lets say, a stock broker that has made it an art to churn his clients accounts. And of course they didn’t get it so I explained to them the part about Dick Cheney gathering all the experts in the oil industry for a secret summit on the US oil policy. I am an expert on music, video and web production — I want to help my Republican Party, but I also need to make a living.

I also started a bipartisan Blog called Media Drool, whose intent was to engage Liberals in a fair and balanced dialogue of politics. Not many Democrats wanted to participate — but the blog was a tremendous success. I posted a video I had put together of Genevieve Peters getting roughed up by some union thugs and it was downloaded 40,000 times.

After PopUpUSA and the re-election campaign I joined David Hernandez on the Save The Seal Project as well as Dick McDonald on the Social Security Project, (www.thenewsocialsecurity.com). I also started the Big Elephant Night, (www.bigelephantnight.com) with Eddie Blevins, which I envisioned to be a social night for Republicans in West Los Angeles. I also struck up a relationship with Ted Hayes (www.tedhayes.net) and am now on the Board of Directors of Dome Village. I built the San Fernando Valley Republican Club’s website (www.sfvrc.org) and consider Gary Aminoff my mentor and leader.

Linda Boyd, Chairmen of the Los Angeles County Republican Party called me and said she was impressed with my work and wanted me to bid on rebuilding the RPLAC website. Her husband loved the idea and the agreement she and I made so much that he hired me to build the Lincoln Clubs website (www.laclc.org). But the deal fell through with a lot of everyone’s time wasted. However, while I was building their websites I was also asked to work on the mayoral race (www.lessoroftwo.com) and the Governor’s special election campaign which included some graphics for flyers and attending teacher union rally’s and college graduation speeches as a professional videographer and editor.

It was at this time that I recognized that there was a lot of clubs and no real attempt at coordinating events and calendars between them all. So I started Los Angeles Republican Coalition. The name was too long for a domain name so I truncated it to www.larepublicans.com. The intent of this website is to reflect the true personality of the Republicans in Los Angeles by providing a calendar of all the different clubs and events. Also, I wanted to provide a resource for candidates as they contemplated running for office. Once I threw my hat in the ring I suspended working on the site until after the election. The website has grown and is taking shape I am very proud of it. It is partially what I was trying to build for RPLAC and I consider it, when it is fully developed and functional, a positive influence on the state of the Republican Party here in Los Angeles County.

In 2005 David Hernandez announced his candidacy for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (www.dave4la.com), which I was a political director. It was at this time that David asked me to run for State Assembly (www.votedodge.com) in my district so that I could get out the votes in the area where his 3rd Supervisory District overlaps with the 47th Assembly District.

After I was nominated I worked out a campaign plan that was unique and not expensive. It involved making a filmed documentary of my district which would include showing all the landmarks with a narrative segueing into a history of politics and an explanation of what an Assembly member does. It would end with me talking about my values, who I am and contrasting it with my opponent. This DVD would be distributed to every decline to state and moderate democrat in the district.

The problem was it was going to cost about $100,000 to execute the plan. So I decided to call in some favors from some friends of mine and Ann Coulter agreed to host my kick off Fundraiser.

For some reason no one from RPLAC offered to help with the fundraiser. I had to ask and all I got was a very old and out of date donor list. As a matter of fact some tried to contact her around my back to get her to host a fundraiser for a candidate in his favor, a white blond girl, but with no success. Ann found that very distasteful and tacky.

I went ahead with the fundraiser and after overcoming a few challenges my campaign staff, primarily made up of the PopUpTeam, pulled it off. I considered it a great success and Ann loved it. She was very enthusiastic about helping me because of our past relationship.

I am the first to admit that I was not ready to be a candidate. I had a real fear of public speaking… you know the disconnect thing. My naiveté must have been very amusing to the old pros that to my knowledge never won an election in Los Angeles. My nephew has. He was the campaign manager for two prominent assembly seats in Southern California in which he won both. He would have worked closer with me on my campaign but had a Governorship campaign in the mid west. In reality I got more help from outside Los Angeles County than from the LA Party. The CAGOP was there for me considerably more. And now I know why Los Angeles is in such dismal condition.

I did my part, I loved talking to Democrats and tricking them into agreeing with me and watching their expression when they found out I was a Republican. David Hernandez saved the day by coming in and managing the campaign. We were able to get a nice headquarters with phone banks and I moved my production facility into the very spacious back office. Met some great people, serious professionals who are compassionate about the cause and members of the entertainment business. It will be fun working with them in the next 24 months.

Whew — that was a lot of work and I am a better man for it, and Los Angels is worse off than it was since the 2004 re-election campaign.

Now that the campaign is over I can begin to phase in LARepublicans.com.

Any help would be welcome.

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