The city of San Diego’s Ethics Commission announced today that it will audit 21 campaign committees from the 2005-2006 election cycle. The committees were chosen at random per the commission’s rules, Executive Director Stacey Fulhorst said in a press release.
The 18 candidate committees that were selected include the campaigns of four mayoral candidates from 2005: Jerry Sanders, who won the contest; Donna Frye; Richard Rider; and Myke Shelby.
Besides Frye, three other sitting council members will be audited: Kevin Faulconer, Tony Young and Ben Hueso. Young was fined $10,000 for mismanaging his campaign earlier this year.
The committees set up by former Councilmen Michael Zucchet and Ralph Inzunza, in anticipation of running reelection campaigns in 2006, will also be audited. Both resigned in 2005 amid guilty verdicts in a federal corruption case and did not run again. Zucchet was later acquitted in the case.
Other candidates from the 2005 and 2006 races that will be audited are District 2 candidates Lorena Gonzalez, Rich Grosch, Ian Trowbridge and Pat Zaharopoulos; and District 8 candidates Luis Acle, Remy Bermudez and Lincoln Pickard.
Three ballot committees were chosen: San Diegans for City Hall Reform: Yes on B and C; Citizens Against Corruption: No on C; and San Diegans for the Mount Soledad War Memorial: Yes on A.
The commission said it selected 75 percent of the committees with financial activity over $100,000; 50 percent of the committees with financial activity between $50,000 and $99,999; and 50 percent of the committees with financial activity between $10,000 and $49,999.