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The Ethics Commission yesterday (Dec. 16) told Kris Michell, former top aide to Mayor Jerry Sanders, that she can't lobby her former City colleagues for a year after she leaves Sanders's side, which will be Jan. 14. Michell has been named president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, essentially a lobbying operation for downtown corporate welfare projects. Answering Michell's questions, the commission told her that for one year, "post-employment lobbying prohibitions will preclude you from communicating [or helping others communicate] with current City officers and employees on behalf of [the partnership]," wrote the commission. However, "you may still work on [a] decision internally for [the partnership]. You may, for example, provide background information, statistics, and personal observations to a [partnership] employee regarding a particular issue."
Such Ethics Commission rules can be broken or badly bent, however. For example, when a donor to Mayor Sanders had constructed a building too close to Montgomery Field, defying federal rules, a former city employee, who had a high post with the offending developer, had talked with his former city employees inside the one-year restriction period and got away with it.
The Ethics Commission yesterday (Dec. 16) told Kris Michell, former top aide to Mayor Jerry Sanders, that she can't lobby her former City colleagues for a year after she leaves Sanders's side, which will be Jan. 14. Michell has been named president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, essentially a lobbying operation for downtown corporate welfare projects. Answering Michell's questions, the commission told her that for one year, "post-employment lobbying prohibitions will preclude you from communicating [or helping others communicate] with current City officers and employees on behalf of [the partnership]," wrote the commission. However, "you may still work on [a] decision internally for [the partnership]. You may, for example, provide background information, statistics, and personal observations to a [partnership] employee regarding a particular issue."
Such Ethics Commission rules can be broken or badly bent, however. For example, when a donor to Mayor Sanders had constructed a building too close to Montgomery Field, defying federal rules, a former city employee, who had a high post with the offending developer, had talked with his former city employees inside the one-year restriction period and got away with it.