WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS
READ INTO THE RECORD
Mayor Wunderlich, Vice Mayor Bosse and Invaluable City Council Members, I was surprised to learn the Appeals hearing officer reversed an earlier decision by extending the Appellant’s tobacco sales exemption to a whopping 7 years. This flies in the face of our great City’s efforts to showcase as the Healthiest City in America.
While I am grateful to this Appellant for providing fuel, snacks and other services to our community, I am disappointed in his choices. What efforts did Appellant make to pivot toward selling replacement products? The City offered a generous time frame for selling off inventory before the rollout, as well as free consulting services to assist retailers in selecting replacement products. Did Appellant avail himself of these services? Did he test other products appropriately? And what efforts has this Appellant made in the year after the rollout? It appears that this Appellant had over 2 years to pivot, but chose to do nothing.
Appellant claims that products that exploit lives like tobacco have higher profitability than products that enhance life. If true, this would not justify an extension. Appellant may be willing to harm life for 7 years to maximize personal profit, but these priorities do not align with our City’s goals. Health products like kombucha, zinc supplements or therabands, for example, are profitable replacement products for gas purchasers in L.A. County who are predominantly nonsmokers.
Appellant requested an extension noting his retirement date preference. Does the City make decisions based on one’s preferred retirement? I ask our City Council to weigh many lives saved against one man’s possibly retiring a few months earlier.
When a business owner decides to make improvements there is always uncertainty about return on investment. This Appellant initiated improvements despite our Healthy City initiative and after the City began limiting tobacco use. The Applicant states in his appeal that he was aware vehicle manufacturers were transitioning away from fuel and to electricity before he renovated. He knew that business revenue was going to be negatively impacted regardless of our ordinance.
Therefore, the Applicant has not met his burden or established by a preponderance of the evidence that the City ordinance is unreasonable or the cause of severe economic hardship that would justify an additional exemption period. Smoking is down; electric cars are up.
He remodeled during market demand reductions, and failed to mitigate with free consulting.
My heart goes out to every business that suffers for any reason. I congratulate those that did pivot when the products they sold were becoming obsolete. I fully support our businesses, and want them all to thrive so long as they do not harm people. By taking care of our community’s physical and mental health, we will be able to recover stronger than ever. But to do so means we must continue to implement and enforce policies that support health.
Please reject the recommendation for additional time for this appellant to sell toxic tobacco products within our City limits. Thank you.
Most sincerely,
Cathy Baker
01/16/22
1 Du
Subject: 9460 Olympic 76 Station Tobacco
-----Original Message-----
From: William Herd <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2022 4:15 PM
To: Cindy Owens <[email protected]>; WebCBH MAYORANDCITYCOUNCIL <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: 9460 Olympic 76 Station Tobacco
CAUTION: External Sender
Use caution when clicking links or opening attachments
________________________________
Please grant a hardship exemption to the above referenced business. It is not reasonable that I have to go outside the City to purchase tobacco.
Thank you for your consideration.
William A. Herd
One Lev Org - אחד ארגוןלב
DBA: One Lev Synagogue /One Lev Org/
Crescent Synagogue/ Camp One Lev/ JEM Community Center
Mailing: 9116 West 3rd Street, Beverly hills, ca 90210
Office: 9930 South Santa Monica Blvd Beverly Hills CA 90212 (310) 497-6304 (424) 229-2267
January 17, 2022
15 Shevat 5782
Re: Beverly Hills Oil Inc.
Dear Honorable City Council,
I hope that this letter finds you all in best of health.
I want to first thank you all, for all your selfless dedication to our city during these historic times.
I write to you today on behalf of Mr. Morris Pouldar. I have known Mr. Pouldar and his lovely family since his son was a member of our youth programs for over 15 years.
As a member of the Jewish community and a Rabbi, I can tell you that Mr. Morris and his brother Bouris Pouldar are long standing Active Members and Donors of our Beverly Hills Jewish congregation and community. The Pouldar family is truly a wonderful and giving Family and we are blessed to have them in our community.
They have supported and hosted countless programs from helping with High Holiday events to help the young professionals find their soul mates to helping the hope foundation assist families in financial crisis .
We hope our great city can be assisted through these challenging times.
Shana Tovah!
Respectfully,
Sincerely Yours,
_______________________
Rabbi Levi Illulian
הרב לוי יצחק אלוליאן
“The torah is a tree of life to those who support it”
“Israel will be redeemed through charity”
בס׳׳ד
1 January 17, 2022
Dear Mayor Wunderlich, Vice Mayor Bosse and Council Members Friedman, Gold and Mirisch:
On January 3, 2022, we and a number of our fellow Beverly Hills residents wrote to you in support of extending campaign finance disclosure laws to apply to any committee other than political party committees and candidate-controlled committees (which are limited to a maximum $450 contribution). We were gratified to observe a consensus of the Council expressing support for this concept at the Study Session on January 4, 2022.
Now, a draft ordinance has been prepared by the City Attorney for your consideration at the Council regular meeting on January 18, 2022. The Staff Report prepared by the City Attorney identifies three issues respecting the draft ordinance for your further discussions:
“First, what would be the monetary threshold for determining a “top contributor.”
“Second, should the Council adopt and apply locally a new law that became effective on January 1 of this year and that mandated disclosure requirements for Limited Liability Companies. Those requirements include entities that expend more than $1,000.
“Finally, should the new ordinance automatically incorporate any changes in the state DISCLOSE act [DISCLOSE is an acronym for “Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections”] or should the DISCLOSE act be frozen as of January 2022, and have the Council amend the Beverly Hills ordinance as the DISCLOSE act is amended.” We write in favor of the following conclusions:
First, the monetary threshold for determining a “top contributor” for purposes of disclosure of the three largest “contributors” in advertisements placed by these committees should be no higher than $1,000 (the word “top” does not imply anything more than they are the largest);
Second, disclosure of the members of LLCs who, for example, contribute more than $1,000 or have a greater than 10% interest as is required under state law should be extended to apply to these committees; and
2 Finally, automatic incorporation of changes in the DISCLOSE act should be required.
We wish, in brief, to explain our rationale.
The acronym “DISCLOSE”, which underscores the purpose of shining “light on spending in local elections” that is cast by the act’s requirements, really says it all.
This is about transparency.
Specifically in this case, the creation of enhanced understanding of who is spending sums in support of which candidate or ballot measure. Enhanced visibility and understanding strengthens democracy. Conversely, diminished visibility and understanding undermines the integrity of our elections.
That enhanced visibility and understanding is preferable is beyond reasonable debate.
Turning to the specific provisions.
The trigger for disclosure of contributors should be at a level below that which could have more than a nominal impact. The Council has made a judgment that individual contributions to candidates should be limited to $450 per person.
Further, the Council has made a judgment that in order to collect contributions of up to $450 per person, a candidate must commit to an absolute spending limit of $80,000.
These rules are intended to ensure that no contributor to a candidate’s committee can have a disproportionate influence and that our city elections should not favor those who have the deepest pockets. At $450 per person, a candidate would have to attract the maximum contribution from 178 persons to reach the $80,000 expenditure limit. As a practical matter, candidates rarely, if ever, raise $80,000 through individual contributions. While candidates can self-finance, this can only go so far because of the $80,000 expenditure limit.
Political Action Committees (“PACs”), which are separate from and ostensibly independent from candidates’ committees, and which would be covered for both ballot measures and elected official elections under the proposed ordinance, are not limited to either the contribution limit of $450 or the expenditure limit of $80,000 because of recent United States Supreme Court decisions. 3 Thus, in a recent City Council election, a PAC raised at least $109,000 from only fourteen contributors to support two candidates, an average of more than $7,800 or nearly 18x the $450 limit. While this is likely lawful under federal law provided that the PAC maintains independence and does not “coordinate” with the candidates’ committees (and setting aside skepticism about satisfaction of this standard), extravagantly financed activities of PACs undermine the policies that the City’s contribution and expenditure limits are designed to promote.
Requiring disclosure of top contributors is intended to do something to enhance the City’s policies and cast some additional light on spending in elections. As noted above, the trigger for such disclosure should not be unreasonably high and certainly should not be higher than $1,000.
While it is certainly true that there is no magic in this number and that all $ numbers are, to some degree, arbitrary, $1,000 seems most reasonable. Notably, the state legislature has used a disclosure trigger of $50,000 as an amount that could have a sufficient impact on state elections to require the casting of some “light”. The population of Beverly Hills is less than 1/10 of 1% of the population of the state and has fewer than 1/10 of 1% of the number of registered voters in the state. By this measure, our disclosure requirements should be set at less than $50.
Some have observed that at $450 per person, a married couple could contribute $900 to a candidate which would be approximately the same as $1,000 and if the couple had adult children their total contribution could be far more than $1,000.
This is both a false comparison of two different things and also disregards and disrespects the fact that not all married couples let alone their children agree on which candidates or ballot measures to support. (A condition that exists for at least some of the signers of our letters.)
Further, using $1,000 will put this provision in line with the requirement of additional disclosure of members of LLCs which expend more than $1,000.
In short, we see no proper justification that is consistent with the DISCLOSE objectives for choosing a trigger higher than $1,000.
Disclosure of the identities of owners of LLCs is also important. While it may be true that contributors of substantial amounts are not, in all instances, trying to conceal their identity, it is noteworthy that at least half of the fourteen contributors to the above-referenced PAC were in the names of opaque entities. It is also 4 noteworthy that most of contributions were $9,000 or more but none more than $9,999 presumably intended to avoid consequences of exceeding $10,000.
Finally, the automatic incorporation of changes in the state DISCLOSE Act is a good idea. While the changes in state law would be binding on our city elections, required consistency will help avoid confusion.
We are grateful for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Gay Abrams
Harry Abrams
Jodi Cohn
Jane Davis
Myra Demeter, Ph.D.
Dan Demeter
Eliot Finkel
Lori Greene Gordon
Natalie Gordon
Neil Gordon
Victoria Gordon
Andrea Grossman
Rick Grossman
Marc Hankin
Lou Ignarro, Ph.D.
Sharon Ignarro, M.D.
David Lockman
Joanne Lockman
Wendy Nystrom
Diane Salke
Susan Mishler
Anne Ostroff
Peter Ostroff
Jon Pynoos, Ph.D
Rebecca Pynoos
Ron Richards
Elyse Salend
Tom Schulhof
Gina Seidel
Fern Seizer
Edward Sigall, M.D.
Howard Soloway
Trinka Soloway
Jonathan Swerdlow
Andy Wolk
Ellie Yadegar
Navid Yadegar
Herb Reston
Karen Sulzberger
Eric Lax