Sonoma City Council raises campaign contribution limit to $500

Future candidates for Sonoma City Council will have a bit more room in their campaign war chests, as the city has raised its monetary campaign contribution limit to $500.

The council took steps June 1 to revise its 20-year-old contribution ordinance, which currently limits donations from a person or committee to $100, and non-monetary contributions – such as business services – to $400.

The adjustment brings Sonoma’s monetary contribution limit in line with neighboring jurisdictions such as Healdsburg, Rohnert Park, Windsor and Santa Rosa, which also hold to a $500 limit. Petaluma and Cotati are at $200 and $350, respectively. Cloverdale and Sebastopol don’t have campaign contribution ordinances, and therefor default to state legislation, Assembly Bill 571, which allows individual donations of up to $4,900 for city elective offices.

City staff presented the council with a variety of options June 1, including raising the limit to $800 or repealing the ordinance altogether and defaulting to the state guidelines under AB 571. In the end, the council voted 5-0 to set the new limit at $500, adjusted each election cycle for inflation.

“We’re a small town,” said Mayor Jack Ding about his preference for the lower limit. “From $100 to $500 is a big change.”

Among candidates in the past three City Council races to raise more than $2,000 in contributions – and thus be required to file campaign-finance reports with City Hall – the reported total amounts of contributions ranges from the $7,234.89 raised by Logan Harvey in his successful 2018 campaign to the $15,877.84 reported by Rachel Hundley in her successful 2018 campaign. Among recent candidates who reported less than $2,000 in total contributions and expenditures, only incumbents Madolyn Agrimonti in 2018 and Amy Harrington in 2020 were successful in their respective council campaigns. Harrington, it’s worth noting, ran unopposed that year.

Among the other amendments the council made to the ordinance, the city will dispense with its option for candidates to voluntarily accept an expenditure ceiling of $10,000, in exchange for being allowed to receive monetary contributions at a higher limit of $200 per monetary donation and $800 per non-monetary donation.

Additionally, the council removed its limits entirely on non-monetary, or “in kind” contributions, such as goods or services - a move Councilmember Sandra Lowe now says creates “a gigantic loophole which you could drive several trucks through.”

Lowe said this week that by placing a limit on monetary contributions, but none on in-kind contributions, could allow big-money contributors to take advantage of the ordinance.

“Someone could finance your entire campaign for you and write it off as an in-kind contribution,” Lowe told the Index-Tribune this week.

Lowe cited her campaign for city council in the 2021 special election as an example. After a supporter provided printing services for her campaign, Lowe requested a receipt for what the amount would have been and filed it as part of her campaign finance disclosures. “It’s no different than if I paid for it myself,” Lowe said. “It got accounted for as a contribution on my form the same as if someone gave me 10 bucks.”

But, she said, under the amended ordinance a candidate could now raise the equivalent of far more funds through limitless in-kind contributions. “I think it should be consistent,” said Lowe. “In-kind and monetary should be the same.”

Councilmember Madolyn Agrimonti agreed this week that ending limits on in-kind contributions was an oversight when the council made it amendments to the ordinance, saying she “regret(ted) not paying better attention” to the ramifications of such a move. But she believes the $500 monetary limit was a good landing spot for Sonoma, keeping it comfortably below the nearly-$5,000 per contribution allowed under AB 571.

“Seems like Sacramento campaign culture is possibly seeping into smaller cities,” cautioned Agrimonti after the meeting.

Lowe is alone among her council colleagues in preferring Sonoma abandoned its ordinance and deferred to state guidelines, which would have the added benefit, she said, of enforcement by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. By enacting its own ordinance, enforcement of contribution limits and the levying of fines for violations in Sonoma would fall to city staff.

“If you take the state policy, they handle everything for you - if there’s a problem you complain to the FPPC, everyone understand how it works,” said Lowe. “If we write our own (policy), you have to enforce it, there has to be penalties. It just feels like a lot to ask for a small city to create their own campaign finance law and enforce it.”

The new ordinance will take effect 30 days from when the council grants its final approval at a subsequent meeting, meaning the new contribution limits will likely be in effect in the coming campaign cycle for the Nov. 8 election, when the city council seats of Agrimonti, Kelso Barnett and Bob Felder are on the ballot.

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.