Editorial: Of Stanford tickets and ethical propriety Editorial: Of Stanford tickets and ethical propriety (April 21, 2004)

City officials accepting freebies is a minuscule local example of a state and national conflict-of-interest problem, but perceptions are important
The disclosure by the Weekly last week that two members of the Palo Alto City Council have accepted freebie tickets to Stanford sports events has raised an intriguing question: Does the acceptance of any "gift" compromise ethical standards of good governance?

The question is complicated by two facts: (1) The total value of the gifts falls far short of the state's legal "conflict" standard of $350, and (2) both members of the council serve on the Stanford Liaison Committee, a small group of top city and Stanford officials that at Stanford's behest meets in closed sessions.

The latter point is of far more concern to us than the gifts themselves. It has never made sense to us that governance-related items between the city and Stanford should be discussed by top officials behind closed doors. But the make-up of the committee does not rise to being a technical violation of the state's open-meeting law, the Brown Act, since it is not composed of a majority of council members.

It is true that whatever comes out of the discussions must be subjected to full public scrutiny through the city's review-and-approval process. But the perception of getting too close, chummy and familiar lingers. Palo Altans have long been rightly suspicious of closed discussions or negotiations -- even if they occasionally produce mutually beneficial outcomes, such as the Mayfield soccer-field deal in which all sides seem to come out ahead.

Accepting free tickets to sports events takes that perception of too much chumminess a step further -- particularly when the two council members (Mayor Bern Beecham and former Mayor Vic Ojakian) happen to serve on the liaison committee.

In conflict-of-interest disclosure reports submitted to the state April 1, Beecham reported accepting tickets to two events worth a combined $194 and Ojakian reported one football game valued at $110. Neither comes close to the $350 threshold that would bar them from voting on Stanford-related items, and perhaps that should be the end of it.

After all, nothing in the law prevents a council member from socializing all he or she wants with Stanford officials -- as long as no gifts are involved.

And Stanford regularly invites local elected official and senior city staff to be its guests at campus events. If anything, the surprise may be that only two such freebie cases showed up in disclosure statements this year.

The real danger is not the acceptance once or twice a year of a seat in the press box with a Stanford vice president or two, duly reported on an annual gift report.

It is the tolerance of too many substantive, close-door meetings between city and Stanford officials on issues that should be fully open and known to the public. These closed sessions, when combined with special attention from Stanford through tickets and other invitations, can't help but raise concerns among the public.

The Weekly, and most newspapers, have strict guidelines relating to staff members accepting any gratuities, beyond admissions to plays or other public events when the staff member is on-the-job reviewing or covering the event. It's a matter of sustaining trust and credibility, of avoiding any perception of favoritism.

City officials should do no less, regardless of the legal "conflict" limit.

This case is minuscule. It is at worst an unintentional step over a faint and wavy line of judgment about "perception" when compared to the well-documented millions upon millions of dollars spent lobbying and cozying up to state and federal legislators by corporate interests, from big oil, giant pharmaceuticals, and insurance firms to manufacturers of textbooks, computers, and military or space hardware.

This is where the real sellout of America is occurring, not at a Stanford sports event.

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