Wednesday, August 31, 2016

“Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV),” “Liberal OC,” and Mary Ann Gaido are all under FPPC investigation



“Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV),” “Liberal OC,” and Mary Ann Gaido are all under FPPC investigation
“Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV),” “Liberal OC,” and Mary Ann Gaido are all under FPPC investigation, they have some serious questions to answer:
  1. The money involved in the political activities of the “Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV),” and that of “Liberal OC” are both way over $2,000 threshold. These political activities should all be conducted under a Political Action Committee (PAC) or a Super PAC, and subject to all the FPPC rules. How can they operate without setting up a PAC first? Even the CBS talk show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has to set up a PAC to talk about political figures.
  2. It seems like “Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV),” and “Liberal OC” have broken many rules of FPPC. Please look into these violations.
  3. “Irvine Community News & Views” (a political mailer that disguised itself as “newspaper” and an online “news” blog) provides free resources to Mary Ann Gaido.
  4.  “Liberal OC”, an online blog provides free resources to Mary Ann Gaido.
  5.  “Irvine Community News & Views” has published a number of articles to make Mary Ann Gaido look good, and put other mayoral candidates down. This publication is actually a political mailer, not a newspaper. I do not think Mary Ann Gaido has reported the resources that she is receiving for free from “Irvine Community News & Views.”
  6. “Irvine Community News & Views” also did not offer a proper disclosure statement at the bottom of their “articles”, such as “Paid for by…”
  7. Besides all the free promotional articles she has received from these two publications, Mary Ann Gaido had a full page “paid” advertisement at the “fake” newspaper, Irvine Community News & Views, in June 2016, but she did NOT report the expense of the paid advertisement on her Form 460. She is under FPPC investigation now.
  8. Please see the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f7bbwwvqb6bgcnw/AABd4fbxIZZLgk3SiPO02sTOa?dl=0
  9. In the June 2016 Issue of the Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV), on the last page there is a full page ad for Gaido. The so-called "Open Letter" entitled "Why Am I Running for Mayor" at the end of the ad says "Mary Ann Gaido for Mayor 2016, ID# 1383418." We cannot find any expense about this ad on Gaido's original Form 460. Why is she getting all this free advertisement, coverage and promotions, when other candidates did not receive any?
  10. Mary Ann Gaido claims that she represents the Irvine people. What a joke? With all the big money, free resources, and promotions funded by special interest groups, you can expect a big “pay back” from Mary Ann Gaido to these special interest groups if she does get elected. 
11.  Who is she trying to fool? Mary Ann Gaido just filed the amended Form 460 on 8/31/16 after she was caught for not paying for the “paid” ad, and not reporting the expenses to FPCC. However, she should still be punished for her mishandling in the first place.  Whoever filed the amended Form 460 tried to fool people and manually overwrite the date on the form as 8/5/16, but the city’s e-file system clearly shown the amended Form 460 was actually filed on 8/31/16.

This evidence is a smoking gun, and shows Mary Ann Gaido is either incompetent and mishandled campaign finance at best, or intentionally tried to cheat FPPC and the people to conceal the truth, and claim the “free” ad that she got from the “Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV)” was a “paid” ad at worst. So far, she still has NOT paid for the $6,000-worth of “paid” ad to ICNV. On her latest amended Form 460 filed on 8/30/16, it still shows the $6,000-worth of alleged “paid” ad as actually unpaid bills on the Schedule F on her Form 460. “Paid” ad? Well, she has NOT paid for the ad yet. That is a blatant lie.

She cannot claim that she did not know about this and it is her staff’s fault. Every candidate is required to sign the Form 460, and she did sign it and is responsible for it.

See the following link:


Please see our campaign website (GangChenUSA.com) for my platform and solutions for Irvine.

Paid for by Gang Chen for Mayor 2016 (GangChenUSA.com) FPPC# 1379051

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Mary Ann Gaido is under FPPC investigation



Mary Ann Gaido is under FPPC investigation

Mary Ann Gaido had a “paid” advertisement in the June 2016 issue of the fake newspaper, Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV), but she did NOT report the expense of this ad on her Form 460. She is now under FPPC investigation.
See the following link for a copy of the form and the newspaper issue:

In the June 2016 issue of the Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV), on the last page there is a full page ad for Gaido. The so-called "Open Letter" entitled "Why Am I Running for Mayor" at the end of the ad says "Mary Ann Gaido for Mayor 2016, ID# 1383418.", but we cannot find any expense occurred from this ad on Gaido's Form 460. Why is she getting this free advertisement, coverage, and promotion, while other candidates do not receive this benefit?


Who is she trying to fool? Mary Ann Gaido just filed the amended Form 460 on 8/31/16 after she was caught for not paying for the “paid” ad, and not reporting the expenses to FPCC. However, she should still be punished for her mishandling in the first place.  Whoever filed the amended Form 460 tried to fool people and manually overwrite the date on the form as 8/5/16, but the city’s e-file system clearly shown the amended Form 460 was actually filed on 8/31/16.

This evidence is a smoking gun, and shows Mary Ann Gaido is either incompetent and mishandled campaign finance at best, or intentionally tried to cheat FPPC and the people to conceal the truth, and claim the “free” ad that she got from the “Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV)” was a “paid” ad at worst. So far, she still has NOT paid for the $6,000-worth of “paid” ad to ICNV. On her latest amended Form 460 filed on 8/30/16, it still shows the $6,000-worth of alleged “paid” ad as actually unpaid bills on the Schedule F on her Form 460. “Paid” ad? Well, she has NOT paid for the ad yet. That is a blatant lie.

She cannot claim that she did not know about this and it is her staff’s fault. Every candidate is required to sign the Form 460, and she did sign it and is responsible for it.

See the following link:
http://nf4.netfile.com/pub2/AllFilingsByCandidate.aspx?id=152239015&candidate=Mary+Ann+Gaido




It appears like the newspaper, Irvine Community News & Views, is also collecting subscriber's info and giving this information to Mary Ann Gaido's campaign. This is definitely unethical, and is probably against the laws. See the following link:


A quote from one of the reviewers reads:


"I have three complaints about this publication.  (1) They shared my name and address with a political candidate (2) They don't disclose these practices (3) They are misleading as to who they are.

SHARING MY NAME & ADDRESS WITH A POLITICIAN

After getting this "community newspaper", I completed an online survey to support low-growth in Irvine.  That caused me to be added to candidate Mary Ann Gaido's mailing list, one of the people supported and praised in the publication and one of the candidates explicitly endorsed with a ballot box check mark next to her name (paid for by Gaido).

I've never before received personal mail from any candidate but her fundraising letter was addressed to me personally, at my address.  There's no way she could have obtained my mailing address except that this mailer (Irvine Community News & Views) shared it with her when I completed the survey.  That caused me to get on other political mailing lists, also addressed to me personally.

NO DISCLOSURE OF (ANTI-) PRIVACY PRACTICES

There is no disclosure that completing their online survey will get your name and address shared with political candidates.  When you go to their website, and click Contact Us, there is no phone number disclosed, only emails.  On the same page, there is a link to "Privacy & Terms" but it's not linked to the privacy policy of Irvine Community News & Views.  Instead, that link goes to the generic Google privacy policy.  So it looks like they have a privacy policy when the reality is that they don't.

MISLEADING

The publisher and editor is Franklin J. Lunding.  The Orange County Register describes Lunding as "a long-time friend" of Larry Agran, one of the candidates praised by the publication and endorsed along with Gaido with the ballot box check mark next to his name.  The OC Register also reported in a 2009 article that Lunding had moved to Carmel Valley, but apparently he keeps involved with Irvine.  Must have a lot of spare time and money on his hands.

Based on a few articles by the OC Register, Lunding and Agran sound like they are actually on the opposite side of slow growth. Check out:


On the inside page of the publication, there is a disclosure that says,"Irvine Community News & Views is a community newspaper and is published by Irvine Community News & Views, LLC, a slate mailer organization established under the laws of he State of California, registered with the California Secretary of State, and licensed to do business in the City of Irvine."  It sounds odd that it can claim to be BOTH a community newspaper and a slate mailer.  Even if this is legal, Lunding and Agran don't sound like they are who they claim to be."



Please see our campaign website (GangChenUSA.com) for my platform and solutions for Irvine.


Paid for by Gang Chen for Mayor 2016 (GangChenUSA.com) FPPC# 1379051