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We’re thrilled to announce that Jadtec Security Services is joining Post Alarm Systems, bringing together two familyowned and locally operated companies deeply rooted in our communities, each with decades of experience safeguarding homes and businesses throughout Southern California. United in Protecting Southern California Homes & Businesses postalarm.com (949) 894-4839 Orange council's weakening of campaign contribution ordinance irks its initiator By Tina Richards Following the money donated to political campaigns has been Shirley Grindle’s personal crusade for 50 years. She has successfully spearheaded local ordinances restricting contributions and does not take kindly to back- pedaling on that front. Her appointment to the county planning commission in the 1970s gave her insights into the impact large campaign donations and gifts had on individual politicians and the favoritism that resulted. She initiated a campaign finance ordinance, TIN CUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics), and convinced the Board of Supervisors to adopt it. Effective in December 1978, it limited contributions to $1,000 per election cycle. In 1992, she amended the TIN CUP ordinance to ease compliance. County supervisors placed it on the ballot, and it passed with 85% of the vote. Since then, she has promoted ordinances prohibiting county employees from accepting gifts and post-employment lobbying, and helped create a county ethics commission approved by voters in 2014. The cities of Orange and Anaheim subsequently adopted the TIN CUP ordinance. A resident of Orange, she now focuses her attention primarily on those cities. Thanks, but no thanks Last year, the Orange County district attorney awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Campaign Finance Reform. She was invited to attend an Orange City Council meeting the following month to accept a similar honor. She declined. “There is no way I will accept an award from a city council that deliberately weakened the Orange campaign ordinance solely for its benefit. Council members created a loophole whereby they could unknowingly accept donations over the contribution limit that are laundered through other candidate-controlled committees.” Grindle’s ire was ignited by the Orange Council’s 4-3 vote to rescind a campaign finance limitation from the municipal code last May. A city ordinance relating to campaign donations had prohibited donations from one candidatecontrolled political committee to another. In other words, Candidate A could not funnel money to Candidate B through his or her campaign committee. By the same token, a donor who had met the contribution limit for Candidate A could give money to Candidate B, whose committee could in turn pass it on to Candidate A. An unnecessary loophole Grindle sees that restriction as a means to circumvent individuals or special interests from exceeding contribution limits for a specific candidate or measure. Because Orange now has by-district elections, candidates have fewer voters to reach, which means campaigns cost less and fundraising efforts are more focused. An individual in a given district may donate to a candidate running in that district. They may not, Grindle asserts, want their candidate’s committee to pass their donation on to a candidate running in another district. “Councilmembers Jon Dumitru, Denis Bilodeau, John Gyllenhammer and Kathy Tavoularis degraded a campaign ordinance that has been recognized up and down the State of California,” she says. “The loophole they created is in opposition to the purpose of the ordinance, which is to prevent evasion of contribution limits by funneling or laundering them.” If a candidate in one district wants to support a candidate running in a different district, she says, they can write a check. They are free to do so, up to the maximum ($1,500) allowed. Calling the restriction an infringement on free speech and unconstitutional, both Jon Dumitru and Denis Bilodeau pointed out that Orange, Anaheim and Orange County are the only jurisdictions in the nation to prohibit candidate committee transfers. Dumitru added that there have been no legal challenges to the restriction and no findings to support it because "it doesn’t exist anywhere else." Supported by law Grindle suggests that Dumitru may be mistaken. “Since many California local ordinances are patterned after TIN CUP, one would have to wade through 180 city and 27 county codes to prove or disprove that,” she notes. And there has been a legal challenge. An Alaska Supreme Court case found that the ban on inter-committee transfers was constitutional because the “state has a right to enforce its contribution limits; no one’s free speech rights are being violated; it prevents the funneling of contributions through candidate-controlled committees.” She also notes a 2002 finding from the California Attorney General that “a county ordinance may prohibit the transfer of funds from campaign committees.” That opinion restates a 1995 Attorney General report that said a candidate may accept inter-committee transfers “unless prohibited from doing so by county ordinance.” The same applies to city ordinances, Grindle says. “Just because we’re one of the few,” Arianna Barrios contended during the council discussion, “that doesn’t make us wrong. Sometimes standing up for the right thing is the right thing to do.” Barrios, along with Ana Gutierrez and Mayor Dan Slater, voted against the amendment to change the ordinance. “I’m deferring to Shirley Grindle,” Slater said. “She’s devoted her life to this. Perhaps other cities should hold Orange up and say this is a model for the correct direction.” SCC MUN team wins top honors Santiago Canyon College's (SCC) Model United Nations (MUN) team earned the Outstanding Delegation Award—the highest team honor presented—at the 2025 National Model United Nations (NMUN) Conference in New York City. This marks the sixth consecutive year SCC has achieved this distinction, showcasing the college’s unwavering commitment to academic excellence and global engagement. The NMUN conference is the world's largest and oldest ongoing intercollegiate Model UN, with participants representing more than 250 colleges and universities from over 100 countries. In addition to the team’s success, students Jenna Darwish and Sabine Farhat received the Outstanding Research and Position Paper Award for their work representing the General Assembly Third Committee. SCC student Elyse Halbreich achieved individual distinction by being selected to chair the General Assembly Third Committee—one of NMUN’s premier bodies—and was also invited to join the NMUN staff for its Washington, D.C. conference this fall. Complementing the student successes, SCC Professors Chris Haynes, Michiko Kuroda, and Professor Cale Crammer co-organized a session focused on international diplomacy education. Shirley Grindle
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