Late Report Costs Greene $217

Spokane City Councilwoman Roberta Greene did not report contributions for campaign bus signs as soon as she should have, a state Public Disclosure commissioner ruled Monday.

Greene was ordered to pay $217 - or $1 for each day she was late in reporting the full amount of the contributions, assistant director Susan Harris said.

Greene said the violations were minor and technical because she did report the contributions, although not when required to by the PDC.

“There was no subversive, manipulative or illegal things going on,” she said at Monday’s City Council meeting after she returned from the hearing in Olympia. “That complaint has now been settled and I will go on with my life.”

The complaint was brought before the PDC by John Gutierrez, a supporter of Greene’s opponent, David Bray, in last year’s election. Gutierrez said Monday that Greene should step down from office.

“I am calling for her resignation,” he said. “If there is any possibility of mounting a recall, if she doesn’t do the honorable thing, I would like to see her forced to step down.”

Greene said Gutierrez was within his rights to bring forward the complaint but that he harbored a grudge against her.

“He has an ax to grind and I just refuse to give credence to his vendettas against me,” Greene said.

In filing the complaint, Gutierrez said the incumbent councilwoman should have reported the in-kind contribution of some 50 bus benches, worth more than $7,500, in August.

That’s when Empire Ford, a company owned by Greene and her husband Nate, decided to donate signs it had under contract to the dealership.

Greene argued that she should only report the value of the signs each month, after the dealership received invoices from the advertising agency, and passed them on to the campaign.

Public Disclosure Commission staff agreed with Gutierrez, saying that Greene received the benefit of the ads as soon as they went up.

“If the actual amount of the entire in-kind contribution was not known at the time … the campaign was required to estimate the value,” the staff said. The campaign could have filed amendments later when the exact amounts were known.

The commission assessed a civil penalty against Greene of $500. But $283 of it will be suspended if she avoids a similar violation for the next two years, Harris said.

“There was no willful intention to deceive,” Harris said.