Jan 29, 2004

Almaden Valley Business Association news

Wanted: Clean elections
Principles of the AVCA/VEP ethics document

An ethics document defining the type of campaign that AVCA and the VEP Community Association would like to see has been distributed to the District 10 City Council candidates.

A reviewing committee will oversee the performance of the candidates.

The reviewing committee will be from AVCA: Lee Dimmitt, Roland King and Bob Boydston and from VEP Community Association: Bob Aquino will act as referee to determine if there is a violation and what action to take.

Each of the candidates for the District 10 City Council election has been asked to agree to the ethics document, the main points of which are shown below. For the full text, see the AVCA Web site at
www.avca-sj.org/ethics.html. At this writing, candidates Rich De La Rosa, Nancy Pyle and Ron Siporen have agreed to abide by the ethics document.

The objective here is to encourage decency, honesty and fair play into the electoral process. We want the candidates to be open in expressing their ideas and fair in discussing the positions of the other candidates. Candidates should avoid whispering campaigns and refute those persons who do so to support the candidate.

The candidates shall provide evidence to the committee of any claims made.

There should be no appeals to prejudices.

The candidates should not use coercion to obtain election funds.

The committee will review campaign material using the following five criteria:

1. Statements must be relevant to issues pertaining to District 10 and the city as a whole or to the qualifications of the candidate.

2. Statements must be factual, substantially accurate and verifiable.

3. Conclusions based upon the facts or statements of opinion must be reasonable as judged by a reasonable person; and opinions, furthermore, must be appropriately identified as such within the same text.

4. Statements cannot be used out of context for the purpose of drawing erroneous or misleading conclusions.

5. Campaign material must not be demagogic or use inflammatory rhetoric.

If, after weighing these criteria, the committee concludes that there has been a significant violation of the agreement, it will do the following and in this order:

1. Prepare a letter containing the results of its review with a statement to the effect that this is the opinion of the committee reached after each member had exercised his or her judgment in a reasonable way.

2. Discuss the results of its review and the content of the letter with each candidate. Then and,

3. Simultaneously:

Post the letter on the AVCA and VEP Web sites.

Provide a copy of the letter to local newspapers with the understanding that there is no guarantee that such a letter will be published. Provide a copy of the letter to each candidate

If the committee is asked to review material in advance of its publication, the committee will use the above criteria. In the event that there appears, in the opinion of the AVCA and VEP, to be a significant violation of this agreement, the committee will ask the candidate to appropriately change the material before its publication. By signing the code, the candidates understand that if appropriate actions are not taken, the AVCA and VEP will make its opinions publicly known in the manner set forth above.