Before the Ashley Oelson campaign even opened its headquarters in the old Barnes & Noble building on the Promenade, political observers were asking questions. How could a city council campaign, where individual contributions are capped at $1,200 per cycle, possibly afford a storefront campaign headquarters in one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world?
When the rental was not listed in recent campaign finance reports, curiosity became concern that the campaign was violating campaign finance laws by receiving an illegal donation from the building owner through free or discounted rent. An anonymous complaint was filed with the city alleging that the office space is discounted to the point of being an illegal contribution. Advocates charge that rent for the entire former bookstore would be roughly $240,000 a month if the full rental fees from the building’s listing is the actual asking price and the campaign is using the entire floor.
The campaign says the comparison isn’t realistic for two reasons: the space is a gutted shell used for storage at the moment, and the campaign isn’t using all of the available space.
“The former Barnes & Noble space has been vacant as a storefront for approximately 15 years (sic). The interior has been gutted and is not ready for a retail tenant. It has been used by 1212 Restaurant to store items such as outdoor heat lamps, broken chairs, and old restaurant booths,” Oelson wrote in response to a query by former Santa Monica Next reporter Todd Flora on his personal social media.
“The owner charges the restaurant very little to store those items there. So there is already a rental history for that same square footage at a very low rate, reflecting its condition and use as storage.”
But while Oelson may be brushing off concerns, the city attorney’s office that keeps tabs on political campaigns may have a different take. If the city upholds the anonymous complaint and finds that the discount is more than $1,200 it could fine the campaign or the building owner. If the city finds a discount of more than $5,900 it could be kicked up to the State as the donation would violate both city and state laws.
It’s been nearly a decade since a Santa Monica campaign was found to have taken excessive contributions, but it wasn’t the campaign that had to pay. In August 2017, the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) penalized the Huntley Hotel $310,000 for laundering more than $97,000 through employees, family members, and associated businesses across the 2012 and 2014 election cycles in support of anti-development candidates.
In a phone call with Next, Oelson described the efforts her campaign went through to make certain her space matched the storage space in the old building being used by 1212 Santa Monica. According to Oelson, her team literally measured the space they used and then made sure to only take up the same square footage.
In the call, Oelson gave the rental figure but asked that we not publish it as it might violate confidentiality agreements with the building owner. However, she did concede that the rent will be listed in the next campaign finance forms on October 22. Next will follow-up at the time. But she did say publicly that the rent is lower than people would think.
“I think people would be shocked to know how little I pay for rent,” she conceded to Flora before pivoting to a campaign message. “Which reflects the EXACT ISSUE at hand in our city…It speaks to the state of our business district and the lack of interest for businesses to want to be in Santa Monica. It should not be possible for my campaign to get that space. And yet, I had my pick of many spaces on the Promenade.”
