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Ethics Commission: Greenwood mayor violated campaign finance rules Saturday, Feb 16, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The state Ethics Commission voted Friday to issue a letter of reprimand to and impose a $600 fine on the Greenwood mayor for violating campaign finance rules. The commission found that Mayor Ken Edwards filed inaccurate financial reports, filed a report late, failed to keep complete financial records and used campaign funds to purchase personal items such as a cowboy hat. The commission began investigating Edwards after former Greenwood Mayor Garry Campbell filed an ethics complaint alleging Edwards had misused campaign funds and violated reporting requirements. A public hearing had been requested by Edwards and was scheduled for Friday, but Rita Looney, chief counsel for the commission, said Edwards' secretary advised that the mayor had the flu and could not be present. The commission chose to make a finding without a hearing after Executive Director Graham Sloan told the members the statutory deadline for acting on the matter was drawing near. "We're going to run out of time before the next meeting, and Mr. Edwards was advised of that when he requested that hearing, that it was going (Friday), regardless," Sloan said. Looney said the investigation found no evidence that Edwards received campaign contributions that he did not report or that he used campaign contributions to purchase personal items after his election as mayor, as had been alleged. Edwards had no campaign funds left after the election, she said. However, the investigation did find that Edwards reported loans to his campaign that he never received and expenditures that he never made, Looney said. She said Edwards' explanation was that he reported $6,000 in loans that were available to him, should he need them, and that his report of an equal amount of expenditures was an error. The investigation also found that during Edwards' mayoral campaign he used campaign funds to buy personal items such as shorts, shirts and a cowboy hat. Edwards claimed the hat was a campaign purchase because he bought it to wear in a rodeo parade, but personal attire is not considered a campaign expense under state ethics rules, Looney said. "Otherwise, you would have candidates buying new suits and whatever apparel they thought they needed to have for an event and then charging it to the campaign, and that is not a proper expenditure," she said. Edwards also filed one financial report 319 days late and could not produce records for $488 worth of non-itemized expenditures, Looney said. Also Friday, the commission dismissed a complaint by Edwards alleging that Campbell lied under oath to the commission. No perjury statute falls under the Ethics Commission's jurisdiction, Sloan said. Edwards defeated Campbell in a runoff election in November 2006 by a vote of 711 to 672. |
