COUNTY DROPS OLD LIMITS ON FUND RAISING; ONLINE DISCLOSURES REJECTED.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

The Board of Supervisors voted out the county's old campaign-spending ordinance Tuesday, recognizing that Proposition 208 makes it obsolete.

However, supervisors disagreed on board Chairman John Flynn's proposal that candidates be required to post their campaign disclosure statements on the Internet.

As a result the board voted 3-1 to adopt the measure striking down the old ordinance, without the online proposal, with Supervisor Susan Lacey absent and Flynn dissenting.

Proposition 208, passed by voters in 1996, set voluntary spending limits on local races equal to $1 per voter - an amount that would range from $128,700 to $166,200 for Ventura County races for supervisor, said Richard Dean, county clerk and recorder.

Candidates who refuse those contribution limits are restricted from accepting more than $250 from any person or business and $500 from a committee, Dean stated in a report to the board.

However, candidates who accept the ceilings may accept double those amounts - $500 from a person or business and $1,000 from a committee.

That clashed with an existing county law - Ordinance 3983 - which allowed candidates to receive up to $750 from an individual or business and as much as $1,800 from committees in primary elections.

``In order to avoid any potential confusion of candidates and voters, Ordinance 3983 should be repealed,'' Dean stated.

Two weeks ago, Flynn had proposed adding an electronic disclosure requirement to the campaign funding item.

``We have to present (campaign finance) reports and the technology is there to do it (online),'' Flynn said.

Dean argued, however, that the technology to upload campaign spending reports is too slow and costly for local candidates and voters to use effectively.

``My thinking is that a lot of local candidates don't have the computer expertise (to upload disclosure forms),'' Dean said. ``They've used computers for work processing and spreadsheets, but they don't have the expertise to put their campaign expenditure reports into a format that can be easily uploaded to the Internet.''

Furthermore, he said, the hundreds of pages of disclosure reports would take hours to download on a personal computer, making it less convenient for voters than merely stopping by the government center to view the documents on paper.

``I have a question in my mind as to how many people would really be interested in this,'' Dean said. ``They don't have time to get on the Net and wait for hours for graphics files to be downloaded.''

A state Senate bill now before the governor would require statewide candidates to begin submitting electronic disclosure records starting in 1998, Dean said. The county would better be able to hook into such a statewide system once it's established than to start from scratch now.

Flynn dismissed Dean's opposition as anachronistic.

``Your arguments almost sound similar to someone who (was) against the printing press,'' Flynn said.

However, other supervisors echoed Dean's hesitation.

``Not everybody's privy to a personal computer in their own home with the time or the knowledge to get the information,'' Supervisor Judy Mikels said.