ELA - 2016 Challenges

During the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council election process, several key rules were violated by current board members that were running for reelection. Endorsements of four current board members – Krystee Clark, Dana Stangel, Charlie Bradley, and Nina Royal - were posted by another board member, Jon von Gunten, on the official STNC Facebook page, which links directly from the official STNC website (see upper right corner of stnc.org), clearly violating the election rule: “The governing Board of the Neighborhood Council, acting in their official capacity as the governing Board, is prohibited from endorsing or campaigning for any candidate or group of candidates running for the governing Board of the Neighborhood Council.” 
In addition, the official STNC Facebook page displayed the City of LA Seal and Sunland-Tujunga’s official logo on the cover photo of the page, violating another election rule: “The use of the City of Los Angeles Seal, the Department, City Clerk or Neighborhood Council logo or any other official Neighborhood Council designation created by the Department is prohibited for use on candidate materials. Any use of a logo, regardless of intent, will be considered a violation of this article and the Neighborhood Council Election Procedures unless the logo is used as part of outreach material produced by the City, a City department, or the Neighborhood Council for the sole purposes of promoting the election. If such outreach material contains candidate names, all qualified candidates must be listed on the material. The purpose of this provision is to prevent candidates or supporters of candidates from campaigning under the expressed or implied endorsement or authorization of the City, a City department, or a Neighborhood Council and prevent voter confusion.” If the city seal or NC logo is used on outreach materials by the STNC which contains candidate names, they must include ‘all qualified candidates’. The official STNC did not endorse, profile, or include statements from any other candidates besides those on their own board members’ ‘experience slate’.
The last rule transgressed was: “City resources may be used by a Neighborhood Council for impartially communicating with voters through the printing and mailing of a voter information pamphlet, which includes candidate statements and/or the posting of candidate statements on its website. To the extent that the Neighborhood Council provides candidate statements to the voters or Neighborhood Council mailing lists to candidates, all candidates shall be given access in a timely and uniform manner.” Neighborhood councils are certified bodies of the city family and the official STNC Facebook page is a city asset. The current board of the STNC failed to communicate impartially with voters, only posting candidate statements of members of the current board who were running for reelection. The STNC Facebook page is not open to the public for posting and requires admin approval to post. As a candidate, I myself tried to post about a weekend candidate forum to the STNC Facebook page but was denied by the STNC admin. Candidates were denied uniform access to this city resource throughout this election process.

The remedy requested is the disqualification of the four candidates – Krystee Clark, Charlie Bradley, Dana Stangel, and Nina Royal - who received and benefitted from the endorsement of the current STNC board, as well as the disqualification of Jon von Gunten, another board member also running for reelection, who posted the endorsements on the official STNC Facebook page, linked to from the official STNC website. These board endorsements were highly improper, as was posting them on a city asset, branded with the city seal and Neighborhood Council logo, and denying uniform access to all of the candidates.