With little more than three weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election for a new County Supervisor, the campaign for state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) has leveled fresh allegations against rival Bernard C. Parks.
A Ridley-Thomas spokesman said that Mr. Parks, a Los Angeles City Council member, “has unlawfully turned his city-funded 8th District Newsletter into an anti-union propaganda bulletin in an unlawful attempt to use city resources to promote his campaign.”
Further,“Parks is unethically propping up his faltering, debt-ridden campaign for Supervisor by using his city-paid staff as campaign operatives and also by using his office’s taxpayer-funded computer equipment for political purposes in a bungling attempt to mislead his constituents and damage the image and reputation of Sen. Ridley-Thomas through smears and innuendo.”
The latest claim is that Mr. Parks’ staff produces his “8th District E-News” on their City Hall computers.
Mr. Parks distributes his official district newsletter through the city’s email system. The city of Los Angeles Governmental Ethics Ordinance prohibits the use of city resources for any non-city business purpose, including campaign activity.
Mr. Parks’ rival asserted that the Councilman “ordered his staff to inject partisan politics into the latest edition of his office’s E-News (Volume #22/2008) sent to his 8th District constituents last Thursday night.
“In a shameless abuse of the public’s trust,” the Ridley-Thomas campaign statement continued, “Parks’ staffers were directed to compile and insert electronic Internet links to more than 25 stories from a variety of Internet websites aggregated under the headline: ‘Corruption Alive and Well in Local Unions.’”
The reference was to the broad fiscal and physical support Sen. Ridley-Thomas has received from unions.
Mr. Parks “has spent nearly his entire campaign for bashing police officers, firefighters and healthcare union members who voted last year to support and endorse Sen. Ridley-Thomas for Supervisor in the primary election and the general election,” a spokesperson said.
“But Parks’ ham-handed newsletter ploy to fire political shots at Sen. Ridley-Thomas hit the wrong target.,” the campaign statement said in closing. "Parks’ City Hall staffers blasted their boss when they linked his official newsletter to an extreme, right-wing, Oregon-based blog – The Union News (theunionnews.blogspot.com/) – whose author is dedicated to the defeat of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in this year’s historic election.