on the cover / By Hank Sims

Campbell’s Account

Of course, that doesn’t answer for all the years that he has served the city, during which time the proposed Katz project has been one of its most important pending issues. And it was only in March of this year, two months after Pacific Lumber went bankrupt, that Campbell decided to include his interest in the company on his financial disclosure forms. He wrote that Pacific Lumber owed him $400,000 in deferred compensation, a figure that was now “clouded” by the company’s bankruptcy. Also, he wrote that he had received no payment for 2006. (In fact, he had received a substantial sum that year — the company sent him a check for $120,977 on Feb. 6, right in the middle of his campaign for council — but Campbell maintains that those funds were for calendar year 2005.)

It’s not easy to determine whether Campbell broke California’s clean-politics laws by not disclosing the terms of his relationship with Pacific Lumber. Such decisions would theoretically be made by the Fair Political Practices Commission, and that body does not speak to the press about specific cases, either before they are investigated or afterward. But Campbell, at least, feels that he is on solid ground. He has previously stepped away from city decisions involving his personal business partners, and he said that he wouldn’t shy from doing so again, if he thought the case warranted it. In this case, he said, it does not.

“If I feel it’s inappropriate that I should vote on a project, I would recuse myself,” he said. “But right now I don’t feel that way.”

If the momentum toward the big box development that Clif Clendenen senses is real, it could be for any number of reasons, of course. It could be that citizens of Fortuna really want a big box development, despite the city consultant’s gloomy forecast for its prospects. Indeed, results from the city’s last election — the one that brought Campbell to the council — seemed to confirm this. The anti-big box candidates, who weren’t shy about expressing their qualms, were soundly defeated.

But when Clendenen was presented with the documents filed by Campbell and FHK in the Pacific Lumber bankruptcy case, he was taken aback. He didn’t want to hazard any conclusions about the propriety or impropriety of Campbell’s role in city government over the last few years, and he won’t attribute the push for big box development he perceives to Campbell’s contract with Pacific Lumber. Still, he said that he was concerned that Campbell’s active participation in discussions about the site could taint whatever decision the city ends up making.

“He’s been highly involved in everything,” Clendenen said. “There’s been a hundred meetings. Should we go back a hundred meetings?”

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