Fair Political Practices Commission Signs Off On Near Record Local Fine Of Adelanto Councilman Ramos

Fair Political Practices Commission Signs Off On Near
Record Local Fine Of Adelanto Councilman Ramos

After an interminable delay, the California Fair Political Practices Commission last month finalized the action it initiated against Adelanto City Councilman Daniel Ramos years ago, imposing on him one of the largest fines the watchdog agency has ever applied against a local politician.
In making its findings and assessing the penalty, the officials noted the length of time Ramos had allowed the case against him to go unresolved and his incalcitrance and repeated misrepresentations, the latter of which it was noted had required the expenditure of hundreds of hours of investigative work to fathom.
The case the California Fair Political Practices Commission brought against Ramos relates to a litany of reporting violations that were committed not just by the Committee to Elect Daniel Ramos Adelanto City Council 2020, which funded at least in part a campaign in which he was successful, but his Ramos for City Council 2018 committee, a separate entity that was related to his unsuccessful run six years ago for the Victorville City Council.
After more than five years of trying to get Ramos to acknowledge the gaps and flaws in his campaign finance report filings from his Victorville campaign and three years of seeking a similar sign of recognition from Ramos with regard to his Adelanto campaign, the Fair Political Practices Commission in May issued a default notice to Ramos and two individuals involved in his campaigns, Ricardo Ramos and Arley Arsineda, calling for the levying of a $57,500 fine on the councilman and/or his various campaign operations.
All told, it is estimated that Ramos collected and then spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $57,000 on both the 2018 and 2020 electoral efforts. An exact figure is not available because he has not filed the State Form 460 documents, the State Form 410 documents and other documents used to itemize donations to, expenditures from, loans to and from and nonmonetary contributions to, or in-kind payments relating to his electioneering efforts. Nor has he accurately delineated the bank accounts into which donations were deposited and from which expenditures were made.
According to the commission’s May 2024 charge sheet, “Ramos for City Council 2018 and Committee to Elect Daniel Ramos Adelanto City Council 2020 are Daniel Ramos’ candidate-controlled committees. Arsineda served as the Adelanto committee’s treasurer. The committees, Daniel Ramos, and Arsineda failed to timely file a statement of organization, sixteen semi-annual campaign statements, and four pre-election campaign statements, in violation of Government Code Sections 84103, 84200, 84200.5 (13 counts). Additionally, the Adelanto Committee, Daniel Ramos, and Arsineda failed to establish, maintain, and utilize a campaign bank account, in violation of Government Code Section 85201 (1 count). Total Proposed Penalty: $57,500.”
The original filing by the FPPC did not specify Ricardo Ramos’s role in what had occurred, although unverified information has it he was involved in the 2018 effort to get Ramos elected in Victorville.
Within a month after the Fair Political Practices Commission staff began what it represented as final preparations to impose the fine, Ramos initiated discussions with the agency over how he could cure the reporting violations he had amassed over the last six years. On June 11, the Fair Political Practices Commission staff agreed to remove the ratification of the $57,500 fine against Ramos from the board’s June 13 meeting agenda, with the understanding that some order of acknowledgment of the violations that had taken place would be made and an arrangement involving a possible fine reduction could be worked out with Ramos.
Ramos appeared before the commission in August, making multiple assertions that he suggested mitigated or obviated the need for any corrective action. Based upon that show of cooperation and as a gesture to prompt Ramos into providing the back-up material to verify his claims, the commission agreed to reduce the fine to $37,500.
The following month, at its September meeting, the Fair Political Practices commission revisited the case against Ramos, whereupon it was informed by the chief of its enforcement division, James Lindsay, that Ramos was not forthcoming with much of the documentation he had promised to provide. What documentation the agency received, Lindsay said, strengthened the case against Ramos.
Lindsay noted at the September 19, 2024 commission meeting that the agency in August held off on finalizing the fine against Ramos because the councilman said he had further information and documentation he wanted the commission to consider.
Lindsay said the intervening month gave the enforcement division an opportunity to verify or disprove some of the assertions Ramos made, including a claim that all of the reports that were required to be filed were filed.
Chairman Adam Silver asked if Ramos’s claim was accurate. Lindsay responded that Ramos did prepare some filings, but noted that most applied to the current electoral season and not the historic issues that were the focus of the commission’s action against him. He noted as well, that Ramos’s current filings from as late as mid-year 2024 were missing or incomplete.
“The statement that he has filed everything is not accurate,” Lindsay said. “He has filed some other paperwork relating to his status as a candidate in the upcoming election. He did prepare some filings, two that had activity on them. He did provide some documentation. He indicated that he had previously provided significant documentation regarding his bank account. That was not accurate, and, in fact, he did ultimately give us some regarding the bank account. It was somewhat distressing, actually, what we did find, which is that the institution – the banking institution that he had placed on the 410 – was not the banking institution that he ultimately opened an account with. He ultimately opened an account with a different institution only a week before the election, after all of the expenditures that he acknowledges were made and incurred. So, we didn’t get cooperation from Mr. Ramos through the five years that this case has been around. Previously we had subpoenaed records through the institution that he had disclosed. It turned out that we couldn’t get any documents because he didn’t have a bank account at that particular institution. It was only a few weeks ago that we received some documents that showed that a bank account was opened eventually, but very late. And none of the account money really matches up with the expenditures taken out. Almost all of the money was taken out after the election.”
In looking at information available through open sources, such as social media sites pertaining to Ramos’s campaign or his position on the city council, Lindsay said, substantial discrepancies with the campaign spending reports Ramos has filed emerged.
“There is a significant amount of stuff that is available on Mr. Ramos’s Facebook page that would indicate a lot more expenditures occurred than what was ultimately disclosed, but we don’t have any invoices,” Lindsay said. “He didn’t provide anything.”
Visible on the social media site, Lindsay said, were “very large signs in different languages, [signs of] different sizes, polo shirts, hats, events. There’s just a lot of stuff here that’s dubious. It’s dubious that $2,000 was received. It’s dubious that $1,800 was expended. The bank records aren’t particularly helpful. Almost all expenditures are occurring after the relevant election. Prohibited cash transactions are occurring in concert with a post-election trip to Las Vegas. There’s a lot of concerns here. At this point we have a gentleman who is continuing to run for office and ultimately what was filed was not particularly complicated, truthful or not. There’s no reason why this took three, four, five years to get reported, despite our consistent contacts, the local filing officers’ consistent contacts. We’ve expended in the enforcement division hundreds of hours on this case. Just from pre-notice onward, it’s probably been over a hundred hours. Our special investigator has had to expend considerable amounts of time even throughout the default process. Our attorney handling the case, our assistant chief over prosecutions and myself have spent considerable amounts of time on this case, trying to uncover what’s going on, trying to get compliance.”
Lindsay referenced the reduction in the fine, explaining, “In the enforcement division, we want to incentivize compliance, even if it’s really late and probably not particularly helpful at this point, but we do want to incentivize that. So, we did look at the proposed penalty again and we have reduced what our recommendation was from the penalty. As you may recall, we asked initially $57,500 as the aggregate penalty for all these non- and late filings and the bank account issues. We have, I think, confirmed what we suspected before with respect to the Victorville committee that was used in the failed election in 2018. Those are up to date. There’s no money attached to those filings. So, in an effort to be reasonable in our recommendation, we have lowered all of those counts relating to the Victorville committee from $4,000 or $4,500, depending on the type of filing it is, to $1,000 apiece. He hasn’t terminated the committee still, despite the fact that we’ve asked. So, there may continue to be and there are continuing to be, probably, filing obligations, but we do want to be reasonable about that. We have increased one penalty from $2,000 to $5,000.”
Lindsay said that Ramos has not made a clean breast of things and is still seeking to hide information or simply is incapable of providing it.
“A number of things that Mr. Ramos has said has been inaccurate and this is particularly troubling because it indicates there is fairly significant concealment,” Lindsay said.
Chairman Adam Silver said that in addition to what had been covered in Lindsay’s statement, “There were other additional violations, serious violations.”
Silver said Ramos’s dissembling and withholding of information “made it difficult for us as the enforcement agency to track what this candidate is using the funds for. Additionally, we had the respondent appear before us at our last meeting and he indicated he had filed all of his paperwork. He has not filed all his paperwork. There is no reason to assume he is not aware of that filing obligation. He has run in two different elections at least. He is a sitting public official. So, for me, that is certainly something I’m considering, the fact that he misled us.”
With the $37,500 fine being what had been specified in the September 19 meeting agenda, the commission turned its attention to confirming that and bringing the long-ongoing phase of the action against Ramos to a close.
Commissioner Catherine Baker told Lindsay, “I think you’ve been more than patient. I think it is disappointing that there is a sitting public official that has had this response. You’ve laid out the evidence very well for us. This commission has been more than patient and reasonable with the respondent. I think it’s generous that the fines have been adjusted the way they have.”
The remaining members of the commission present indicated their belief that Ramos did not meet the obligation on his part to comply with the state’s rules requiring transparency from public officials.
Commissioner Elsa Ortiz said she was “reluctantly” supporting the fine reduction.
With Commissioner Abby Wood absent, the four commissioners present – Silver, Baker, Ortiz and E. Dotson Wilson – unanimously voted to impose the $37,500 fine on Ramos.
Ramos did not respond to requests for comment.
-Mark Gutglueck

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