Ray Lutz Calls for Resignation of Ernie Ewin from Council Over Conflict-of-Interest Issue

The head of a public-agency watchdog group is calling for the resignation of Ernie Ewin from the La Mesa City Council because Ewin also serves on a group overseeing $247 million in bond spending in the Grossmont Healthcare District, which is being termed a conflict of interest.

“Where a public official is found to have accepted two public offices, the common law provides for an automatic vacating of the first office,” said Ray Lutz of Citizens’ Oversight Projects (COPs), who made the conflict allegation.

Lutz noted that Ewin, who was re-elected in 2010, serves as both a member of the City Council and as the chair of the 11-member Independent Citizens Bond Oversight Committee of the health-care district.

“ICBOC was formed as part of Proposition G, and is required to be composed of ‘independent citizens,’ a fact that is even implied by the name of the committee,” Lutz wrote. “The committee operates in compliance with the Brown Act, which governs the operations of official public bodies, illustrating that it is not an employee function.”

In letters (attached) to the La Mesa city clerk and the heath-care district, Ray Lutz of Citizens’ Oversight Projects (COPs) says a similar conflict led to the resignation in 2006 of James Stieringer as La Mesa city treasurer after he became a director of the Grossmont Healthcare District, an elective position.

But Ewin said in a phone interview that oversight committees are not policymaking bodies, and in an email response said:

I have previously discussed the matter of conflicts  with legal counsel of both the city and the Grossmont Healthcare District. … The city of La Mesa Council is an elected office. The Proposition G Independent Citizens Oversight Committee is an appointed/volunteer one.  California law prohibits holding two publicly elected offices at the same time.

Ewin said he had previously served as an appointed member of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee for the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District’s Proposition R for four years before terming out.

“Both Proposition G and R Citizen Bond Oversight Committees are voluntary and uncompensated,” Ewin said I enjoy my service opportunities to the citizens of La Mesa and East County; and as one of 9 or 11, appreciate all the other volunteers' efforts and dedication as well.”

In his letter, Lutz said:

One of the most important concerns is that our elected and appointed officials operate without conflicts of interest. Such conflicts not only occur when the official can benefit financially from decisions of that official, but also if officials have positions that have overlapping jurisdictions.

If a single official simultaneously holds two offices which overlap in jurisdiction, the official’s loyalty may be divided between the two offices. Holding the two offices may be incompatible and the first assumed office may have been forfeited by operation of law.

Ewin, whose career was in banking and finance, served on the council from 1985 to 1990 and regained the seat in 2002. Earlier, he was a founding member of the San Diego Trolley Board of Directors and is a past a member of the County of San Diego Finance Review Panel.

Lutz, the La Mesa native who ran for Congress in 2010, previously challenged Stieringer’s bid for a paid position in the Grossmont Healthcare District after resigning from the Grossmont Healthcare District board. Lutz also questioned a closed-session meeting on Stieringer as a violation of the Brown Act, which the board later agreed should have been conducted in open session.

It eventually was.