Throughout the year-plus that La Mesa City Councilmember Colin Parent was running for a seat in the California Assembly, he was also soliciting donations to the nonprofit that employs him.
According to records at the La Mesa City Clerk’s Office, Parent disclosed hundreds of thousands of dollars in what are called behested payments — donations that individuals and companies make to charities at the request, or behest, of elected officials.
The funds were directed to Circulate San Diego, a nonprofit research and advocacy firm committed to promoting public transit, bike lanes and other mobility causes. Parent is the chief executive officer of the tax-exempt organization.
The La Mesa council member successfully sought more than $235,000 in donations to Circulate since the beginning of last year, records show. Many of the donations came from real estate interests and government agencies that serve La Mesa.
Parent, who lost the Nov. 5 race for the 79th Assembly District to LaShae Sharp-Collins, said he was careful to abide by all of the rules regulating behested payments.
“The California Fair Political Practices Commission has published clear and unambiguous guidance that part-time elected officials may be employed by nonprofits, including in a capacity with fundraising responsibilities,” he said by email.
“I have fully adhered to my legal and ethical obligations as an elected official to disclose all nonprofit fundraising activities that I have been involved in,” he added. “Whenever there has been a requirement on the City Council to recuse and to avoid a conflict of interest, I have recused myself.”
Parent, who will complete his second term on the La Mesa council and leave office next month, is the only city official to disclose any behested payments since 2018 — except a single donation reported by Councilmember Patricia Dillard last year.
Dillard reported a $5,000 contribution from the County of San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce to the La Mesa Juneteenth Foundation, a nonprofit where she serves as a volunteer board member.
In all, the La Mesa City Clerk’s Office recorded 85 behested payment filings in nearly seven years, all but one from Parent.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported last year that the Circulate San Diego executive director had solicited almost $700,000 in behested payments for the tax-exempt organization over the prior five years.
Parent, a New York University law school graduate and member of the California State Bar, said at the time that there was nothing unusual about him soliciting donations for his employer while serving as a La Mesa city official.
But some good-governance experts said they were troubled by the practice.
“Even if everything is legal, the public perception is horrible,” said Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, a nonprofit that promotes best practices and transparency across government.
“As an elected official, when you’re involved in this kind of activity, where money is exchanged at an elected official’s request, the public has every right to question whether a public official’s loyalty is with the donor or with the public,” he said.
Parent said he never sought contributions to Circulate San Diego from individuals or companies with interests before the city of La Mesa.
“None of the behested donors to my employer had any business before the City Council of La Mesa,” he wrote. “I would hope that if the earlier criticisms were made in good faith, this would satisfy them.”
Documents show a multitude of donations from developers, real estate investors and a host of public agencies that serve the city’s residents.
Since last year alone, Parent has disclosed four- and five-figure contributions to his employer from the city of San Diego, the county of San Diego, the Port of San Diego and the University of California, San Diego.
He also solicited a $5,650 contribution from Metropolitan Transit System San Diego and $20,000 from San Diego Gas & Electric, which both provide services to La Mesa.
Federal tax records show that Parent was paid nearly $150,000 in salary by Circulate San Diego in 2022, the latest year for which a public filing is available. The executive director’s compensation accounted for some 15 percent of the organization’s annual spending, the filing shows.
Parent also collected more than $30,000 in base pay and benefits last year for his La Mesa City Council service, according to the Transparent California online database of public salaries.
The Union-Tribune has been examining behested payment filings from local elected officials in recent days, including those submitted by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and San Diego County leaders.
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