Ethical Lines Blurred or Crossed? Councilmember Tammy Kim’s Conflict of Interest?
The Irvine Watchdog started a new series titled, Ethical Lines Blurred or Crossed, presenting real life situations that our city has or is facing pertaining to our current City Councilmembers, and then asking our readers to be the judge. The first article was regarding Councilmember Mike Carroll’s misappropriation of tax dollars. This article will take a look at Councilmember Tammy Kim’s apparent conflict of interest.
Councilmember Tammy Kim Awards Center for Asian Americans in Action Grant Money While Serving on Its Advisory Council
It is perfectly acceptable for a councilmember to award city grants to organizations doing important work for our community. But what if that same councilmember has significant ties to the organization she is awarding money to?
Councilmember Tammy Kim is one of the founders of Asians Americans in Action (A3), a nonprofit advocating to raise awareness of Asian American issues and support Asian Americans running for public office. A3 then formed Asian Americans in Action PAC (A3 PAC) in order to make financial contributions to political campaigns. PAC stands for political action committee and is created for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates. Councilmember Kim was one of the endorsed candidates of the A3 PAC.
According to their FEC filings, the A3 PAC contributed to 10 candidates. Only two received the maximum allowed, more than any other candidates — Councilmember Tammy Kim and Mayor Farrah Khan.
Not to be confused with A3 or the A3 PAC, Center for Asian Americans in Action (Center for A3) is a sister organization to A3. The Center for A3 is a nonprofit that does policy research and advocacy. As of the date of the screenshot below, Councilmember Kim was on the Advisory Council for the Center for A3. The below screenshot was taken on January 22, 2022, the same day that Councilmember Kim denied having any involvement with the Center for A3 in the Irvine Watchdog Facebook Group. After Kim’s involvement with Center for A3 was questioned on social media, her bio was deleted from their website, though it had been available at the time of both expenditures in April and November of 2021, as described below.
Requests for Community Partnership Grants
Each Irvine Councilmember is given $10,000 in Community Partnership Grants to allocate to nonprofits throughout each year. On average, Councilmembers grant anywhere from $500 – $1,000 to numerous nonprofits, typically located in Irvine, to support the work they do for the community.
On April 6, 2021, Councilmember Kim requested $6,000 for the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA), which is located in Garden Grove and does great work serving the Asian American community by providing medical services and mental health counseling to underserved, low-to-moderate income Asian families amongst many other services. The Founder and Executive Director of OCAPICA was appointed by Councilmember Kim to the Irvine Children Youth Family Advisory Committee.
OCAPICA is a fiscal sponsor for the Center for A3. A fiscal sponsor provides financial oversight and IRS compliance for nonprofits. Any money raised by or for a sponsored organization (in this case, Center for A3), is directed to the fiscal sponsor (OCAPICA), to be held for the use of the sponsored organization (Center for A3).
At the December 14, 2021 City Council meeting, Councilmember Kim requested $3,000 to be awarded to, again, OCAPICA, this time clearly indicating “in support of” Center for A3. But her ties to the organization were not disclosed or mentioned.
Both the April $6,000 and November $3,000 expenditures were approved under the Consent Calendar. Consent Calendar items are voted on all at once without Council discussion unless an item is “pulled”. Therefore, Kim’s funding requests passed under the radar without any public knowledge of Kim’s involvement with the Center for A3.
Were Ethical Lines Blurred or Crossed?
- Is it ethical for a public official to use taxpayer money to benefit an organization on whose board she sits or formerly sat?
- Was it ethical for Councilmember Kim not to disclose that she had been or was on the Advisory Board for the Center for A3 to which she awarded public money?
- Was it ethical for Councilmember Kim to allocate $6,000 to OCAPICA, which is run by the same person that Councilmember Kim appointed to an Irvine committee without disclosing this relationship?
- Was it ethical for Councilmember Kim to allocate $3,000 to the Center for A3, which is a sister organization to an organization that Councilmember Kim founded, whose PAC ultimately endorsed and contributed financially to her 2020 campaign?
Correction: Center for A3 informed Irvine Watchdog that Councilmember Kim no longer sits on their Advisory Board. Also, the website for the Center for A3 did not have Councilmember Kim’s bio up in April of 2021. Questions 1-3 are clarified accordingly.
Disclaimer: This article is in no way questioning the good and much needed work being done by OCAPICA and Center for Asian Americans in Action, or whether or not these important organizations deserve financial support. The article is about the process, ethics, and transparency surrounding the way the decisions were made. A focused discussion on the issues presented is appreciated.
To make a donation to the Center for Asian Americans in Action click here.
To make a donation to Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance click here.
5 Comments
Christina Shea
February 14, 2022 at 8:01 amThis clearly is a conflict of interest if Tammy Kim is allocating public money as an elected official, which then is being utilized for her personal campaign efforts or any other personal effort.
I would hope these violations are being sent to the FPPC including the other “parade of postcards” sent out to bruise Councilmember Agran.
Now that the OCPA is engaging in a massive “parade of postcards” campaign to suggest an educational outreach program, let me suggest the printer engaged in printing of the OCPA postcard campaign, may well be the same printer for the multiple anti Agran cards. The fingerprints are not hard to identify. I sense it’s a certain “campaign team” who run questionable schemes and are very influential with the Mayor and Council.
I would file a complaint with the FPPC about the anonymous postcards. This needs to be investigated and is a serious violation of campaign law.
Dee Fox
February 14, 2022 at 11:29 amTo Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan:
As our Mayor, you are bound and required morally, ethically, and legally to, not only confront misconduct, but take the appropriate measures to undo the wrong. It is also your responsibility to ensure illegal acts do not continue by taking appropriate personnel action on the individual, specifically Tammy Kim. Your inaction makes you accountable for her actions . . . it does not absolve you of your obligation by any means. I strongly suggest Tammy Kim’s unlawful misappropriation of taxpayer funds be recouped as soon as possible. It is becoming a common trend of City Council Members to abuse their position and use it to their own advantage. And the public is becoming more aggressive in calling out City Council Members who are corrupt and holding their leaders accountable. When elected officials refuse to take action, the public has other means to get justice. It is never a good mark on one’s reputation when they try to justify abusing our tax dollars, especially when it is self-serving. (We all know too well from when Mike Carroll stole over $70,000 of taxpayer funds)
I hope this will serve to get this placed on the next Agenda so this council can be transparent in how they proceed and to ensure that Tammy Kim is never allowed to do this again.
Priscilla
February 15, 2022 at 9:45 amI’m the founding director at the Center for Asian Americans in Action (Center for A3). Irvine Watchdog did not reach out to us before publishing these wild and damaging accusations involving ethics. If they have any questions about how Center for A3 was founded, funded and organized, please contact me at [email protected].
It’s clear that Irvine Watchdog knows little to nothing about the Asian American non-profit community in Orange County. If they did, they would know that Ms. Kim had been a nonprofit leader long before she was elected to Irvine City Council. As an Asian American woman launching a new non-profit to advocate for Asian American issues in Orange County, I naturally looked to other Asian American women leaders in the community like Ms. Kim and Ms. Foo for guidance. Both Ms. Kim and Ms. Foo have successfully started and led successful community-based organizations that serve thousands of underserved community members every year. Their experience and expertise are deeply valued in the nonprofit sector across Orange County and beyond. I am honored and indebted to these women for voluntarily serving on the Advisory Council of the Center for A3, and for putting their faith in me and my organization’s mission.
For that reason, I cannot let the insinuations about Ms. Kim, Ms. Foo, and my organization in this piece go unchallenged. As a fiscally sponsored organization, the Center for A3 does not have a formal board. We are not required to have one, yet I created an advisory council to provide guidance and serve as ambassadors to the nonprofit community. They have no fiduciary duty to the Center for A3. I invited Ms. Kim to the advisory council because of her decades-long career as a nonprofit leader. She joined the early meetings last summer and fall when we first had the idea to create the organization, however she stepped down at the end of last year due to competing priorities. I am the sole staff person at the Center for A3 so the delay in removing Ms. Kim from our website was on me. Updating the Center for A3’s website was not on the top of my priority list when there have been so many other urgent needs in the Asian American community.
Your readers should also know that it is common for community advocacy organizations to have 501(c)(3)/501(c)(4)/PAC umbrella formations. Examples include Planned Parenthood, Environmental Defense Fund, and Everytown for Gun Safety. These are permissible under the law and we have firewalls in place to ensure each entity can work independently without undue influence from any other entity.
Please educate yourselves about the Asian American nonprofit community, and nonprofits in general, before you publish outrageous claims about our community leaders. Your accusations hurt the communities that our organizations serve.
Sincerely,
Priscilla Huang
Branda Lin
February 15, 2022 at 12:25 pmThis article has absolutely nothing to do with the good work being done by OCAPICA and A3 or the leadership in the AAPI community. It has everything to do with ethics and the appearance of impropriety when a person holding public office donates tax payer funds to organizations they have current or prior affiliations with.
I intentionally left out the names of those involved in the organizations and did not include this in the article but since you brought them up, the issue is further muddied by the fact that the same individuals who formed A3, then formed A3 PAC (minus Councilmember Kim), and then one of those members on the former two orgs formed the Center for A3. One of the Board members of A3 and A3 PAC is also an appointed Commissioner who by definition “serves at the pleasure of” Councilmember Kim who appointed her. There of course is an appearance of undue influence over this board member. I can appreciate not having enough volunteers to do all the work and therefore having the same people on A3 and the PAC, but all the other orgs mentioned by Priscilla with umbrella orgs keep a distance between members of the PAC and C3/C4 to prevent any potential conflicts. Having said that, this article is about a potential ethics violation. A simple disclosure by the City Attorney or the Councilmember herself would’ve prevented the concerns raised by community members. There are legitimate questions to ask regarding ethics and transparency. The questions at the end of the article deserve consideration. And as always, if there is anything that is not factual in the article, please let me know since I take full responsibility and ownership of this article having written it, and I would be more than happy to correct it as needed. Thank you.
Harvey Liss
February 28, 2022 at 11:35 pmI was rather amused by Priscilla’s totally unrelated reply to the disturbing facts presented by Branda Lin. Priscilla seems to be saying that had Branda contacted her before publishing her article, she could have explained why Branda’s facts were not facts and the documents she presented really did not exist! I suppose Priscilla felt a responsibility to defend Tammy Kim’s clearly (my opinion) unethical actions and likely violation of FPPC rules by spouting the good works of the involved organizations and of Tammy Kim, even though Branda’s article did not dispute those good works. It was unsuccessful obfuscation.
It also seems to be a City Council trend now for Councilmembers (Mike Carroll and Tammy Kim) to spend City funds to support their own elections. And with their new (is it now $200k each?) slush fund, they can probably wage quite an effective election campaign with Irvine taxpayer funds so they don’t have to make deals with developers either before or after an election (although FivePoint did spend at least $300k supporting Mike Carroll’s 2020 election campaign through IECs with mailers filled with misinformation and misleading information, like the “re-elect” claim when he wasn’t elected in the first place).
Can someone explain what the Councilmember slush fund (formerly used to hire part-time executive assistants to further Councilmember business) can and cannot be used for?
Comments are closed.