GALT, CA (MPG) - The state’s political ethics watchdog has fined Galt City Councilmember Shawn Farmer $3,000 for violating conflict-of-interest rules early in his City Council tenure.

Filed in March this year, the decision by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) said that, in 2019, Farmer improperly voted on a sale of city land near his own property.

Farmer criticized the size of the fine, saying it was too harsh, given his inexperience on City Council at the time and his lack of other violations. He also said city staff at the time should have noticed the conflict.

The case relates to a vote at the regular City Council meeting on March 19, 2019, when staff recommended selling city-owned land on Cornell Road to expand the planned Fairway Oaks subdivision. Farmer had taken office in December 2018.

The city had purchased the roughly 6-acre parcel as possible parking space for the Galt Market but that did not materialize. With the land’s initial cost of nearly $400,000, plus ongoing maintenance, and the low chance that the parcel would support a stand-alone development, staff proposed selling the land to Fairway Oaks developer Arcadia Development Co. This would allow Arcadia to expand the subdivision.

Farmer voted with three other councilmembers to approve the sale.

A Fair Political Practices Commission spokesperson told the Herald that the agency started its investigation based on an anonymous complaint received in 2020.

According to a report by the commission’s Enforcement Division, the Cornell property was within 500 feet of a property that Farmer declared on financial-interest paperwork when he took office.

Farmer told the Herald that this was his father’s house; the councilmember said he added his own name to the deed during his father’s illness.

Fairway Oaks got its initial approval in 2002. Arcadia originally planned to build 100 single-family units, with the additional acreage, it has since raised that number to 173 units.

Under California’s Political Reform Act, the Fair Political Practices Commission said, a conflict of interest exists when an official participates in a government decision that has a “reasonably foreseeable” financial effect on a location within 500 feet of the official’s property. The commission said a financial impact could be anticipated from the land sale.

“It is reasonably foreseeable that the sale of undeveloped property to a developer would have a financial effect on the surrounding properties such as raising property values or changing the character of the neighborhood,” the Fair Political Practices Commission wrote.

The commission cited comments Farmer made to the Herald after the vote: “What we’re getting is fair. I look at this as infill. It will help property values in the area and money to our Parks and Rec. For these reasons, I support it.”

The maximum fine for a conflict-of-interest violation is $5,000 per count; the Fair Political Practices Commission chose a lower amount, $3,000, in Farmer’s case, saying that “there was no evidence to support an intent to conceal, deceive or mislead the public as to Farmer’s financial interests.” He disclosed the property in a financial-interest form filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission upon assuming office.

“Instead, the evidence suggests that Farmer was inexperienced with the Act’s conflict of interest provisions as a newly elected public official and negligently voted on the governmental decision at issue here,” the Fair Political Practices Commission’s decision read.

Farmer said the item first came before City Council at a closed session on Feb. 19, the first closed meeting he attended after taking office. He said that the location of the city land was not well explained during the Feb. 19 meeting.

“We were never shown maps or anything. They were just like, ‘Here’s where it is.’ There was just a parcel number. Even on the agenda for the closed session, there was just a parcel number. There was no map or anything,” Farmer said.

The Fair Political Practices Commission said it found nothing to contradict this but noted that the agenda for the March 19 vote in open session said the parcel is “located on Cornell Road.”

Farmer pointed out that he has since recused himself from several votes when they related to areas near his property, including the one central to the Fair Political Practices Commission case.

In August 2020, when City Council approved the Fairway Oaks subdivision map and the annexation of an “island” of Sacramento County land within city limits, Farmer and then-Councilmember Paige Lampson recused themselves, both noting that they lived nearby. Farmer spoke in a personal capacity during public comment on the item.

The Fair Political Practices Commission report said Farmer “does not have a prior history of violating” the Political Reform Act.

Farmer also disputed the idea that the sale would have a foreseeable effect on his property because the action was an expansion of an already-approved development.

Farmer said the investigation, which lasted several years, and the fine have been “stressful.” While he praised the work of the city’s current legal counsel, Farmer said the city’s attorney at the time failed him by not flagging the conflict.

“(It is) just a really sore subject of mine because, you know, you go to bat for the city, you try to do the right thing for the people, and here I am thinking I’m doing a good thing,” Farmer said. “We got all this money for Parks and Rec from selling the property, and then somebody comes along, anonymous ... and just accuses me of maliciously trying to pad my own pockets and it costs me thousands of dollars.”

The Fair Political Practices Commission report can be viewed on the agency’s website at bit.ly/4fvXprC (case sensitive).