Day 213: Serving With Super Women

Tonight I hosted our monthly NWPC Board meeting here at the house. Wow, what a super fun & productive meeting we held. Wonder if it was the wine or just our fabulous energy. Most likely a little bit of both! Either way it was a great way to celebrate our November victories... all our chapter's endorsed candidates won their elections! This alone was cause for celebration.

Check out the fabulous women I serve with on the NWPC LA Westside Board, from left to right: Karriann Farrell Hinds, Rebecca Simon, Serena Josel, Betsy Johnson, Barbara Greene Ruskin, me and missing from the photo because she was taking the picture is co-president Lindsay Bubar!

And of course there was a lot of work to be performed. I have profiled my connection with the National Women's Political Caucus, and the organization's mission to see gender parity, many times on this Blog. I believe more women should be elected to office and in order to achieve this goal we need to fill the "pipeline" as they say ... meaning identifying possible women who demonstrate leadership capabilities, then mentoring them, guiding them and helping them run and be victorious! Sometimes a woman just needs to be asked to run!

So yes in addition to handling our chapter's business as officers on the Board, tonight was also a time for us to connect, eat & drink and celebrate our hard work over the past year in getting some superstar women elected to office.

If you want to learn more about NWPC and our chapter's activities, please visit http://www.nwpclawestside.org/ and become our friend by joining NWPC LA Westside's FaceBook page! Also mark your calendars for our annual Holiday Party on Thursday, December 16th at the Stone Rose Lounge at Sofitel Hotel. This is a great opportunity to mingle with elected leaders, candidates and empowering women. Hope to see you all there!

Day 97: I'm Cleared

Pop the champagne and take a big sigh of relief as I did when an official, manila envelope, stamped with CONFIDENTIAL all over, arrived on my doorstep today!

The Los Angeles City Ethics Department has completed their audit of my 2009 City Council Campaign, and no irregularities were found!

The official wording read ...

Audit Findings: Audit findings describe instances where auditors concluded that a committee failed to comply with State and City law. The Committee did not have any findings that auditors concluded were material.

Thank goodness! As I have written in previous posts on this Blog, running for public office is no easy task, especially in Los Angeles. And you can see why more people don't put themselves through the scrutiny and abuse. Having all this campaign financial material reopened and examined some 15 months after the March 2009 Election was dreadful. Having to contact folks who made contributions in good faith some two years ago to determine if the contribution was within the legal contribution rules, was a pain in every one's behind!

But it is official now, I have been cleared and it will be recorded in the City binders that the Friends of Robyn Ritter Simon campaign abided by all the rules established for fair political campaigning!

Finally, this chapter of the campaign can be put to bed!

Day 65: I'm Getting Audited

You know, running for public office is harder than most things I can think of... okay maybe not as hard as carrying and delivering twins vaginally, but that's an entire episode that one day I will blog about. I mean really did you know that if you give birth to fraternal twins they are in separate amino fluid bags which means that once you deliver one baby you have to re labor all over again to deliver the second baby! Holy mole no one told me that I'd have to open up my uterus again -- after it contracts back to normal size... so yeah there are some things that are harder than running for public office, but really other than birthing twins I can't think of any at the moment.

So that's why it just kills me to think that this election is still not over! Fifteen months after getting my ass kicked I now have to endure a damn audit by the City of Los Angeles Ethics Commission. Yep you read correctly. Every city campaign has to be audited to ensure that all financial records were kept correctly, that no money was raised illegally and that the candidate did not put in more money than is aloud to their personal campaigns. But really this far after you have lost a hard battle and you have tried to move on with your life, really?

So the audit begins this Friday and no doubt I will be required to furnish all types of documents to prove my innocence! As if I was a criminal! You wonder why more people don't run for office... welcome to the nightmare!

I ran my campaign as ethically as anyone could... followed all the rules, and raised money the old fashion way asking folks and receiving contributions in the dollar amount allowable. I can't say all other candidates do the same.

So when you think you finally are free from the remnants of your political campaign, the door is opened once again and all your personal information is again opened up to the world for viewing.

I have had a lot of hard battles in my life... breaking into broadcast journalism when everyone said it was impossible; birthing twins naturally when everyone said it couldn't be done; and running for public office with young children when everyone said it was not possible. Yeah it's all possible and I'm living proof that it's doable! I guess I just have always enjoyed an enormous challenge!

But please don't say something is not doable because I might just go for it!