Paying debts

Sherrie Doyle took tens of thousands of dollars in loans from a local political activist. Were these contributions unethical—or even illegal?

By D. Brian Burghart

Last week, more than a year after Sherrie Doyle joined the Reno City Council, one of her contributors stepped forward to say that she has loaned Doyle far more than Doyle disclosed on her campaign finance reports.

An investigation of the allegations revealed that not only has Doyle allegedly failed to disclose campaign contributions and personal loans, but she has exceeded campaign contribution limits.

Doyle reported a $12,600 loan from Beth Miramon, a Reno political activist, on an Oct. 27, 1998, campaign-contribution disclosure form. According to Secretary of State Dean Heller, it is illegal to accept more than $10,000 in contributions from one person, as Doyle did. The law is specific about how much a candidate can accept from an individual, Heller said.

“Any contribution greater than $100 must be disclosed,” he said. Contributions include loans.

“You can take $5,000 (from an individual) in your primary and $5,000 (from an individual) in the general,” Heller said. “This is a cumulative total; it would be necessary for any contributions that total greater than $100 for the whole thing to be disclosed.”

Heller said the reason the matter has not been investigated is because no one has filed a written complaint.

It is a felony to exceed contribution limits, according to Nevada Revised Statutes.

John Helzer, assistant Washoe County district attorney, said his office does not investigate these sorts of cases.

“It would have to go through an investigative agency, whether it’s the sheriff’s department, Nevada Division of Investigation, the police department,” he said. “Any type of violation of law has to go through an investigative agency. It is then put into the form of a completed investigation, then submitted to our office with a request to review or with a request that a warrant be issued.”

Helzer said that the district attorney’s office then makes a decision whether to prosecute.

The missing $7,000
Miramon, a 73-year-old retiree and political activist, said she made two loans to Doyle—a campaign loan for $19,922 and a personal loan for $19,361. That puts the total amount Doyle borrowed from Miramon at more than $39,000. Miramon has supplied the RN&R with documents signed by Doyle to support her argument.

The campaign loan—for which a $19,922 IOU was signed by Doyle on Feb. 9, 1999—includes payments to print shops, various media sources for advertising (including the Reno News & Review), a payment to an optician and a $2,500 down payment on a car (a 1993 Toyota Celica, which Miramon cosigned for Nov. 21, 1998).

“This is a cumulative total; it would be necessary for any contributions that total greater than $100 for the whole thing to be disclosed.”

However, Doyle only reported a $12,600 loan, which leaves more than $7,000 unaccounted for.

Doyle filed an amended financial report two days after the RN&R interviewed her. The amended form was incompletely filled out and did not contain all the dates for contributions or page numbers. It was also a combination of two different forms. Finally, it did not mention the additional $7,000 in campaign contributions that Doyle admitted to owing Miramon in IOUs and the interview with the RN&R.

In that Jan. 2000 document, Doyle reported that she had paid back Miramon $12,300. Doyle admits that Miramon lent her the extra $7,000, but she claims the expenses are listed on her reports, just not in Miramon’s name.

“Beth got money,” said Doyle. “I still owe her $7,000 (for campaign expenses). The car was after the campaign. I am paying her back $200 a month for everything she loaned me to help me and my family survive through the campaign.”

To disclose or not to disclose?
Neither the car nor the personal and campaign loans are listed on Doyle’s March 31, 1999, statement of financial disclosure with the Nevada Commission on Ethics. Doyle has never reported the $19,361 personal loan because she claimed that personal loans don’t have to be reported. It’s an important distinction for Doyle to make, as an intentional omission from financial reports could result in fines—or even removal from her $34,500-per-year office.

Miramon breaks down the $19,361 “personal” loan like this: $7,971 for Doyle’s living expenses; $10,955 for an insurance settlement she paid for Doyle that stemmed from an automobile accident; and three bounced checks to her from Doyle totaling $435.

Heller said that public disclosure of personal loans is a “gray area.” The Secretary of State’s office, along with the City Attorney’s office on the local level, oversees election law. Although Heller said he hadn’t been informed about Doyle’s campaign contributions, an undisclosed personal loan is something the Secretary of State’s office would look at.

“I think it raises some red flags,” Heller said, declining to speak on Doyle specifically. “If a complaint came into our office, we would have to take a very close look.”

Heller also raised some other questions with regard to how the car Miramon helped purchase should be reported.

“That is reported to the ethics committee,” Heller said. “Every year, there is a report that comes out in March, as to gifts that you have received, and those forms have nothing to do with the Secretary of State’s office. Those go directly to the Ethics Commission. That’s a completely different ball game.”

By law, Doyle is required to file an annual report with the Nevada Ethics Commission. If a candidate intentionally makes false or misleading statements, it is a gross misdemeanor.

According to the form: “Disclose the name of each creditor to whom you or a member of you household owes $5,000 or more, except for: (a) A debt secured by a mortgage or deed of trust on real estate which is not required to be listed ... above; (b) A debt for which a security interest in a motor vehicle for personal use was retained by the seller.”

That section was left blank despite Miramon’s loans.

Kenneth Rohrs, executive director for the Ethics Commission, said he hadn’t received any complaints about Doyle’s report.

“The law says a public officer or employee shall not seek or accept any gift, service, favor, employment, engagement, emolument or economic opportunity which would tend improperly to influence a reasonable person in his position to depart from the faithful and impartial discharge of his public duties,” Rohrs said.

“I think there could be an argument made that the accepting of a loan fits as an emolument or an economic opportunity, and a failure to disclose would be strong evidence that it would tend to improperly influence a reasonable person, he said”

Eric Herzik, professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, said that he encourages candidates to report every loan—personal or otherwise.

“If she didn’t do that, then she put herself in legal jeopardy, not to mention political jeopardy,” he said. “If anything, you over-report because you don’t want to have to go back and try and explain why you didn’t.

“If it’s on the form, and if it falls within the categories on the form, it should be reported,” Herzik said. “Why wasn’t it reported where it was supposed to be? That’s a good question. That’s a fair question.”

An honest mistake?
The issue of undisclosed loans speaks directly to the ethics of the Reno City Councilwoman. Some say that Doyle broke the law by taking too much money from one contributor, a woman who was involved in numerous Reno issues including East Fourth Street redevelopment. There are other questions about whether personal loans are different from campaign loans, and whether personal loans have to be disclosed on official campaign reports.

Michael Melner, of the Reno City Attorney’s office, said that he was aware of the problems with Doyle’s disclosures. He said that when the initial issue—of Doyle’s having received more than $10,000 from an individual—was brought to his attention by Don Cook, the Reno City Clerk, he called on the councilwoman to explain.

“Somehow it was called to the attention of the city clerk that there was a listing on Sherrie’s campaign contribution list that was too high,” Melner said.

So he asked Miramon to submit an itemized list of her expenses. Then he took Miramon’s expense list, which totalled $19,922, to the Secretary of State’s office.

“They say, ‘OK, we need to clear this up,’ ” Melner said. “Because obviously from the listing, things are mixed up. She’s got personal items; she’s got private items. So I go back to Sherrie and say, ‘You want to get this straight and file this if it’s incorrect because you show more than you’re supposed to show.’ I go to the Secretary of State and say, ‘Wait a minute, what things count?’ A loan for a car has nothing to do with a loan for an election campaign, I presume, and that’s the kind of stuff that Heller’s office decided.

“I don’t think there is any intent to deceive. I think when errors were pointed out, she attempted to correct them. The forms are not easy to fill out, given the way the numbers are kept. It’ll be up to the Secretary of State, I presume, to determine whether something is illegal.”

Melner said questions about the Ethics Commission report are outside of his purview.

“I don’t know what powers (the ethics commission is) exercising now, candidly, with the new regime,” he said. “It goes to an issue of willfulness, deliberateness and an attempt to hide. I don’t perceive any of that with Sherrie. If this is careless or not understanding exactly how the requirements work, I think Sherrie was doing her damnedest to report appropriately.”

“One of the things we’re trying to do is go to the state and say, ‘We don’t have bad people; these rules are weird,’ ” said Doyle. “No one understands them.”

Doyle agrees. She hasn’t done anything wrong, she said.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is go to the state and say, ‘We don’t have bad people; these rules are weird,’ ” said Doyle. “No one understands them.”

Cook said he helped Doyle fill out the 1999 campaign contributions form.

“I acted as a liaison between the Reno City Attorney’s office, as well as the Secretary of State’s office to determine what precisely needs to be put on there,” Cook said. “Of primary concern were the personal/campaign loans, for which I did not have an answer. Mike Melner in the (Reno City) Attorney’s office worked very diligently with the Secretary of State’s office to try to resolve that issue.”

Cook didn’t have a specific explanation as to why the page numbers or dates of some contributions weren’t on the form.

“It seemed to be in order at face value, and I did not have a lot of time to look at it,” he said.

Doyle and Miramon
Miramon said she met Doyle in 1994. At the time, Doyle was chairman of the Northeast District Council. Miramon was asking the Reno City Council not to allow skywalks—sky buildings, as she calls them—from being installed over Reno’s streets. At that time, Doyle also made Miramon aware of a plan to continue Socrates Drive, near where Miramon lives, through to Parr Boulevard. The pair fought that plan successfully.

They got to know each other better during the struggle over whether the Home Depot would be allowed to build on Northtowne Lane, near U.S. Hwy. 395 and McCarran Boulevard, according to Miramon.

The two cemented their friendship after a student was shot at Hug High School in 1997. Miramon said they both were looking for constructive things for the young people of that area to do. The women seemed to carry similar issues close to their hearts—the welfare of children, schools and redevelopment.

In July 1997, Doyle joined the Reno City Planning Commission and left the Northeast Advisory Board.

Miramon was an officer and founder of the Reno-Sparks Corridor Business Association, which was working to redevelop East Fourth Street. This affiliation would later come to cause conflict-of-interest problems for Doyle.

Miramon said that Doyle was a great consensus builder and worked tirelessly for the people she represented.

“She provided us a forum to do our own thing,” said Miramon. “Because of her position as chairperson, she could ask the sheriff to come and talk to us; she could ask the mayor to come and talk to us. So when the City Council asked her if she would like to be on the planning commission, asked her to apply, she thought there wasn’t much chance, but she decided, ‘OK, I will apply.’ And she got the position. Well, that took her off the neighborhood advisory board.”

Miramon says she lent Doyle money to help her survive since she was a single mother with two children.

“When she was short of funds, I would grubstake her,” Miramon said. “Even that was too big. But in the course of two years (1995-97), I had only loaned her $7,000, which is pretty good for two years’ worth of living. She wasn’t running for anything. It was totally personal.”

It was after Doyle had decided to run for council that Miramon said she came to a “point of decision” about whether she should further fund Doyle’s career.

“That automobile settlement was just such a point of decision. She had decided to run (for City Council). But she had to have a driver’s license, so I paid that judgment (the judgment was from March 1995; Miramon paid it Aug. 4, 1998) against that automobile crash, so she could have identification.”

Miramon said that Doyle has done a good job in all her public positions. She headed up efforts to clean up Friendship Lane and co-chaired the Reno Youth Gang Task Force. Since she won her council seat, she has taken the lead on many law-enforcement issues, and she’s represented the “little people” of Ward 4 when it came to money disbursement, Miramon said.

“I don’t think she betrayed me,” said Miramon. “I think she is doing a very good job on the council.”

Doyle’s critics
Critics have said that Doyle hasn’t represented the people of her district well at all. She changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican Aug. 9, 1999, after being elected. Democrats in her ward far outnumber Republicans, and the Washoe Democratic Party claimed it offered her assistance in her successful campaign.

She was also unable to keep one of her campaign promises—to clean up the East Fourth Street area.

That promise was left unkept because of the declared loan from Miramon. When the City Attorney’s office became aware that Doyle had declared more than the $10,000 maximum contribution from an individual, Doyle was told she couldn’t vote on Fourth Street issues, Doyle said, adding that on June 8, 1999, she had to declare the conflict of interest and refrain from voting on an issue pertaining to Fourth Street.

“I wanted to run for office. I was a poor little girl who had just had a baby. Beth had faith in me. She helped me. There are two separate loans. One is personal; one is for the campaign.”

“I’m not trying to do anything dishonest,” said Doyle. “The one thing that got me in trouble was the Fourth Street corridor people the night of the vote. They got very, very angry. I had a roomful of East Fourth Street corridor people angry as bloody hell at me because I stepped down from the vote, because I disclosed that I had a substantial loan with Beth. And under advisement of the city attorney, it was best for me to not vote.”

The bottom line
Doyle said that it is not unusual to take loans to run for office. She also said it is not unusual not to declare them, naming several elected officials whom she said have problems similar to hers.

“Here’s the whole story,” said Doyle. “I wanted to run for office. I was a poor little girl who had just had a baby. Beth had faith in me. She helped me. There are two separate loans. One is personal; one is for the campaign. (The) campaign (loan) is being paid off. We took a major $12,000 chunk out of it. We’ve got $7,000 more to go. I’m going to go to a credit union and get the loan to pay the rest of it off because I can’t do $200 a month to her for the rest of my life. No way I would do that. Because she loved me, and because I loved her, she wanted only the best for me and my girls.”

For her part, Miramon has become a little disillusioned with her candidate.

“I am angry at her,” she said. “I was gullible. She didn’t ask for it, but she didn’t pay it back with any regularity. Not at all. I had to insist and insist and insist and finally did get papers signed. It was not until May 1999 that I got papers signed. That was for nearly $40,000. It was purely a handshake kind of thing, it was very old-fashioned. It does make me question her ethics. It’s a personal annoyance and a personal disappointment, though I still think she’s a strong councilperson.”

Miramon’s bottom line, though, is that she’d like Doyle to make regular payments on the loans—both of them.

Timeline