"Long Beach JOBS PAC" Endorses These Candidates in 2014 Election Cycle...So Who Comprises The "JOBS PAC?"

(June 17, 2013, 10:30 a.m.) -- At late afternoon June 12, LBREPORT.com received a release from the "Long Beach JOBS PAC" [political action committee] indicating that it has endorsed Damon Dunn for Mayor, Charles Parkin for City Attorney and Doug Haubert for City Prosecutor.

We report their action here, but we also sought to learn what we consider a basic journalistic "W" of the story. (1) Who comprises the JOBS PAC and (2) who interviewed the candidates and took part in the endorsement decisionmaking? [We routinely ask these question of all PACs, including the LB police officers and firefigher PACs. when they endorse candidates.]

We were also unclear about verbiage in an accompanying press release which describes the Long Beach JOBS PAC as "the political action committee of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce." We asked the contact person indicated on the release, Randy Gordon, who is [separately] President/CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Below is what he told us via email on Friday June 14...followed below by information we learned independently.

[Mr. Gordon's email] I can't give you the names of the 11 Jobs PAC board members but will tell you that 11 of the total 14 board members were in the interviews. We interviewed Damon Dunn, Gerrie Schipske and Jana Shields for the Mayor's Race. We invited Doug Otto and Bob Foster but they both declined.
Our Chamber's JOBS PAC is our Political Action Committee of the Chamber and is a separate legal entity in which funds are never combined with our General Fund of the Chamber and it has a separate board of directors and its decision on endorsements is final and does not require our Chamber Board approval. Yes some of our regular Chamber board members are also on the JOBS PAC board but we also have some PAC board members that are not on our Chamber board.

LBREPORT.com has independently learned that among those who were present in interviews with at least some of the candidates were [not a complete list, titles in parentheses as indicated on LB Area Chamber website]: Joanne Davis (Immediate Past Chamber Board Chair, heads The Davis Group), Matt Kinley [former Chamber boardmember], John Howard (Chamber boardmember, Owner/Operator Chick-Fil-A @ LB Towne Center), Dianne Hendel (Chamber boardmember, CEO LB Memorial Hospital), Ladonna DiCamilo (Chamber Board Chair-elect, Dir. of Gov't Affairs for BNSF RR), Randy Gordon (Chamber Pres/CEO) and Jerry Miller (Chamber Board Chair).

LBREPORT.com will update the above list as we learn more.