Bernard Parks accidentally registered with American Independent Party… twice.*

Parks registered twice with American Independent Party, but party’s chairman says 1/3rd of members may have have joined mistakenly.

Below are documents confirming that Bernard Parks did, indeed, register with the American Indepedent Party in both 1992 and 1996.

Bernard Parks, Jr., told me his father did this at the direction of the Registrars office, was clearly attempting to register only as an independent, and the elder Parks had never even heard of the American Independent Party until last Friday.

According to the 1992 voter registration form filled out by Parks, he checked off “American Independent Party” as his new affiliation, and noted he’d previously voted as a Democrat. On the form from 1996, Parks does check off “American Independent Party,” but below it writes in that he’d previously voted as “Independent.”*

Parks, Jr. says it would have “made no sense” for the elder Parks to join the AIP – his intent to become unaffilated during his run to become Chief of Police was because he believed the post should be non-partisan and serve all people.

The campaign for competitor for County Supervisor, Mark Ridley-Thomas, isn’t taking full advantage of the situation, sending out an email dismissing these excuses and asking:

What motivated Bernard Parks to register in an extreme right-wing party and continue to be a member of that party for ten years? Only Parks knows the answer to that question.

If this was a mistake, it wouldn’t be the only time someone registered for the American Independent Party accidentally. Markham Robinson, they party’s chairman, told me that in a recent survey of registered members about 1/3rd said they weren’t aware of their affiliation. (Robinson also said he was unfamiliar with Bernard Parks name, but said he’d look and see if Parks may have been affiliated in any way).

Earlier this year Jennifer Siebel, then fiance of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, was found to have been a member, even thought she declares herself an independent. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Siebel “checked the American Independent box thinking that was what independent voters were supposed to do.”

Documents below. Complete email from the Ridley-Thomas campaign after the jump.

Bernard Parks voter registration forms, 1992 and 1996 (pdf).

*Correction: I’d originally had the years backwards regarding the contents of these documents.

Parks website no longer blatant Obama ripoff, but…

The Parks for Supervisor website appears to have gone through a major overhaul, so while it no longer looks like a complete ripoff of Barack Obama’s slick site, it looks, well, unprofessional. Take a peek and decide for yourself.

Apparently a whole new company, Creative Data, is now claiming copyright over the site:

COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK NOTICES:

All contents of the Parks for Supervisor Web Site are: Copyright 2008 by Creative Data and/or its suppliers. All rights reserved.

The site is still using a background image that appears on Barack Obama’s official site. And Parks’ site is still using images hosted on the Obama server – take a peek at the icon next to Yvonne Burke’s name on the Park’s endorsement page. The image is pulled directly from this url:

http://www.barackobama.com/images/page_elements/icon-pdf.gif

Nitpicky? Perhaps. But Parks is running for one of the most powerful positions in perhaps the most influential county in the entire country. If he can’t control something as simple as his website, even when evidence of potential plagiarism is presented to him, should he have any role managing Los Angeles County?

…thanks to Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein for the heads up…

Parks continues to rip off Obama, complains Ridley-Thomas outspent him

photo of Bernard Parks by Mike Shear, all rights reserved, via Flickr

Since neither Mark Ridley-Thomas nor Bernard Parks received a majority of the votes for the LA County Supervisor’s at last week’s election (Parks: 39.54%, Ridley-Thomas: 45.77%), a run off vote will be held on next November’s ballot.

This is, of course, the same ballot that many anticipate record numbers will vote on with Barack Obama on the ticket. And both Park and Ridley-Thomas are proud Obama supporters, who will likely boast of this support as the election nears.

Whether voters’ perception of who supports Obama the most will make a difference, it does appear that Bernard Parks continues to have no problem having a website that was copied from Barack Obama’s. (previous coverage here and here.)

However, on the same website, Parks does bring up an interesting complaint about how Ridley-Thomas effectively beat him at last Tuesday’s polls:

The fact is; we were outspent by a six-to-one margin in an election that saw a 17% turnout. The opposition spent $97 for each vote it received. Put another way, they spent $5.5 million to receive 45% of 125,000 votes.

Thats right: $97 per vote!

Parks website still looks a lot like Obama’s

It is four days before LA County Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas for 2nd Dist. Board of Supervisors seat, and more than a week since I wrote about the Parks campaign lifting Barack Obama’s website, and not much has changed. Here’s what updates I do have:

-A few days ago, the Parks campaign wrote me saying they had contacted Uyi Ogbeide with 2 Way Star, their web designer, who “assured” them that “he did not commit any violations.”

-The HTML code on the Parks site was changed removing links back to the Obama campaign that were leftover from when the Obama website’s HTML was copied.

-Blogger Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein writes that after the Times article appeared, a friend of his called the Parks campaign to ask about the odd links to Obama’s site:

He spoke to Domingo, the contact person for their campaign on the website, who denied any knowledge of that and insisted it was a software-related bug that he had never encountered before

(If this is true, why was I told by Bernard Parks, Jr. that they were having trouble getting ahold of anyone with the website, when, apparently, someone with the site was already speaking to the issues, albeit sloppily?)

-On Tuesday, the Parks campaign also told me that Uyi with 2 Way Star would be getting ahold of me. In spite of this and repeated emails his way, I have not been contacted by Uyi.

-The designer of Obama’s website, Scott Thomas, declined to comment and put me in touch with Barack Obama’s office who also issued a “no comment on the website.” They made no indication as to whether they had looked into the situation or not.

Both Ridley-Thomas and Parks are Obama supporters, and there is some debate as to who endorsed Obama first. The issue is important enough for the Parks campaign to write on their site that Parks was “the first prominent elected official to support his campaign for President.” Is the use of Obama’s website, including color scheme and images, implying an endorsement in return?

Why was Bernard Parks’ website copied from Barack Obama’s?

5/30/08 update to this post here.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Veronique de Turenne at LA Times “L.A. Now” blog (here and here) wrote mentioning the similarities between Barack Obama’s website and that of for L.A. Councilman Bernard Park’s site for his run for County Supervisor. It goes far beyond merely looking the same – some of the background images are pulled from the Barack Obama site, the code is a complete match, and whoever “adapted” Obama’s site for Parks’ forgot to change one prominent link that takes you to an Obama page.

Compare:

Obama’s site — Parks for Supervisor’s site

Make no mistake about it – the designer knowingly copied Obama’s page.
After reaching out to Parks office for comment, Bernard C. Parks, Jr. replied, “The Parks for Supervisor Campaign hired 2-Way Star, Inc. to do the website. And, we are actively attempting to investigate the allegations.”
I pressed for an answer as to how Parks and his campaign site didn’t notice the similarity between their site and Obama’s, especially considering Parks boasts that he was one of the first people to endorse Obama, and photos of the two together are featured on the site.

Parks, Jr: “Since we were made aware of it, we’ve been trying to make contact with the company. So far we’ve been unsuccessful.”

While Parks, Jr. did give me an email he said was for the designer, he has yet to answer how this designer was chosen, and if the site was paid for. An message sent to the email given for the designer has not been returned.