SANTA ANA – Voters will decide in June whether to authorize an ethics commission to investigate allegations of ethical and campaign finance violations by politicians and lobbyists in Orange County.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-1 to direct the Registrar of Voters to place an ordinance creating the commission on the June 7 ballot. The body would include an executive and five unpaid commission members.

Shirley Grindle, a longtime resident who helped write the county’s landmark 1978 campaign finance law – Time is Now, Clean Up Politics, or TINCUP – said she’s “eternally grateful” to supervisors.

“They could have gutted this ordinance, and they didn’t. They toughened it,” Grindle said. “And that says a lot about this board.”

In April, Grindle announced plans to collect signatures for a ballot initiative to form an ethics commission, which has twice been rejected by county supervisors despite repeated calls for one by grand juries.

So supervisors this summer established a committee, of which Grindle was a member, to study ethics commissions in other communities. That committee’s follow-up recommendation led to Tuesday’s action.

The creation of the commission would repeal Measure E, which was approved by voters in November and authorizes the state Fair Political Practices Commission to enforce the county’s campaign finance law. The new Ethics Commission ordinance would supersede that.

Supervisor Michelle Steel cast the lone vote against putting the commission question on the ballot because of the cost, which has not yet been determined but she estimated to be at least $500,000 “and more likely over $1 million per year.”

Grindle said Steel’s concerns about cost are without merit and emphasized that the money used to fund the commission is just a tiny portion of the county’s $5.8 billion budget.

“In the big picture, that is a very small percentage,” she said.

Many other large communities, including the cities of San Diego and Los Angeles, have ethics commissions.

Board Chairman Todd Spitzer called Tuesday’s vote “not only dramatic, but historically significant for this county.”

Supervisor Shawn Nelson called it “one attempt to clean up one small aspect of what we do around here.”

“Yes, there are still other problems. So we’ll get up tomorrow and work on something else. In the meantime, I’m proud to move this,” Nelson said.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission investigates Orange County politics, but for state-level violations, not local ones. Anyone violating county campaign finance laws could be prosecuted by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, but one deputy district attorney at a workshop this year could think of only one ethics violation his office has pursued since the law took effect nearly 40 years ago.

Under the proposal bound for June’s ballot, supervisors will appoint an ethics commission executive director who will investigate written complaints, track all campaign contributions and provide quarterly reports, and organize training sessions and create a manual for elected officials and candidates.

The director also will review proposed amendments to the county’s conflict of interest code before they are presented to supervisors. Each supervisor will appoint one commissioner who will serve a three-year term, with a two-term limit.

Salaries for the executive director and staff have not been determined. While commissioners won’t be paid, they will be reimbursed for travel expenses.

The proposal put to voters is separate from the Office of Independent Review, which oversees the Sheriff’s Department and is being reorganized by the Board of Supervisors in separate actions. On Friday, a former federal prosecutor working as a consultant to the county recommended that the county expand the Office of Independent Review to include oversight of the District Attorney and Public Defender, with an eye toward investigating the DA’s use of jailhouse informants.

The ethics commission being put before voters would include rules about who could and couldn’t serve.

Members must be registered voters who haven’t worked as lobbyists within the past 10 years.

They also can’t hold an elected county office or work as a county department head or executive manager. That would rule out current and former supervisors.

Anyone who sponsored the proposal, including Grindle, also would be prohibited from serving.

All investigations will be conducted confidentially, and violators are to be offered “remedial measures” rather than administrative enforcements “when feasible,” according to the proposal.

The executive director will handle initial investigations and will have the power to subpoena bank records of candidates for county offices. The accused can request a hearing, then appeal those results to the five-member Campaign Finance and Ethics Commission. Hearing officers can subpoena individuals, as can the chair of the commission.

Sanctions for violations, which must have occurred in the previous four years, include fines of up to $5,000 for each violation or “three times the amount which the violator failed to report properly or unlawfully contributed, expended, gave or received, whichever is greater,” according to the proposal.

The proposal must be approved by more than half of voters to become law.

Grindle said she plans to campaign to get the commission measure passed.

“I know that there are people out there who are grateful for what I’ve done,” said Grindle, referring to her years as an unpaid watchdog.

“They’re going to be asked to contribute.”