Oakland City Council president fined for late campaign filing

Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney listens to Al Marshall speak during Oakland City Council meeting in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, June 22, 2015. Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney listens to Al Marshall speak during Oakland City Council meeting in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, June 22, 2015. Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oakland City Council president fined for late campaign filing 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Oakland City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney will pay a $1,600 fine for failing to report her 2014 campaign contributions on time, the city’s Public Ethics Commission decided Tuesday.

The fine, issued because McElhaney failed to disclose her contributions and expenditures for six months after the July 31, 2014, deadline, comes on top of a $1,730 late fee from the city clerk in January.

According to Ethics Commission documents, McElhaney’s election committee — which formed in 2011 to support her 2012 bid for City Council — has routinely submitted late finance forms. The committee missed a deadline by 2½ months in 2012, another by about one month in 2013 (a nonelection year), and another by one day in 2013.

McElhaney paid $350 in late fees for the 2012 violation, but didn’t face any other penalties.

There was no real justification for these lapses, the commission ruled, given that McElhaney’s campaign committee had submitted filings multiple times.

“This demonstrates that the violations are at best negligent, and at worst intentional,” the ethics commissioners wrote in an analysis submitted with the decision Tuesday.

McElhaney attributed the most recent late filing to a software glitch that prevented her from processing the campaign forms in a timely manner.

“It was a bizarre and humbling experience,” she said Thursday. “And it cost me a whole bunch of money.”

She told the Ethics Commission that she planned to hire an outside treasurer to meet all filing deadlines in the future.

“Now that it’s solved, I feel confident saying there was nothing nefarious,” McElhaney said, adding that she wants the public “to see who’s in my donor base.”

Recent disclosures show that McElhaney’s 2016 re-election campaign has raised more than $30,000 from a variety of donors, including building contractors, real estate developers and the Telegraph Health Center cannabis dispensary.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan