Topline:<\/p>\n
Why it matters: Barke was elected in 2018 to the Orange County Board of Education, which oversees and approves the county\u2019s education budget that serves around 450,000 students.<\/p>\n
Background: In 2024, the Fair Political Practices Commission found Barke liable for failing to correctly report income, resulting in a $3,200 penalty. But a judge in July said the FPPC\u2019s settlement didn\u2019t fully address Barke\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n
What are the penalties? Barke will have to pay $101,800 in penalties, as well as attorney fees, for incorrectly filling out economic disclosure statements and for failure to correct amended statements. She will be credited the $3,200 paid to the FPPC. Barke\u2019s lawyer did not immediately respond to LAist\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
What changed? Orange County Superior Court Judge H. Shaina Colover handed the decision on Sept. 3. Colover said in a final statement on the decision that \u201csubstantial civil damages are warranted\u201d to enforce the Political Reform Act and prevent future violations.<\/p>\n
Officials say: The complaint was filed by Lynne Riddle, a retired judge. Riddle\u2019s lawyers said in a statement to LAist that the court\u2019s ruling is a \u201clandmark\u201d outcome for public trust and that the high penalty fees show how serious the offenses were. \u201cWe hope this result reminds every public official in California that transparency is not optional, and that the public has both the right to know and the tools to hold them accountable when transparency is ignored,\u201d Riddle\u2019s legal team said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline: Why it matters: Barke was elected in 2018 to the Orange County Board of Education, which oversees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,8416,164238,2083,10447],"class_list":["post-457581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-fees","tag-mari-barke","tag-oc","tag-penalty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}