You read it right, La Puente Councilwoman Lola Storing is proposing the city prohibit council members from accepting any and all contributions from contracted or prospective consultants or developers in the city — that includes campaign contributions.

Storing said contributions “buy votes” (I can hear the gadflies and advocates for open government saying “duh” in my head).

But contributions from developers are very common – rampant actually – across the nation. Lola acknowledged that, and the hard fight it would be to actually get a measure like this passed in La Puente. She mentioned it would probably be a 4-1 vote against her proposal.

Storing might be right. A few of the council members I talked to Monday seemed hesitant. Councilman John Solis argued if they took out developer contributions from the mix, it would become so cheap to run for office that then “everyone would be doing it.” Now why would we want that?

Storing’s proposal goes before the council tonight. See the story in today’s paper.