Anyone paid to influence Columbia City Council would have to register as a lobbyist under an ordinance that received preliminary approval Wednesday.

While some council members said the proposal was too broad, activists said the proposal did not go far enough because it does not limit lobbyists’ actions.

The ordinance would include lawyers representing property owners in zoning matters and executive directors representing their organizations in funding requests.

While endorsing the idea in Wednesday’s 6-1 vote, some council members said the definition of a lobbyist should be more limited.

“I think it’s an extra step that people who frequently come in front of us shouldn’t have to take,” said Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine.

Lobbyists would have to fill out a form with their name and the name of the organization or person they represent. There would be no fee to register. Refusal to register would be a misdemeanor.

“If you’re going to truly know who is influencing the expenditure of public money, I think the public would be better served by having more information,” Mayor Bob Coble said.

Howard Duvall, executive director of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, said he did not know of any other city in the state that regulates lobbyists. But the ordinance would not limit lobbyists’ activities, which Duvall said means it is not very useful.

“If they’re going to make them register to lobby the city, then the City Council needs to have some restrictions on what type of activities they would be able to engage in,” he said. That could include taking council members to dinner or offering gifts, he said.

Coble said elected officials already must report gifts to the state ethics commission in annual financial disclosures.

John Crangle, executive director of S.C. Common Cause said the ordinance was a good first step that did not go far enough.

“It’s too timid an approach to a problem that I think will be of increasing magnitude in the future.”

He said the ordinance should include paid and unpaid lobbyists and should require the detailed disclosures required by state law.

Coble said the city does not deal with many lobbyists, but he said there have been cases in which they were active.

In 1999, the Myrtle Beach firm Burroughs & Chapin wanted to build a sprawling residential and commercial development called Green Diamond southeast of Columbia. “Everybody in town was paid to lobby us,” he said.

Also, several lawyers representing cell phone companies influenced a zoning ordinance that would have severely limited where new cell towers could be built. The initial proposal to limit new towers to 500 feet from homes eventually was reduced to 300 feet. Neighborhood leaders supported the compromise.

Crangle, who helped strengthen state ethics laws in the 1990s, said lobbying city officials “is something that’s been kind of an underground operation for a long time, and it needs to be exposed to some sunshine.”

Coble said that after using six months to evaluate the ordinance’s effectiveness, he would propose adding specific limits on lobbyists’ activities. But first, he said, the city might need an attorney general’s opinion on its authority to regulate lobbyists.

Councilman Hamilton Osborne initially said he supported the idea, but finally voted against the measure.

“We don’t have a lobbying problem,” he said. “The way we operate is very different from the way the Legislature operates. We’re going to end up with a very large and useless pile of paper.”

Reach Drake at (803) 771-8692 or jdrake@thestate.com.