A citizen complaint has prompted the state Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate whether Palo Alto's former Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental violated a gifts law by accepting an invitation to a technology conference in China in 2016.

Galena West, chief of the FPPC's Enforcement Division, announced the agency's decision to investigate the complaint in a Wednesday letter to Jeanne Fleming, the Palo Alto resident who filed the complaint nearly two months ago.

In her complaint, Fleming specifically pointed to a five-day trip that Reichental took to China in 2016. Reichental's statement of economic interest known as Form 700 indicated that the trip was paid for by the TM Forum, a telecom industry association. Though state law allows public officials to accept travel reimbursement from nonprofit agencies and other government entities, it limits the amount they can receive from other sources to $470 per year.

The FPPC has been considering for the past two months whether to launch a formal investigation by its Enforcement Division. This week, it determined that it will. West noted, however, that the determination to investigate does not mean that Fleming's allegations are valid.

The agency has "not made any determination about the validity of the allegation(s) you have made or about the culpability, if any, of the person(s) you identify in your complaint," West wrote.

Reichental, who resigned earlier this month to take a job at Oracle, told the Weekly last month that the trip to which the complaint refers was paid for by the municipality of Yinchuan, China, where the conference was held. He said that he should have listed the municipality, rather than TM Forum (which coordinated the event), on the form.

Reichental said that he made "a few clerical errors" on the form and he intends to fix them by filing Form 700 amendments. He also said that all his trips "were reported and permissible under FPPC rules."

Reichental's statements of economic interests show him making dozens of trips in recent years to give talks on technology. These include trips to Dubai, Ecuador, Ireland, Austria and Germany.

In his Form 700, he noted that he has "never personally received any money for any of these events."

"The only cost was flight and hotel and each organizer paid directly to the travel agency," Reichental wrote.

Fleming, who is part of a citizens group called United Neighbors, said in a statement that her decision to investigate Reichental stemmed from the group's opposition to new cell-tower equipment. She has persistently advocated for such equipment to be placed in underground vaults rather than on utility poles or above-ground cabinets, as has been the typical practice.

The group, she wrote, began to look closely at Reichental when it "realized that, unlike in many other cities, Palo Alto's city staff seemed to accede to every telecommunications company demand with respect to locating and installing cell towers next to residents' homes."