Thank you to Patsy Stephens for providing a link to a summary of contributions to various state wide candidates. But, for the County Council candidates from Orcas Island, the following link will take you to the page that shows the contributions that Orcas Island candidates have received www.pdc.wa.gov/MvcQuerySystem/Candidate/loc_candidates?year=2013.
It is interesting that Lisa Byers has received more than twice as much money as the other two candidates combined (Rick Hughes and Greg Ayers). An interesting question is why is this the case or, more specifically, where did the money come from? I would like to see each of the Orcas candidates specify how much of their contributions came from outside the County and how much came from inside the County. Also, I would ask each of the Orcas candidates to specify how much of their contributions came from individuals and how much came from organized groups.
Regards,
John B. MacLeod
John, if you follow the above link you will find a column on the left hand side of the page labeled “details” and it will take you to the details of that candidates donors. This includes the name and the amount donated, as well as the city in which the donor lives.
There is no doubt that running a countywide campaign, designed to reach about 10,000 voters costs more money than running campaigns for separate districts of about 1,600 voters (the case in recent prior elections). The Public Disclosure Commission website will give you a list of every person and organization who has donated to the candidates. As voters reflect on the implications of campaign spending, I invite you to consider the following:
1. People donate money to a campaign because they believe in the candidate’s ability. The amount of money donated, and the individuals who donate are an expression of confidence in that person to do the job.
2. Four of the candidates running for County Council in this cycle, also ran for Council last year under the former district system. Many of the start-up costs for running a campaign were paid by those candidates in that prior campaign. New candidates must catch-up to even the playing field. The revenue and expenses for those campaigns can also be found on the Public Disclosure Commission’s (PDC) website.
3. All candidates appear to be using the same strategies for reaching voters (advertising through print and on-line media, yard signs, websites, countywide mailers), and would therefore have similar expenses. For example, one countywide postcard mailing costs about $4,000. Yet some of the campaigns have not yet fully reported expenses pertaining to those costs. Some campaigns may be lagging behind in timely reporting of expenses. I am proud that my team has been timely and transparent.
4. The last time that the county had countywide elections was in 2004. In that election, John Evans raised over $29,000, Alan Lichter raised over $33,000, and Ray Bigler raised over $43,000.
Finally, to those who suggest that I would be beholden to someone who donates money to my campaign, I will make my position clear: I will not be beholden to any interest group or individual. I will make decisions based on my experience, my analysis of the facts and the situation at hand, and, ultimately, what I think will be best for the majority of citizens in the county.
It is disheartening that elections cost this much money. But the reason they do is that we, as candidates, are striving to engage as many citizens as possible in making a choice. As you face the choice of who to vote for, I urge you to choose someone who has demonstrated to you the qualities of leadership that you believe will best represent our county.
–Lisa Byers
Candidate for County Council, District 2
I think what is sad is that the money spent on campaigning could be used on other more needed places.Many of those i have talked to and ask question to have already decided who they will vote for. The amount of money spent for island elections is too much. I am not the only one who feels this way. In fact the money spent to run the election ballots is way to expensive in itself. The allowance to be able to spend this much money and that of all the elections is over the edge. I believe that when a person is spending more on the elections than most make we need to rethink what we are doing. In this economy using even $10,000.00 on an election is too much, when we are loosing jobs, the school is in need, and there are so many out of work.
My campaign committee and I kept things modest raising about $1600 compared to my opponent’s almost $10,000 and I lost. Is that a lesson for the current candidates?
Howie Rosenfeld