OPED: Follow the money before you vote
Submitted by: Thomas Randle, Lakewood voter
The time to vote for City Council is here, and so are reports detailing the type of fundraising in which each candidate has taken part. Council races are competitive in three of the five wards, with two incumbents unchallenged. Going through the financial reports, it is easy to make a breakdown and take a guess at what type of councilor each candidate will be.
One very prominent donor in this year’s race is Carma, a development company that brought us Solterra, an expansive new development over what used to be open space. They donated comparatively large sums of money to Amy Attwood, and Diana Allen in Wards 4 and Ward 5 respectively, areas that seem to have most of Lakewood’s open space. While there is a lot of other special interest money flying around in this election, this is one that really stuck out since they have done work for Lakewood, and could benefit greatly in financial ways by having our City Council stacked to their advantage.
Below is a quick analysis, which groups contributions from companies, individual managers, and CEOs of companies who live outside of Lakewood, as well as special interest groups and lobbyists, as well as Carma and other developers. These contributions are then compared to the overall money raised by each candidate. All citizens of Lakewood should be advised to see these contributions themselves as well to note other contributors that may not qualify as one of the above, but would make that candidate a questionable choice. The numbers include non-monetary contributions that held a market value.
Ward 2
Frank Teunissen raised close to $1000, NONE of which came from special interests or other questionable sources.
Scott Koop raised over $2,000 dollars, of which 30% came from questionable sources such as those listed above. Political action committees were the primary source of the 30%, not developer money.
Ward 5
Natalie Menten raised over $5,500, NONE of which came from special interests or other questionable sources.
Diana Allen raised $6651, of which over a quarter came from questionable sources. Included in this was $500 from Carma developers as well as donations from related companies.
Ward 4
Dave Wiechman raised close to $9,000, NONE of which came from special interests or other questionable sources.
Amy Attwood raised over $15,000 an extremely high amount compared to the other candidates, close to the amounts raised by some in state legislature races. Almost 40% of this came from questionable sources. Carma donated $1,000 to Ms. Attwood, and there was no shortage from related companies. Also interesting to note, a large amount of this money remains unspent according to records, which makes me wonder what it is being saved for.
Everyone can take a look at the financial reports at Lakewood.org in the same section the affidavits and committee registration forms are posted. Happy Voting
They could be considered ’special interest’ however according to lakewood.org they havn’t donated to him in this race.
Don’t you think that the donations Mr Wieichman took from the Fire Union qualifies as a ‘Special Interest’ group? I guess he is therefore beholden to them now?
I will be the first to offer criticism to my letter:
After all the years of technical writing of engineering and research papers, I always stood by a good rule of always defining ambiguous terms. I failed to do so here and for that I am sorry.
When I say “Questionable source” or similar, this is not an automatic indication of evil lurking, rather, it encompasses all donations that I think all of you should see for yourself because they will indicate opinions and ideology among the candidates.
I also wanted to point out that Questionable sources did not include past and present politicians or activists, nor did I include local Lakewood Business owners.
Lastly, I do question the allowing of unlimited contributions to candidates, but this article serves to inform the public, not push my opinions about campaign contribution limits.