Please note: Some of the information presented here is repetition of information from my previous blogs on the Cholla candidates and applies to all candidates. Some of you reading this blog for the first time may not have read the previous ones.

If you have relatives, friends or acquaintances that live in the Barrel district, please consider passing this series of blogs on to them as another tool to help them evaluate the Barrel candidates prior to casting their vote.

Early ballots are mailed at the end of July, 2014. Candidates (well, most of them) have their websites up, are raising campaign money (or not) and beginning to stake out their positions on Glendale issues.

We move on to the Barrel district council candidates in alphabetical order: John Benjamin, Reginald Martinez, Michael Patino, Randy Miller and Bart Turner. Three of these candidates will be reviewed together and Miller and Turner will be reviewed separately.

All of the information to be discussed will be based on the candidates’ websites and their June 30, 2014 Campaign Finance Reports. Some of the candidates I had met previously and am familiar with their positions on various issues. Others I have never met and so I arranged an interview with them.

We’ll take a look at each candidate’s Campaign Finance Report of June 30, 2014. Here is the link to Glendale City Clerk’s posting of each candidate finance report: http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/2014PoliticalCommitteeCampaignFinanceReports.cfm . Go to that page and you can choose which candidate’s campaign finance report you wish to read.

Each report totals 19 pages. The first 2 pages are summary pages. Section A will show all contributions from individuals. Section B shows all political committee contributions. Section C shows loans either the candidate made to the campaign or any other loan received. Section D deals with all expenditures. Section E is for In-Kind contributions and Section F shows miscellaneous items.

This could be considered nit-picky but the finance report is 19 pages. Each candidate’s report should consist of a minimum of 19 pages (there may be multiple pages especially in Sections A and D). Some candidates did not submit the minimal 19 pages. It could be assumed that if they had no financial activity to report in certain areas they just did not bother to include those pages. Technically, that is not a complete report. All pages should be submitted and if there was no activity to report in certain categories, the candidate can leave the page blank, draw a line through the page or indicate “NA,” no activity. Even if a candidate has a treasurer who fills out the report the candidate is still ultimately responsible for the accuracy and veracity of his or her filing.

There is another kind of Campaign Finance Report a candidate can submit and that is a No Activity Statement. That means the candidate didn’t receive any contributions and did not spend any money. Some of the council candidates filed this kind of report.

The items to look for are: what individuals are contributing; are they Glendale residents, relatives, attorneys or other professionals; or Political Action Committees (PACs)? Did the candidate loan his or her campaign any money? How much? Are the expenditures typical of a campaign; signs, printing, bank charges, food for fund raising events or volunteers; web site design or hosting? Is the candidate using a paid political consultant? At what cost?

At this stage of the game candidates are often reluctant to reveal too much about their finances. They may ask that large contributions be made after June 1, 2014 to be reported in the Pre-Primary Report or after August 15, 2014 for the Post-Primary Report.

John Benjamin

Campaign Finance Report – He submitted a “No Activity” campaign finance report. That means that he has not collected any campaign contributions or made a loan to his campaign committee. He reports no expenditures. Please remember, Mr. Benjamin ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Campaign website — He has no website and no campaign signs. He has not paid for the printing of any campaign literature. There is no publicly available information on a website offering his positions on Glendale’s issues.

As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat and consequently I did not meet with him.

Reginald Martinez

Campaign Finance Report – He submitted all 19 pages of the report. He did make one error in reporting. Schedule A has a column labeled “Cumulative total this campaign to date.” It wants the total amount of money that an individual has given to the candidate’s campaign as of the date of filing. That column is not to be used as a running total of all contributions received from all individuals. It’s the first time that I have seen a candidate misunderstand the instructions provided for filling out the Campaign Report.

He reports 3 individual Glendale contributions totaling to date $350. $200 of that amount is from the candidate and is not a loan. There are a total of 15 contributors. 9 are from acquaintances and friends at the Phoenix Union High School District totaling $1,050, where the candidate works; 2 are from Darshak Law totaling $100; and 1 is from attorney Nick Wood in the amount of $200. There is one in-kind contribution reported from Aniset Rodriguez of La Tolteca Restaurant in the amount of $250 for food for a fundraising event. Please remember, Mr. Martinez ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Martinez’ campaign expenditures are usual and ordinary: supplies and printing. One item of note is a cumulative total of $211.76 (or 25%) of $894.16 in total expenditures was spent on food for volunteers who presumably collected his petition signatures.

Campaign website – Mr. Martinez has no campaign website. There is no publicly available information on a website regarding his positions on Glendale issues. He declined a meeting invitation. As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat.

 

Michael Patino

Campaign Finance Report – All 19 pages were submitted. Mr. Patino reported one individual campaign contribution in the amount of $200 from J.D. Campbell of Peoria. Please remember, Mr. Patino ultimately bears the responsibility for the accuracy and veracity of his report.

Campaign contribution limits have become very generous as a result of recent court rulings. In the last election of 2012, the individual contribution limit was $400. Now it is $2,500. A political committee’s limit is now $2,500 and a Super PAC’s limit is $5,000. The trick for local candidates is to get large contributions. It’s not an easy task.

Mr. Patino reported no expenditures of any kind.

Campaign website – Mr. Patino has no website. There is no publicly available information on a website regarding his positions on Glendale issues. As of this date, he should not be considered a serious contender for the Barrel district city council seat and consequently I did not meet with him.

After review of all 4 Barrel district candidates we’ll try to narrow the choices down to 2 people. In this district, as with the other council races, there are so many candidates none of them are expected win outright in the primary and we can expect a run off in the general election in November.  Next up, Randy Miller.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

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