Citizen Will

WCHL1360 covered yesterday’s Downtown Partnership update.

Listen [MP3] to what Director Liz Parham and local “top flight” business guy Scott Maitland had to say.

And Dan S., if you’re reading this, thanks for the sly hat tip.

More on this issue later.

Here’s the text of my Oct. 19th WCHL1360 commentary:

This week, I am asking candidates for this years Superior Court and Board of Commissioner races to voluntarily report their campaign finances by Wednesday, October 24th.

The last we heard about campaign fund-raising was June 30th.

At that time we discovered that one of our commissioner candidates was well on track to nearly double or more the previous record for election contributions. And much of that money came from out of the county.

Four months ago we also discovered that another local campaign record was in jeopardy as a couple of our Superior Court candidates raced towards the $100,000 mark.

Judge’s Anderson and Fox had raised and spent roughly the same amount of money. $25K for Anderson, $28K for Fox.

Judge Baddour, campaigning hard to retain his appointment to the bench, had raised $56K – $150 from myself.

But beyond all the candidates, celebrated Attorney Adam Stein, with a steady flow of $100 or more contributions, had raised $82K.

What has happened since? October 24th we can find out.

3 days after the end of the 3rd quarter reporting period.
6 days prior to the date the reports must be post-marked.
14 days before the election.

A voluntary disclosure of campaign finance activities will enhance our publics confidence in our election process

A voluntary disclosure also measures our candidates willingness to promote greater transparency in our justice and political systems.

Oct. 24th, our local voters deserve a timely report of our candidates campaign finances.

And here’s my “breathy” delivery [MP3]..

It sounds like I delivered my statement after chugging up a couple flights of stairs, which in a sense, I did (ran in during my lunch break from work – and tried to squeeze too much content into too little time).

Thanks Ron Stutts for the opportunity to raise a general election issue.