City Council races now less expensive

Winning a Spokane City Council seat will apparently cost less in 2005 than in some previous campaigns, a change predicted when voters approved the switch to district elections some six years ago.

Candidates are raising and spending less, according to campaign reports with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission. In part, that’s a response to the shift from citywide to district races and the need to mail fewer campaign brochures and put up fewer yard signs.

Two of the races have developed into lopsided financial matchups, each with one candidate raising significantly more money than his or her opponent.

In northeast Spokane’s District 1 race, incumbent Al French has reported nearly $15,400 in cash and donated services, more than twice as much as his opponent, Tina Howard, who has about $6,300.

French has a mix of business, labor and individual donors, including $1,500 from the Spokane Firefighters Union and $1,000 from Avista Corp.

Howard has received some donated services for printing and the production of a television commercial, but her only named source of cash is an $1,800 loan from her husband. The rest, she said, came from “working people” in donations of $25 or less, which is below the amount at which a candidate is required by state law to list a donor’s name and address.

“I didn’t go out and do that on purpose. That’s just the way it happened,” Howard said.

In northwest Spokane’s District 3 race, the difference in campaign funds is even greater, with political newcomer Nancy McLaughlin reporting about $43,000, compared with about $11,000 in contributions and loans for former councilman Steve Corker.

McLaughlin has a combination of large and small donors, including $6,000 from Marshall Chesrown and his Coeur d’Alene based company, Black Rock Development, which is proposing Kendall Yards, a major commercial and residential project that would stretch from the Monroe Street Bridge to Summit Boulevard.

Corker has loaned his campaign $5,000, but his largest donor is Robert Shaw, a bank executive, who gave the campaign $2,000.

While the disparity means McLaughlin can afford an array of yard signs, mailers and commercials, Corker said he deliberately tried to limit his campaign to about $10,000.

“I got so much criticism last time for spending $90,000,” he said. That was in 1999, when Corker won a seat in the last citywide council election.

That year, voters approved a charter change to elect council members by district. Corker was among those who touted the switch as a way to bring down campaign spending.

In south Spokane’s District 2 race, incumbent Mary Verner has reported raising more than $29,000, compared with an estimated $18,520 in loans and contributions for challenger Dallas Hawkins.

Hawkins’ total has to be estimated at this point because his campaign apparently has not filed the contribution and expenditure summaries required by state law. Hawkins said Thursday that his filings were current, but when asked why the required summaries don’t show up among the documents for his campaign on file available on the Public Disclosure Commission Web site, he replied: “You’d have to ask my treasurer.”

His treasurer, Elizabeth Heath, is both an attorney and an accountant, he said, and usually “Johnny on the spot” in filing reports required by law. Any mistakes would be “completely inadvertent,” he added.

Efforts to contact Heath were unsuccessful. But based on reports Hawkins’ campaign has filed, the largest source of funding has been loans from his family company.

Verner, who is seeking election to a seat to which she was appointed, appears to enjoy some of the same benefits of incumbency as French – support from both business and labor unions. She’s received $2,000 from Avista and $1,500 from the Spokane Firefighters Union, as well as $2,750 from the Colville Confederated Tribes.

Council candidates share the municipal ballot with a proposal to lift the limit on property taxes the city can collect. The firefighters union is campaigning in support of that proposal, with yard signs, television commercials and a brochure being mailed to poll voters this weekend.

A similar brochure that was mailed to absentee voters last month earned the union a warning from the Public Disclosure Commission because it didn’t carry the state required information of who paid for the ad.

Commission spokeswoman Lori Anderson said investigators talked with union officials and were satisfied with assurances that any new brochure will carry that information. That’s the standard method for dealing with a first-time complaint, she said.