Legislator First To File For Mayor Duane Sommers Will Ask Donors To Approve New Use Of Their Money

State Rep. Duane Sommers will ask some donors to last year’s legislative race to approve a new use for their money.

He wants to spend it on this year’s mayoral campaign.

Sommers was the first person in line Monday morning when the doors of the Spokane County elections office opened for candidates to file for office. He filed for Spokane mayor.

The South Hill Republican is also first among the four announced mayoral candidates for campaign funds raised so far.

He raised $2,850 since announcing his campaign 10 days ago, with $2,500 coming in a single contribution from Salmon Creek Leasing and Investment of Spokane.

Sommers said he is sending letters to about 15 of the contributors to his successful 1996 state House campaign in an effort to use the $2,758 he had left from that race.

State law requires approval to transfer funds between campaigns for different offices. Sommers said the letters will allow the donors to approve the request, refuse it or ask for their money back.

He said he wasn’t sure how the donors would react, because several are organizations primarily interested in legislative issues. They include contributions of $200 or more from such corporate giants as Anheuser-Busch, AT&T and Chevron, and the Utility Contractors Association.

Sommers must resign his House seat if he gets elected to the nonpartisan mayor’s job.

The mayor’s race has the potential for becoming an expensive campaign, based on the track records of Sommers and two other candidates, incumbent Jack Geraghty and former Mayor Sheri Barnard.

Sommers spent nearly $62,000 on his 1996 legislative race - twice what his opponent, Jerry Hopkins, spent for a seat that was considered safe for a Republican incumbent.

Geraghty spent just over $85,000 in winning the 1993 race. The mayor, who previously ran a public relations firm, hasn’t started raising money seriously yet. He reported only $600 in his first campaign finance report.

Barnard spent more than $55,000 before losing the ‘93 primary, and spent nearly two years trying to pay off debts. She and her husband, Kim Barnard, finally wrote off $3,000 they loaned to that campaign.

Barnard, who also filed her candidate’s petition Monday, just announced her campaign last week and has not yet filed a finance report.

Another recent addition to the mayoral campaign, self-styled Gypsy senator Jimmy Marks, hasn’t filed a finance report either.

When Marks ran for the Spokane School Board in 1995, he spent less than $500, the amount for which the law requires a strict accounting of contributions and expenses. Marks said he spent less than $50 in the race.

But Marks also shares in a $1.4 million settlement of a lawsuit between local Gypsies and the city of Spokane over a controversial police raid 11 years ago.

Other candidates filing for office Monday included:

Brian Grady, Margarite Cassidenti and incumbent Don Harmon, for mayor of Airway Heights.

Incumbent Sharalyn Stearns and James Hill, for mayor of Medical Lake. Vivian Hill and Shirley Marke, for Medical Lake City Council.

Tom Trulove and Phil Kiver, for mayor of Cheney. Oliver McCord and Bill Shaw, for Cheney City Council.

Kathleen Nuffer, Michael Wolfe and Douglas Box, for Deer Park mayor.

, DataTimes