Santa Fe New Mexican

Finance reports show spending disparity

Council candidates release campaign monetary support

By Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican

2/26/2008

Spending remains unbalanced in a couple of Santa Fe City Council races, according to campaign finance statements filed Tuesday with the city clerk by candidates in the March 4 election.

Candidates seeking a southwest-side District 3 council seat show the most even totals, with incumbent Miguel Chavez reporting he has raised $13,694 compared to challenger Martin Lujan, a school board member, who reported $15,530.

Totals were farther apart in the southeast-side District 2, where two candidates are competing to replace Councilor Karen Heldmeyer, who is not seeking re-election. Real-estate agent Robbie Dobyns has logged $8,203 in contributions, while Rosemary Romero, a professional facilitator, has collected $13,091.

Dobyns' monetary support has become more diversified compared to early reports showing large donations from real-estate political action committees. The latest report includes a number of individual donations, with the largest coming from other real-estate agents. Romero's long list of individual contributors includes money from attorneys, facilitators, bankers and builders as well as real-estate agents.

The race in the north-side District 1 is the most financially lopsided. Incumbent Patti Bushee has spent more than six times what her challenger Anthony Garcia has reported.

Bushee, who faced Garcia in the 1996 council election, reported she collected and paid out $14,469 and had about $5,500 in cash balances. Garcia, who promised not to collect more than $1 per registered voter in his district has raised $2,556, about half from a loan to himself. (The district has 12,877 voters registered for this election.)

A large part of Bushee's campaign war chest was left over from her 2004 campaign. City Attorney Frank Katz said last week that both Bushee and Chavez were allowed to roll over previous campaign funds because of the timing of a 2007 rule change that spelled out how such cash should be used.

Katz said this is the last election for which a rollover of funds from a previous campaign will be legal. All candidates will have six months following the March 4 election to spend or distribute all donations.

Heldmeyer said she's preparing to unload her leftover campaign funds at local elementary schools today. She sent a letter to supporters this week explaining the plan to donate to Partners in Education, who will divide it among the five elementary schools in District 2.

Although too late for this financial reporting period, a city employee union political action committee donated $20,000 to candidates it has endorsed. The American Federation of State Local and Municipal Employees Local 3999 committee cut checks Tuesday for $5,000 each to Bushee, Romero, Chavez and to unopposed District 4 Councilor Matthew Ortiz, said Robert Chavez, organizer for the union PAC.



Campaign contributions

City Council campaign finance reports filed with the city clerk through 5 p.m. Tuesday showed the following amounts, and gave the following names of donors who made cash contributions of $100 or more. Another report is due Monday, with a final report after the election due on March 18. (The city clerk has posted campaign documents on the Web at www.santafenm.gov.)

DISTRICT 1

Patti Bushee
Total contributions: $20,018

Bushee carried over nearly $12,073 from her successful 2004 council campaign. Individual donations include:
In-kind: None reported.


Anthony Garcia
Total contributions: $2,556

In-kind: Campaign literature from printer Jerry Schafer, valued at $50, and banners from Josie Lucero, owner of Emmanuel Picture Frames and Art Supply.



DISTRICT 2

Robbie Dobyns

Total contributions: $8,203

Most of Dobyns' money came from colleagues in the real-estate industry, including $2,413 from the New Mexico RPAC, a political action committee of the Realtors Association of New Mexico, and $1,500 from Santa Fe Realty Partners, the agency where he works.

Other donations include $250 each from relatives Marjorie Dobyns and Stephan Dobyns, attorney John Silver and from David and Barbara Prescott, the parents of his finance chairperson; $200 from real-estate agent Ray Rush; and $150 each from Rick Berardinelli, Charmay Allred and Paige Prescott.
In-kind: 40 pounds of red chile donated by his brother, Marty Dobyns, who owns Santa Fe Olé, a food manufacturing and packaging plant, and a painting Dobyns is raffling off that he values at $3,000.



Rosemary Romero
Total contributions: $13,091

Individual donations included $500 each from Earl Potter, Canyon Road attorney Richard Ellenberg and Walter Ganz, with whom Romero served on several boards of directors for nonprofits; $400 from physician David Gunderson; and $350 from daughter Linnea Morris.



DISTRICT 3

Miguel Chavez
Total contributions: $13,694

Chavez, who is seeking his third term, rolled over $4,994 from his previous campaign and also donated $115 to himself. Other donations include: $646 from Chavez' wife, Elizabeth, $500 each from retired dentist William Herrera, whose family formerly owned the land where a south-side Wal-Mart Supercenter is planned as well as from Montaño's Excavating and Trench, attorney Richard Ellenberg, attorney Earl Potter, and J. and Mary Perkins, members of the Upper Canyon Road Association.
In-kind: $6,386 in in-kind contributions of office space from San Isidro Plaza LLC, part of a development by Jeff Branch; a "monoprint collagraph" by Fredricio Vigil; a sterling silver watch and copper lizard by silversmith Simon Garcia; a water color from Marian A Sharin, a retired city planner, and a ceramic from artist Robert Francis Johnson. $2,000 worth of Web page design services from Brian Tercero.



Martin Lujan
Total contributions: $15,530
In-kind: $2,184 worth of office space from James Ellegood, BP Plain Eagle Corp.