8-Day Campaign Finance Reports for City Council

Candidates for Richardson City Council have filed 8-Day Campaign Finance Reports. Here are the totals for the 30-Day Reports and the 8-Day Reports, ranked by the combined totals.

Political Contributions

		30-Day	8-Day
Bob Dubey	Mayor	$21,697.55	$3,387.10
Dan Barrios	Place 3	$14,629.56	$8,481.69
Janet DePuy	Mayor	$11,350.00	$7,515.00
Ken Hutchenrider	Place 5	$3,915.00	$11,515.00
Curtis Dorian	Place 1	$10,401.00	$2,050.00
Stephen Springs	Place 3	$6,875.00	$5,260.00
Todd Hunter	Place 5	$1,961.70	$3,386.15
G. Scott Waddell	Place 1	$3,755.00	$700.00

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Bob Dubey still leads all fundraisers. Janet DePuy closed the gap somewhat, but not as much as Dan Barrios did. He is now second in the money race. Ken Hutchenrider did the best in late fundraising, bringing his total to fourth place. G. Scott Waddell had the lowest haul in the last month, dropping him to last place overall in fundraising.

The Texas Association of Realtors PAC gave $5,000.000 to Janet DePuy. The PAC also gave $1,000.00 to Ken Hutchenrider and $1,000.00 to Stephen Springs. The Metro-Tex Association of Realtors gave $1,000.00 to Curtis Dorian.

Mehrdad Mazaheri gave $2,500.00 to Stephen Springs, raising his total contribution this cycle to $7,500.00. Mazaheri is the property owner who had a long fight with the City over his application to build an apartment complex targeted at students north of UT Dallas. Charles Eisemann gave Springs $200.00.

Bob Dubey received $500.00 from "Richardson Republic [sic] Women." Stephen Springs received $100.00 from the Richardson Republican Women. I did not see any Democratic Party organization making a donation to any candidate, although many of the individual contributors to many candidates are undoubtedly active in party politics. So as far as Campaign Finance Reports go, Bob Dubey and Stephen Springs are the only violators of The Wheel's unofficial rule of elections — political parties should stay the heck out of local, non-partisan elections. [Update: July 21, 2023: Richardson Area Democrats' semiannual report shows a donation of $100 from the PAC to Dan Barrios.] Individuals are welcome to participate, but take your party hats off when you do, please.

Dan Barrios received another couple of contributions totaling $1,296.22 from Catalina E. Garcia, M.D., who is Trustee, Dallas College District 1.

Former mayor Steve Mitchell gave $150.00 to G. Scott Waddell.

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On April 13, The Wheel examined the 30-Day Campaign Finance Reports. Since then, Bob Dubey and Stephen Springs have filed corrections. Springs changed a donation from an LLC into a personal contribution from the owner of the LLC. Since that post, Springs has filed a second correction for an accounting error in his summary page. Bob Dubey's correction to his 30-Day Report changed a donation from an LLC into a personal contribution from the owner of the LLC. Those are all minor mistakes.

Maybe more substantial was a question about who paid for a Dubey campaign mailer. By the looks of it, it came from Mark Solomon, but it didn't have a political disclosure on it identifying who paid for it. Because mailings that cost under $500 are not required to have a financial disclosure, I was willing to give Dubey the benefit of the doubt here. But now Dubey's 8-Day Financial Report includes evidence that maybe that $500 threshold was exceeded and a financial disclosure statement was required by state law. In Dubey's 8-Day report, he reports a non-monetary (in-kind) political donation of $641.81 from Mark and Lynn Solomon for "Mailings." That's the strongest evidence yet that that mailer was paid for by Solomon. The lack of a financial disclosure statement for a mailer that cost $641.81 is a violation of state law. If there is something else we don't know that explains this, Dubey (or Solomon) should reveal it. Dubey also should file another correction to his 30-Day Report, whose contributions still don't add up to the total he claims on the summary page. The correction he filed didn't address this discrepancy. Like I said before, Dubey's campaign finance reports are sloppy for someone with his experience and with his desire to be promoted to mayor.