PREVIOUSLY

• Five People Who AREN’T Currently on Arcata’s City Council Have Pulled Paperwork to Run for Two Seats. Who Are They?

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If you’re an American, there’s about a 70 percent chance that you believe the amount of money political candidates can spend during an election should be capped. You likely believe there’s “too much money” in politics; you might believe most politicians became one just to make a buck. Basically, there’s a solid chance your opinions on campaign finances bend towards sneaking suspicion. Ease up a minute, because I have fantastic news for you: none of the Arcata city council candidates are making any real money at all. 

Last week, City Hall published their campaign disclosure forms, which detail who donated and how much they gave, plus what the wannabe councilmembers spent it on. Quick rundown from an article the Outpost published last week: donors don’t send their money to the candidate directly, but instead to a “recipient committee” formed by the candidate with its own bank account. For all donations made by a single individual that are more than $100 in a calendar year, the committees have to record the donor’s name, address, and, if they’re an individual, their job and employer. (No need to record their occupations if the donation is between $25 and $100. Anything under that is just totaled under a daily lump sum.) 

The candidate’s own personal funds they use for their campaign are recorded as loans and have to be deposited into their campaign coffers. If someone donates goods or services, something besides money, the candidate has to estimate its market value and include that too.

When a candidate uses the funds to buy something — buttons, advertisements, food for a fundraising dinner — if it’s more than $100, it also has to be logged. Same deal if they make multiple payments for a service that ends up totaling more than that. There are plenty of rules governing how they can spend their campaign money. The big one is simple: it has to be for a “political, legislative, or governmental” purpose, per the Fair Political Practices Commission.

If they don’t plan on raising or spending more than $2,000 in a calendar year (which includes their own personal funds), then it’s not required. If they blow through that limit, they’ll have to file a disclosure. (If you’re interested in learning about all of California’s financial disclosure rules, check out the manual here.)

But all of these rules are rendered almost moot in Arcata, because no one’s raised anything. Half of the candidates — Reese Halter, Blase Bonpane, and incumbent Kimberley White — filed forms declaring they hadn’t raised more than $2,000. It appears that Halter and Bonpane didn’t even form a recipient committee.

Donors sent candidates Abigail Strickland $250 and Genevieve Serna $350 (though $200 of that came from another Serna). Nobody gave Daniel Shahin anything; in fact, his only donor is himself. He loaned his campaign coffers $7,000 this year, and spent a little more than $4,000, mostly on campaign postcards ($2,713), signs ($503) and the candidate statement filing fee ($844). 

Serna and Strickland did the same, though they only loaned themselves $560 and $1,500, respectively. Their expenditures are, accordingly, smaller. Serna only spent $142, mostly on print ads. Strickland spent a tad more — they’ll both be battling for ad space in Senior News — plus she spent the $844 on the statement filing fee and $175 for a Run! Website and a few hundred dollars for yard signs. 

The next batch of campaign disclosures comes out in late October. For more election coverage, be sure to check out LoCO Elections.