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Thursday, October 25, 2007

Trinity referendum: Who funded the campaigns?

by Catherine Cuellar

Follow the money: here's a full report of who has contributed to the Vote Yes! (Keep their tollroad out of our park) and Vote No! Save the Trinity campaigns. Know before you go to the polls.

Chris Curotolo contributed to this report

Staff
Verified User
Anonymous

Who is Paul Sims of the M Streets and why did he give $38,500.00 -- even more than Angela Hunt -- to the Vote Yes! camp?

Catherine Cuellar Verified

2 years ago
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her husband.

Trey Kazee Verified

2 years ago
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It is certainly interesting to see the differences in the makeup of the donors. The Vote Yes! campaign clearly has more donors, more of them appearing to be private citizens, but with less money total. The Vote No! campaign has substantially fewer donors, with only 13 donating anything lower than $1,000. As such they manage to out-fundraise Yes! by about $170,000.

It seems the only thing these two groups have in common is their belief that exclamation points in their titles seem to show they care... like, a lot.

Erin Rice Verified

2 years ago
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I doubt that it seriously alters Erin's view of the type of donors and the typical size of donations, but....

On the Vote Yes list there are lots of multiple donations from single donors that add up to larger amounts if they were to be combined. Also a lot of slight alterations in names (with or without middle initial; slightly varied spelling, etc.) It would be interesting to see the two lists properly consolidated to show who gave a total of what amount.

Catte_Nappe Anonymous

2 years ago
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Thanks, Catte_Nappe. One of the reasons we try to list the names exactly as they appear on the original contribution documents is so that users can see the inconsistencies in the way people identify themselves. I do agree that it could be cleaned up a bit as far as slightly varied spelling. As for the middle initial or a missing "Jr." or "III", there's just no way to be sure that John H. Smith is not different from John Smith or that John Smith Jr. is not the father of John Smith living in the same household. That being said, I agree it would be interesting to see.

Chris Curotolo Staff

2 years ago
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Chris - I do understand why you have to present it as you get it. And I doubt most of those donating are deliberately confusing the issue. Still, when it looks like 10 people gave $100 to $500 each it sure looks like a lot of Davids up against a few Goliaths. Truth may be that two people gave a total of $1500 each. Still smallish potatoes compared to some $10,000 corporate donors, but...

Catte_Nappe Anonymous

2 years ago
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I see trey kazee has mastered Google 101.

Some superficial analysis and notes of interest:

VOTE NO Total contributions: $472,074.00 Total unique contributors*: 49 Total contributions by businesses/organizations†: $427,549.00 (or 90% of total) Total business/organization contributors: 25 (or 51% of total)

VOTE YES Total contributions: $301,285.05 Total unique contributors*: 189 Total contributions by businesses/organizations†: $59,659.23 (or 19.8% of total) Total business/organization contributors: 15 (or 7.9% of total) . . . Surprised? Other highlights: - The biggest contribution for Vote No was $200,000 from the Dallas Citizens Council. - TXU gave $10,000 to Vote No. Shrug. - The biggest contributor to Vote Yes was not Hunt or her husband, but Steve Millwee, who gave a combined total of $51,600. (Millwee <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/100907dnmettrinity.14fa5ee58.html">is apparently</a> an "outdoor advertising businessman.") But this figure could be wrong, as Chris C mentions above; we shouldn't necessarily assume there is only one Steve Millwee at the given residence for his donations. - Paul Sims' contributions + contributions from the Angela Hunt for City Council Campaign = $68,709. - Harold Simmons, Dallas philanthropist and the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/HT3L.html">278th richest man in the world</a>, gave $5,000 to VOTE YES.

*only includes overt or obvious business/organization contributions, like ones given by "Allen Development LLC," or the "Sierra Club." No doubt there are key contributors to both sides of this campaign that are businesses or businessmen/women that are more subtle. This factor is the "superficial" part of my calculation.

†multiple donations from the same name at the same address are grouped as one (which, again, walks a line of uncertainty, but I feel pretty good about it)

Chad Jones Verified

2 years ago
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I'll vouch for Trey Kazee. In addition to mastering Google 101, he's also just a smart guy.

Rob Shearer Verified

2 years ago
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*"I see trey kazee has mastered Google 101."*

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&am...

Trey Kazee Verified

2 years ago
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Angela Hunt reads PegNews.com, and e-mailed me this explanation of her husband's donation:

"Just wanted to let you know that my husband's contributions to both TrinityVote and my city council campaign were in-kind contributions (as opposed to cash contributions). He designed the websites and back-end databases for both TrinityVote and my council website. That was the value of the work he provided, which must be accounted for. The in-kind information is listed on our campaign finance reports, but I don't know if your database includes that."

Thanks for the clarification, councilwoman.

Catherine Cuellar Verified

2 years ago
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Would be interesting to know what Kellogg Brown & Root's interest in the toll road is.

The other fun one is Commercial Metals $25,000. Hmmm.

John McClelland Verified

2 years ago
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We do collect the in-kind contribution information, but at this time we have no way to display it on our donation listings. We'll work on a better way to explain in-kind donations in the future. For now, here's the information we have right now:

Paul Sims - $38,500 (Website design and management, database and interface design and management, website hosting.

Windle Turley - $2714 (Office space)

Citizens for Equality PAC - $350(Food and beverages for fundraiser)

Mark Spence - $1182.43 (Yard signs and banners)

Greg Nieberding - $1950 (Printing)

Angela Hunt for City Council Campaign - $177.73 (Photocopies at FedEx Kinkos)

Angela Hunt for City Council Campaign - $31.50 (Photocopies at FedEx Kinkos)

Sorry for the confusion. I hope this clears things up.

Chris Curotolo Staff

2 years ago
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In addition to TXU's givings, two of the individuals listed are former high ranking TXU Officers. Think TXU (sorry - Energy Future Holdings Corp.) has a dog in this hunt, much?

http://www.txucorp.com/media/newsrel/...

http://www.dallaschamber.org/news/Nye...

jdwhitt Anonymous

2 years ago
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So... is the City of Dallas ever going to start providing this data in an electronic, searcheable database format?

Their continued use of archaic scanned documents is a real problem.

tdog10 Anonymous

2 years ago
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If anyone is upset by the misleading "Vote NO! Save the Trinity" signs illegally placed in the public right-of-way, they can begin to collect these signs so placed, saving the taxpayers money, and clarify them. Such signs appear to be everywhere in the poorer sections of our city!
From: www.ntimc.org/newswire.php%3Fstory_id... Save the trinity... really by SB - Trash to truth Campaign Thursday, Oct 25 2007, 6:24pm greater dallas area / environment / action alert

'P' on the 's' and find truth

Instructions for modifying the Deceptive Vote no signs to be more truthful.... Just place a P on the S... Pave the trinity. Instructions and files for making your own signs can be found at http://www.studentmotivation.org/Trin... Discussion is happening at the dallas observer site http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfai... and http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfai...

Lets recycle Trash into truth.. A group of people are tired of the lies coming out of the vote no campaign... so a way to make their signs more truthful has been devised and is a small action that is slowly spreading.

Lets recycle Trash into truth..

http://www.studentmotivation.org/Trin...

Bill Betzen Verified

2 years ago
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lol @ local politics. Pretty sure most 1st-graders play nicer.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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As an Oak Cliff resident, I will say that I see as many 'Vote Yes' signs that are illegally placed on public property as 'Vote No' signs. The one on the banks of the Trinity as you cross the river on Sylvan is the one that really makes me laugh.

Rob Shearer Verified

2 years ago
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What about the Allen Development of Texas, LLC.? This is the big California trucking firm involved in the inland port being built here. They want this toll road for their 18-wheelers. Big Vote No supporters. They also co-sponsored a fundraiser for Leppert to help him repay the $950,000 he loaned his mayoral campaign. And, yet, I've heard Leppert at two Trinity debates say he has no vested interest in the toll road.