Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Overview of Irving mayoral and city council candidate contributions

Hopping down the money trail.

By John P. Meyer

One thing seems clear in regard to those making contributions to Irving mayoral and city council candidacies: both incumbent mayoral candidate Herbert Gears and incumbent City Council Place 3 candidate Allan Meagher are favored by establishment, moneyed donors.

With the "money where their mouth is" backing of local luminaries such as Dallas businessman Harlan Crow (who chipped in $1,000); Luis and Lourdes Spinola of construction/contracting firm Azteca Enterprises (who donated $5,000); and the MetroTex Association of Realtors ($2,500 donors to the Gears campaign), Mr. Gears has plenty of money to spend.

The list of Mr. Meagher's financial backers contains some of the same folks featured in the accounting of Mr. Gears' donations: both Harlan Crow (to the tune of $500) and MetroTex (coughing up $1,500) make an appearance on the Meagher donor list.

Making big donations to both the Gears and Meagher campaigns is Wynona Winters, widow of cattleman Thomas Earl Winters of Goldthwaite, TX. Wynona kicked in $10,000 for Gears and $5,000 for Meagher.

Total contributions made to the Gears campaign: $195,879. For Meagher's: $28,840.

In contrast, mayoral candidate Rigoberto Reza has wrangled only $5,290 to run his campaign, with $1,000 of that coming from Dallas attorney Domingo Garcia. And Roland Jeter, whose Schedule A donation form showed nothing when we accessed the records (following the April 10 reporting deadline), is counting on pledged monies (Schedule B) amounting to about $7,200.

Butting heads with Meagher in the race for Council Place 3 is Nancy Rivera, with a total of $2,375 received.

The race for Council Place 5 pits incumbent Rose Cannaday (with $31,645 to work with) against Sue Richardson (who's come up with $7,829 from her supporters).

Related stories

• 2008 Irving election results (May 11, 2008)

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• Politics and Government > City Government > Irving
• Politics and Government > Texas > Local Elections