Like an old dog that can’t learn new tricks, McWhinney appears to be back to their old games of trying to influence Loveland politics through clandestine political contributions.
Ault resident and Vice President and General Manager of McWhineny, Jay Hardy, appears to have coordinated multiple contributions to three pro-McWhinney candidates too late for the contributions to be reported before the election was over. see LovelandPolitics story
The only problem with this sinister campaign tactic is it ignored Loveland’s newly amended City Charter that reflects the new contribution limits of $100 placed on everyone. The revelations back in 2006 that Gene Pielin and Larry Walsh (first reported by LovelandPolitics) had their campaigns bank rolled by multiple McWhinney entities was the catalyst for the reform. Simply put, any individual cannot direct multiple contributions to the same candidate if that individual’s contribution (either in-kind or cash) will exceed $100. McWhinney and Hardy apparently provided at least $500 dollars to three candidates while the fourth candidate, Bob Snyder, is said to have refused the offer on ethical and legal grounds. The question is whether the new council has the political courage to initiate a city inquiry into the question of whether the law was indeed broken and assess the appropriate penalties if any violators are identified. I guess McWhinney has available as a potential defense that the multiple company contributors all using McWhinney’s addresses coincidentally donated to these candidates on the same day and that McWhinney has no ownership or control over any of those companies. Hmmm…..would you buy that?
Is there any mechanism for enforcement of those limits? How about penalties? Fines?
This just stinks to high heaven! Isn’t there still one council seat to be decided? If so, who’s running? When is the run off election, or whatever it’s called, and what ward is it for?
Yes. Unfortunately this relies on the city manager and council. If Don Williams is still running the show it looks like nothing has changed.
Ward 1 is pending. If you want more people like Cecil, look to John Case. If you want more Clark, vote otherwise.
I am waiting to see if there really is any change in city hall. So far it seems to be the same old thing to me. Staff is running the show and the council sits back to react to what few choices they are given. If Cecil is going to lead he needs to start before the Ward 1 election. Clark was a disaster and embarrassment to himself and the city. A Clark, Brown, Volk and Snyder council would have meant a continuing decline in city services while McWhinney sucks the life out of Loveland with more subsidies to make the McWhinneys even richer with our tax dollars. How Clark can even look himself in the mirror after what he did is impossible for me to comprehend. Time to get down to business guys…………………………
Ted
The council or city manager should fine & reprimand anybody who’s breaking those campaign laws. It’s just not right. If they’re not made an example of, more will do it next time, until it means nothing to have the law in the first place.
Now that a new council has been seated, it’s time to enforce the laws – equally, that is. Perhaps they could start by directing the city attorney to enforce those campaign finance laws.