Monday, March 26, 2018

Campaign Finance - Money Can Distort Public Policy

For a little bit of trivia on our Lake Worth election--

We have 17,943 registered voters in our city (and that's difficult to believe).
  • 2,847 people voted in the Mayoral race
  • 2,839 people voted in the District 1 race
Therefore, the following pathetic results dictate the outcome and direction of our city:
Out of the total number of registered voters only
  • 11.59% of the total registered voters cast a vote for Pam Triolo as she got 2,080 votes
  • 8.58% of the total registered voters cast a vote for Scott Maxwell as he received 1,541 votes
So, when the City Manager can sit up on the dais and cheer the reelection of these commissioners and say they are "solid politically," is a political statement in itself and stretching it to the point of brown-nosing your bosses.

Let's give all candidates an equal amount of money to run their campaigns. Candidates enter a race with high ideals that are quickly crushed when they realize all the money that is needed. We need to find new ways to engage more individuals in the political process so that public policy decisions can reflect the input of all citizens, not just those of the donor class, i.e, Unions, PACs, developers, and those who have an interest in making money in our city.

For most cases, you can't even follow the dots on the campaign finance reports. In one report as an example for District 1 Scott Maxwell, a donor was identified as a Business Owner and he gave $1,000. But it was not revealed that he is the CEO of a company that also gave $1,000. Why the secrecy? What does this company want from Maxwell? Is he just a nice guy that this company gave $2,000 that we know about? All of these reports should be transparent with full disclosure but candidates give you as little information as they can legally get away with.

I want to know what's going on in our city and the only way to keep it relatively fair is to have an equal playing field--the same amount of money for all candidates.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scott is an interesting fella.

Anonymous said...

All you have to do is look at the last several elections involving Scott Maxwell to understand that something weird is going on with him and his contributions. Last time it was Hudson Holdings trying to grab our pool. This time? Rumor has it that they want to sell off half of the golf course for development.

Anonymous said...

These local races are supposed to be non partisan! HAH! Both local Republican and Democrat parties have stuck their big fat faces into our local races. And lets also blame the fathead,lazy as dirt "voters".How many times when you knock doors for a candidate do you here"Are they Republican or Democrat?" Not "why are they running for office?" And as a matter of fact,it is AGAINST the rules to advertise a candidate in our local race as Republican OR Democrat.


Anonymous said...

You lost quit crying.

Lynn Anderson said...

Start concerning yourself with corruption, @ 1:05.

Anonymous said...

What corruption? Prove it. Fake News!

Anonymous said...

Why can't you then extrapolate those dismal figures to find that if more voters voted, the percentages would be just about the same?

Also, this town is heavily Democrat. So why didn't the liberals trounce the incumbents?

Lynn Anderson said...

Untrue, 4:07.
If say Sarah had an equal amount of money as Scott Maxwell, she would have been able to afford a professional campaign management company, she would have had the money for better mailers and professional proven advice as to what should have been on those mailers, she would have been able to hit every voter in this city not just the super voters.
So, the outcome could very well have been different.
It would be interesting to know if political party had anything to do with the outcome. Scott Maxwell made sure to tell us that the local election was not non-partisan and made calls to all registered Republicans to come out and vote. He nearly lost.

Anonymous said...

Sara lost a couple hundred votes due to the “crazies” and let’s face it not many voters here that would be swayed to vote for one candidate or another.

Lynn Anderson said...

You have said this before. Please identify the "crazies."