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October 28th, 2009
Thomaides winning political money game

The signs of a city council election are everywhere in San Marcos. Photo by Andy Sevilla.

STAFF REPORT

Incumbent San Marcos City Councilmember John Thomaides is the runaway leader during this election season in raising money, spending it, and bringing individual contributors to his campaign.

In two campaign finance reports leading to the Nov. 3 election, Thomaides has raised $9,464.57 and spent $8,173.63, bringing in 42 contributors, including 21 who contributed $100 or less.

In the election for two council seats involving six candidates, Thomaides leads every other candidate by large margins in each of those aspects. Thomaides is running for his third term on the council against challenges from beauty consultant Monica Garcia and retired civil servant Anita Fuller in Place 6.

By state law, candidates for city office are required to file campaign finance reports with the city 30 days before the election and eight days before the election.

Thomaides’ latest campaign finance report, dated Oct. 26, showed $5,667.80 remaining in his war chest, which will be partially offset by $849.88 in recent campaign expenditures from his personal funds. Thomaides began the campaign with $6,523.49 remaining from previous years of political activity.

The incumbent received the largest single contribution in the campaign, $1,500 in kind from local political consultant Sam McCabe. Thomaides also received $1,000 from San Marcos resident James Kelly.

The largest cash contributor to the election is Kelly, who also made a $1,000 contribution to Place 5 candidate Shaune Maycock, owner of a local aviation business. The contribution from Kelly is the largest for Maycock, bringing Kelly’s total cash contributions to $2,000 in the election.

San Marcos entrepreneur Terry Gilmore has made $1,500 in cash contributions during the campaign season. Gilmore made a $500 contribution to Garcia and two contributions of $500 each to the San Marcos Professional Fire Fighters Association (SMPFFA) Political Action Committee (PAC).

The fire fighters PAC, which has endorsed Garcia in the Place 6 race and homebuilder Ryan Thomason in the Place 5 race, made an in-kind contribution to Garcia of $712.32 in a mail out announcing those endorsements.

Following Kelly and Gilmore, the next largest individual contributor is former San Marcos Councilmember John Diaz, who made an in-kind contribution of $1,077.62 to Garcia in signs and T-shirts.

Garcia’s reports say she has raised less than half as much money as Thomaides — $4,689.94 — and spent only $2,264.90. Though Garcia’s reports say she has received $2,425.04 more than she has spent, her Oct. 26 report said she had only $625.04 left in her campaign funds (the $1,789.94 of in-kind contributions didn’t count as expenditures). Garcia has named 13 contributors, two of whom kicked in $100 or less.

Fuller, the remaining candidate in the Place 6 race, has been the least active candidate in this election with regard to receiving or spending money. Fuller reported a $1,000 loan to her own cause, but her reports said she received no money and spent only $527.72.

Local investor and entrepreneur Scott Gregson provided $574.57 of in-kind contributions to Thomaides and a $500 cash contribution to Maycock for a total of 1,074.57, making him the fourth most active contributor in this election. Gregson’s contributions to Thomaides were $324.57 worth of room rental and $250 of office space. Gregson is the owner of Newstreamz.

Tied for fifth among contributors in this election are the Texas Real Estate PAC and the Greater Home Builders Association of Austin PAC, which have each spent $1,000 on the race. Most of that money went to Place 5 candidate Thomason, a homebuilder who serves on the San Marcos Planning and Zoning Commission.

The Texas Real Estate PAC gave Thomason $1,000, while the Austin homebuilders PAC gave him $500. The Austin homebuilders also gave $500 to Garcia.

Thomason is the biggest fundraiser and spender in the Place 5 race, coming in second to Thomaides across the two races. Thomason has raised $6,825 with 30 separate contributors, including 15 who contributed $100 or less. He spent $5,182.17.

Thomason’s opponents, Maycock and academic counselor Lisa Marie Coppoletta, have tried to keep pace with Thomason’s spending, but neither has been as successful at raising funds.

Maycock has spent $4,716.16, despite reporting only $2,279 in donations. Maycock has spent $1,388.02 on the campaign from his political funds, with the rest coming from his personal resources. Maycock’s latest report said he maintained $1,511.46 in funds. He loaned $460 to his own campaign.

Coppoletta’s reports claim a combined $1,720.50 in contributions and $2,850.29 in expenditures. However, Coppoletta noted another $1,129.84 in expenditures from her personal funds, for which she did not say she intends to be reimbursed by her campaign. In total, she spent $3,980.13 during the two reporting periods.

Of the money Coppoletta received, only $916.50 is accounted for as either single contributions or sums of contributions of $50 or less. Her largest contributor is Cyril Charles Young III of Kyle, who made an individual contribution of $500. Young is the treasurer of Texas for Accountable Government, which contributed another $216.50 in demographic analysis.

In total, the six council candidates combined to raise $24,979.01 and spend $24,847.71 as of the most recent campaign finance reports issued Monday.

Following are the campaign finance reports for 30 days before the election and eight days before the election from each candidate in Place 5 and Place 6.

Place 5

Lisa Marie Coppoletta 30 days before the election.

Lisa Marie Coppoletta eight days before the election.

Shaune Maycock 30 days before the election.

Shaune Maycock eight days before the election.

Ryan Thomason 30 days before the election.

Ryan Thomason eight days before the election.

Place 6

Anita Fuller 30 days before the election.

Anita Fuller eight days before the election.

Monica Garcia 30 days before the election.

Monica Garcia eight days before the election.

John Thomaides 30 days before the election.

John Thomaides eight days before the election.

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0 thoughts on “Thomaides winning political money game”

  1. It would be nice when you get a robocall if they stated whose campaign the robocall was coming from. I got one last night and I assume Thomaides’s campaign was running it which I have no problem at all but still nonetheless it would be nice to identify themselves.

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