Seattle Mayor's Race 2013

Campaign Expenditure Update

Some notable expenditures from this past month of the mayoral campaign.

By Erica C. Barnett June 13, 2013

 

Charlie Staadecker: Big spender.

We did a roundup of the latest mayoral fundraising numbers in Fizz earlier this week. Here are a few of the notable expenditures. (By "notable," I generally mean spends on stuff other than consultants, campaign yard signs, credit card fees, and basic campaign expenses like that). 

First, the folks we aren't mentioning and why: Mary Martin, the Freedom Socialist candidate, hasn't reported any expenditures; Kate Martin, the Greenwood neighborhood activist, hasn't filed her monthly report yet; Doug McQuaid, international man of mystery (seriously: He has no web site and didn't return numerous calls for our Seattle Met mayoral roundup—on newsstands next week!), hasn't filed any expenses; Bruce Harrell's expenses were all pretty pedestrian (although if I was going to spend $569 on food, it wouldn't be at O'Asian, the weird Irish-sounding Asian fusion place across from City Hall); and Joey Gray just has one expenditure, to her consultant Geov Parrish. 

Now, on to the notable expenditures! 

Mayor Mike McGinn spent $96 on what he calls "bike stickers." They're pretty cool-looking. (Really.) But I'm not sure why he thinks they're specifically for bikes. I'm putting mine, which features an image of light rail and the ripped-from-Obama slogan "Forward," on my Ford Excursion SUV. 

McGinn, curiously, doesn't list any expenditures for a fundraiser or campaign manager. Last month, he failed to report a $3,500 expenditure to campaign consultant John Wyble, who told us the campaign manager's salary is coming out of his cut.

State Sen. Ed Murray spent $21,000 on polling by EMC Research, putting Murray's poll expenditures second only to former candidate and current city council member Tim Burgess, who wrote a $34,500 check to the D.C.-based polling firm the Mellman Group. 

Real-estate broker Charlie Staadecker spent $1,906 on a print ad in the Seattle Times—perhaps not the smartest expenditure, given how well the Times' big campaign to "prove print advertising still works" by giving free ad space to 2012 Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna worked out for him. 

In a repeat of last month, Staadecker also spent lavishly on fundraising consultant Colby Underwood—$8,300, which works out to nearly 40 percent of the $21,221 he raised in May. 

Finally (and also in a repeat of last month), former city council member Peter Steinbrueck spent $169 on parking, $7.68 on tolls, and $415 on mileage. As we noted last month, that's an awful lot of driving for a guy who calls himself the urbanist candidate in the race. On the other hand, it also paints a picture of a guy who's all over town—and, mitigating factor: He did invest $100 in an ORCA card. 

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