City candidates report campaign finances

Candidates for Lynchburg City Council have collectively spent more than $36,000 on their campaigns as of March 31, according to financial disclosure reports filed last week. That’s nearly five times as much as had been spent by this same point during the last election in 2008.

The News & Advance is partnering with The Virginia Public Access Project, which tracks political contributions across the state, to monitor spending and donations in the city council race.

Collectively, more than $70,000 has been donated so far to the eight candidates vying for a spot on City Council this year.

Individually, the biggest money raisers by far were J.P. Vaughan and Joan Foster. Vaughan topped the board with $19,945 while Foster came in second with $15,987.

Third place went to Don Good with a total of $9,348. Bringing up the rear of the pack with $2,050 was Brent Robertson.

This is the first round of campaign finance reports to be filed since the field of candidates was set in early March. The reports detail the activity of each campaign’s treasury up to March 31.

In addition to being the biggest earner, Vaughan also far outpaced his competition when it came to spending, with a list of expenditures totaling $13,051.

Most of that, $11,085, went to the locally based McBratney Marketing for creative development services, billboards, lapel stickers and yard signs.

Vaughan was not the only candidate to spend some cash on consulting services. The Republican ticket, consisting of Good, Hunsdon “H.” Cary and Ted Hannon, reported spending $3,345 overall for campaign consulting services. They received another $5,184 in donated services from Clear Communications in Forest.

Spending among the candidates otherwise tended on focus on items such as brochures, mailings, facility rentals and refreshments. Foster, with a reported bank balance of $11,919, had the most cash on hand by the end of the reporting period. She spent $75 for airtime on WLLL Radio.

James Coleman — who after Vaughan had the second-highest number of individual donations — paid $1,750 for two billboards.

Coleman’s donors tended to give in smaller amounts of less than $100. His overall contributions for the reporting period reached $6,745.

Some campaigns got big financial assists from political organizations. Lynchburg First, a new group that’s endorsed Vaughan, Foster and Randy Nelson, gave $2,000 to each of its candidates.

The Farm Team, a statewide group supporting Democratic women running for office, gave another $2,500 to Foster.

Vaughan, a longtime real estate agent, also received $1,000 from a Realtors’ political action committee.

The three Republican nominees for office each got $200 apiece from the Lynchburg Republican City Committee and the Sixth District Republican Committee.

As a whole, the candidates backed by Lynchburg First reported raising $41,332. The Republican ticket reported raising $20,129.

Those figures do not include a personal loan of $4,000 that Cary made to his own campaign coffers. Tak-ing the loan into account, Cary raised $9,763. Excluding it, he raised $5,360.

Robertson, who reported having about $265 in cash on hand by the end of the reporting period, also made a personal contribution to his campaign of $300.

Overall, all eight candidates for council had about $38,106 left in their campaign war chests as of March 31.