Saturday, November 3, 2012

Following McVoy's Money...

Let's review the various treasurer's reports filed by the incumbent City Commissioner's campaign.  For your reference, I will provide links to each document as found on the City's website.  Below each I will point out some "curiosities" of which people should be aware.

G1

McVoy donates a total of $400 to his campaign.  He receives t-shirts from a Boynton Beach company through an in-kind contribution.  Jo-Ann Golden contributes her first $250 to the campaign.  The only money spent by the campaign in the city of Lake Worth is for checks from Wells-Fargo at 120 North Dixie Hwy.  All other campaign expenses went to businesses outside of the city (after reviewing all reports.)  For example, food for events seems to only come from Costco and what appears to be his standard door hanger/flier cost $625.40 and came from a printer in unincorporated Palm Beach County.

G1 Amendment

One day later, an amendment is filed that only includes the cover sheet to the standard treasurer's report.  The only change appears to be to the period covered by the report.  The first day on the original report indicated 7/1/12; the first day on the amended report is 7/2/12.

G2

Only $227.22 was spent during this reporting period and that went to graphics firm in Boca Raton, presumably for the letter that many people received from the campaign.  The treasurer did not sign this report.

G2 Amendment

No change other than the addition of the treasurer's signature.

G3

An additional $4,350 was brought into the campaign during this reporting period.  A loan of $2,800 was made by McVoy himself to the campaign.  This report includes the period from 9/29 to 10/12.  Jo-Ann contributes an additional $250 to the campaign - now at the $500 limit.  On the expense side, we see more money going to Boca Raton for letter printing ($620), Costco and an assortment of different postage charges.  These total $1,309 which would equate to a total of 2,908 first class letters.  The letter and envelope that I saw was hand addressed and had first class postage.  Why the separate postage charges on different dates?  Perhaps a different letter to different groups?  This is the report where signs first show up as an expense - on October 12th.  You and I know that there were signs out long before October 12th.  Where did they come from?  This amount of $602.08 represents about 200 signs - it seems there are more out there than what is represented here.  Again, this money was spent outside the city of Lake Worth.

G4

This report shows that for the period between 10/13 and 11/1 only $295.10 was spent by the campaign.  This leaves a disparity of roughly $10,099.42 that has been brought into the campaign and only $4,284.58  that has been spent over the entirety of the campaign.  Why did McVoy see the need to loan the campaign $2,800 of his own money when it was clearly not needed?  Are there other expenditures related to the campaign that aren't being shown here?  Is this an attempt to "bank" money for an office account - perhaps to do some "education" on the height ballot issue in March?  Also in this report, another one of Jo-Ann's clan - her brother from New York - contributes $500 to the campaign.  There are also donations from people in this report that wrote the following odd amounts in the form of checks.  For example, $48.25, $96.80 and two checks from Los Gatos, California each for $485.20 are listed.  Were these for specific campaign related items?  Why the odd amounts?  I don't see any indication of the campaign using PayPal.  There are also four postage "mailer" Post Office charges totaling $214.10 - one for only $8.10.

Summary

Taken as a whole, it looks as though we are not seeing the whole picture here.  We have evidence that there are more than 200 signs that have been made and there is a large, un-explainable discrepancy between the amount brought into the campaign and the amount spent.  Why the loan of $2,800?  Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Lake Worth trains apprentice linemen so they won’t get a...

Willie Howard out-fluffs himself with this piece.  This is the hard-hitting journalism we've come to know and expect.  Let's not talk about the "Franken-surge" experienced in College Park last Friday evening and instead talk about how we train people to work on the lines.  Click title for link.