You can learn so much by looking at a candidate's campaign finance reports.
And what's cool is they are all public record.
As a candidate that gets or spends over a $1000 you have to file a campaign finance report before an election and after an election. So there will be another update coming soon.
But we have Dan Horrigan's campaign finance report that was filed August 27. You can see it in all its glory by clicking here.
These reports show two main things: who gave him money and who he gave money to.
Who gave him money is incredibly revealing. But that's for another time.
Today I want to focus on who he gave money to.
What we know is that, as of August 27, he had $219,551.68.
Of that he spent $101,469.18.
You can see every line item of those expenditures.
What I found was that $73,391.81 went to Triad Communications.
Triad is a Cuyahoga Falls based agency.
There is nothing wrong with Triad. They do good work.
But why the hell did he have to give 3/4 of his money to Cuyahoga Falls!?!?
There are many good agencies in Akron:
WhiteSpace Creative and HFA are two amazing Akron agencies, as an example.
We all know that the amount of money politicians spend on campaigns is absurd and gross. But couldn't Dan have at least given his money to an Akron agency?
Money tells so many stories. They say, "follow the money."
In this case, we can follow the money right out of Akron.
Based on this, how much money do you think Dan is going to keep in Akron?
Look at this graph:
That's the total Akron budget for 2015. It's from the 2015 Budget Plan book. It's actually pretty easy to understand and downright fascinating.
I'd like to draw your attention to the top of that pie: Capital Projects: $60,662,460. That's over $60 million dollars that goes to making Akron better. That's the money all of Dan Horrigan's supporters want a piece of.
That's why he has all the money he has now. And that's why he has all the supporters of big business. They want a piece of the pie.
What worries me is that based on what he has done with outsourcing all of marketing and advertising work to Cuyahoga Falls he's probably going to have no problem outsourcing a ton of that capital work too.
Demand from all candidates that we have an Akron first policy. We need to give as much money as we can to Akron businesses. We don't need to help Cuyahoga Falls businesses. We need to help Akron businesses.
Paid For By The People for Sage Lewis