The battle to become Colorado Springs’ first strong mayor is proving to be a costly competition.
Altogether, the nine mayoral hopefuls have spent at least $537,000 in campaign-related expenses, according to reports filed Monday with the City Clerk’s Office.
Most of the money has been spent on advertising, political consultants, yard signs and mailers.
But other expenses include liquor for fund-raisers, pizza for volunteers and gas to get around the campaign trail.
Homebuilder Brian Bahr, who gave his campaign $100,000 plus a $100,000 loan, is leading the pack with nearly $174,000 in expenditures since August.
Bahr, president of Challenger Homes, still has nearly $58,000 cash on hand.
Steve Bach, a commercial real estate broker, has burned through nearly $119,000.
Bach has about $38,000 left in the bank.
Retired businessman Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, has racked up nearly $104,000 in expenses – including about $65,000 on a slew of advertising in recent weeks.
Munger, who lent his campaign $67,660, is running on empty.
Although fundraising efforts continue, Munger has only about $6,500 cash on hand.
Businessman Richard Skorman, a former councilman, had spent nearly $88,000 as of Feb. 23.
Skorman’s latest campaign report has not been posted on the city’s website.
Skorman’s campaign spokeswoman, Camille Blakely, said the report was turned in about 4:45 p.m. Monday and that Deputy City Clerk Cindy Conway “said it wouldn’t be scanned until this afternoon.”
When asked whether she could send the report via e-mail, Blakely hesitated but then said she would try.
Defense contractor Buddy Gilmore has spent nearly $45,000. Gilmore is almost entirely funding his own campaign.
With about $75,500 left in the bank, Gilmore could launch a massive effort to reach voters as ballots start to arrive in the mail.
The four other candidates, including Councilman Tom Gallagher, are in a different class when it comes to campaign spending.
The four, who have raised little – if any – money, have spent about $8,500 altogether.
Wow, they must really want to help the city. Sarcasm aside, I find it disgusting that people are willing to spend so much money (almost none of their own of course) to attain an office all in the name of pwer and ego.
Jay–Gillmore, Bahr, and Munger are almost exclusively spending their own money on this race, so your parenthetical statement isn’t really true.
I’m more interested in where they got what they spent.
Did Celadtko declare the money she spent on the step ladder and black paint for Merrifield’s billboard?
http://notmytribe.com/2011/merrifield-portrayed-as-lenin-princess-lisa-says-she-didnt-do-it-823333.html#more-23333
CSaction,
There are hundreds and hundreds of individual contributors, which is one of the reasons I provided a link to all the campaign reports.
Hopefully I’ll have time to analyze that information in the near future.
Daniel
Not sure all of them are getting the same bang for the buck.
My perception of overall signage leaders seem to be:
1. Bach
2. Bahr
3. Skorman
4. Gilmore
5. Munger
Given that most people who will receive a ballot next week will use signage as their one and only selection criteria, I would predict the same order of finish…
CSAction: nice one. Check out JO JO’s link, if you haven’t already. Southern Delivery Barbie says she didn’t do it, nosiree.
@40yr–lets hope that signage isn’t the only criteria used!
Don’t you think the other advertising like radio and tv makes a difference too? Dave Munger doesn’t have a lot of signs but he has a ton on cable, can’t watch tv at night without seeing one of his ads. And I hear that Minute thing with Bahr every day on the radio.
40yresident is wrong, Signs don’t vote. If they did, that’s all anybody would do. For those without name ID it might add a couple of percentage points, but nothing substantial. Bach, Bahr, Skorman and Munger are all on TV and radio now. That’ll have a bigger impact. The order will be:
1. Skorman
2. Bach
3. Bahr
4. Munger
5. Gallagher
6. Gillmore