Complaint filed against Portage mayor's campaign report
NWI Times
Mar 10, 2015
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/complaint-filed-against-portage-mayor-s-campaignreport/article_9a54f926-2a71-5c8d-b1aa-b90edb0f982e.html
The Porter County Democratic Central Committee filed a complaint Tuesday against Portage Mayor James Snyder for campaign finance violations.
Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Chidester is requesting the Porter County Election Board open an investigation in the alleged campaign finance violations and demand related evidence and documentation from the Citizens for Snyder committee to explain any discrepancies.
Kenard Taylor, Snyder's campaign treasurer, said it's Chidester's job to attack the Republicans "and I think he's trying to scare off James Snyder's donations and donors."
Among the violations alleged by Chidester in the mayor's report are corporation contributions disguised as "other organizations" to circumvent donation limits.
The complaint lists corporations disguised as contributions by "other organizations" that have donated more than $2,000 each to the Snyder campaign despite a limit imposed by the state of $2,000 in aggregate in annual corporate donations to all "local" candidates.
The complaint also alleges that corporation contributions in excess of annual contribution limits have been made to the campaign and multiple contributions have been made from the same or similar entities, which is prohibited. Among those listed are Rediehs Freightlines, Chief Freightliners, Combined Steel Carriers and Combined Transport Systems -- that have contributed a total of $10,400 to the Snyder campaign and all of which list an address of 1201 Marine View Drive, Portage.
Chidester is also requesting the Election Board immediately require the Citizens for Snyder committee to return all corporate contributions in excess of the annual aggregate contribution limits to the respective donor.
Chidester also wants the board to require the committee to fully disclose any and all relationships with those companies listed at 1201 Marine View Drive, to ensure their significant donations made are not in violation.
Taylor said if the Election Board does anything, it should go after the corporations and labor organizations that don't realize different classifications and don't realize the contribution limit.
Taylor said when filling out the reports they found several companies in which they didn't know what kind of corporations they were.
"We contacted them, asked them for guidance, and based upon that information we used it to put them in the classifications that we did," Taylor said. "We filled out the best information we could to the best of our ability in time restraints."
Taylor said they could have hidden the information in the reports but instead showed that several companies had overpaid and that "we are in the process of issuing checks back to them for over payments."
"We didn't have to have the Democrats tell us that -- we showed it in our reports and we said we are issuing checks to return the money," he said.
As far as the contributions from similar entities at the same address, Taylor said as long as they are individually incorporated, it's an acceptable thing to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment