Ashley Lopez's blog
For a few weeks now, I have been compiling as much campaign finance information as was available to me.
Well, I finally finished. I have separated the information into three spreadsheets that I am sharing with the public: one containing candidate information, the other containing donor information, and the last containing itemized transactions from the donors to the candidates.
As I wrote before, it's difficult to find information on local elections. There is simply not a lot of money in play and the data is hard to get your hands on.
Yup, I will be live-blogging yet another OC Commish forum for you guys! The forum is Wednesday April 14 in the Chapel Hill Council Chambers.
My coverage will be right here starting at 7pm. If you don't particularly want to go to the forum OR read my live-blog (where I periodically diverge on rants about people asking me to type softer)--the forum will also be televised live on the government access, Time Warner channel 18.
Scheduled to attend so far are: Joal Hall Broun, Alice Gordon, Barry Jacobs, Earl McKee, Joe Phelps and Renee Price.
Last night, the Chapel Hill/Carrboro chapter of the NAACP held a candidate’s forum for the County Commissioner at-large and County Sheriff’s race.
The candidates present were: Clarence Birkhead, Lindy Pendergrass, Joal Hall Broun, Barry Jacobs and Joe Phelps. Alice Gordon also stopped by, even though she is uncontested in her County Commissioner race in District 1.
There was actually a lot of ground covered at the forum. Among the topics discussed was the 287g Program, overcrowding in county jails, funding for the Chapel Hill library and Google Fiber Optics.
Most notable was William Thorp, the NAACP chapter chair, giving an impassioned plea to the commissioner-hopefuls to fix the situation in Rogers Road. The plea came in the wake of a new report that found 9 out of 11 wells in the region were contaminated and a quarter of the septic tanks in the area were in disrepair.
Well, if anyone was wondering why there is a noticeable void of good reporting on campaign finances in local elections… I have the answer.
The answer is pretty simple, but horribly boring.
The answer is a lack of uniformity in campaign finance report rules, a lack of money to throw around and a lack of technological advancement in local governments. More notably, the office-holder hopefuls who are filling out these forms (or are having their buddy/treasurer fill them out) are also fairly technologically challenged.
For those of you that won't be able to make it to tonight's County Commissioner Candidate forum, I will be liveblogging the event here on OP!
The forum starts at 7pm and it is being held at Chapel Hill's Town Hall on MLK Blvd.
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