The $20,500 tip of the Briggeman/CPLA iceberg

Saturday morning update:  The worst part about Briggeman’s estimated $100,000+ effort to defeat myself and Ken Parker is how he spent that money.

Yesterday we found the worst example yet in our mail.  I discuss that in more detail in my post, “Have you no decency, Mr. Briggeman. . . . “

(by Dave Emerson) By now it’s been made pretty clear that George Briggeman Jr. has used a sequence of 3 discreet transactions to channel money and support to the two candidates “recruited” by the Citizens for the Preservation of Los Alamitos, 3 term former Council Member Marilyn Poe and new resident Ken Stephens.

Background and links to the details on the $20,500.

We’ve laid out the background in my October 23rd post last Thursday, “Is George Briggeman funding the CPLA?“   Then, in my Saturday (10/25) post, “Gotcha!” we documented the money trail, capped with the “smoking gun” proving that Farquhar Partners LLC and George Briggeman were, indeed, “the same parties,” to quote the quit claim deed George signed in 2007.

The Orange County Register finally broke the news online on Tuesday, 10/28.   The article repeated the basic info you read here three days earlier, but also had some pretty intriguing quotes from Mr. Briggeman, Mrs. Poe, and Mr. Sylvia (see “OC Register finally reveals what we told you last Saturday“).  A revised version of the article finally made the print Register today (Local p. 4, Thursday, 10/30), but was posted online on Wednesday.

What was not disclosed:

The $20,500 was revealed in filings by the CPLA’s sponsored political organization, the Los Alamitos Taxpayers Association (LATA) and the San Clemente based Taxpayers for Safer Neighborhoods (TSN), through which Briggeman apparently channeled his money. The filings, however were only for LATA and TSN, and were only for the 18 days from October 1 – 18, 2008.

What’s missing?

1. Additional donations in the hot run-up to the election and beyond.  Typically large donors will only give what is absolutely necessary through the end of that filing period, 10/18 this year, with the bulk of their donations coming after that.  Significantly, both Ken Stephens and Marilyn Poe have loaned themselves thousands of dollars.   Not a real great practice for someone running on a platform of bringing the city’s budget into balance, but a common practice when large donations are anticipated.
2. Donations to the CPLA. Since the CPLA is a “non-political, non-profit educational” organization, it is not required to reveal the source of it’s funds.  In the Register article Sylvia  indicated “at least six local businesses” had donated to the CPLA, but “Sylvia said he would not give the names of the businesses.”

Let’s do our best to try to figure out what those two additional figures might be.  It’s not that hard to get a rough idea:

# 1:  What we can reasonably estimate: 10/18 through 11/1:  $50,000

The Register indicated LATA had received $21,000 through 10/18, and $20,000 of it came from TSN, to which George Briggeman had donated $20,500.  My assumption is that the additional $500 helped cover the operating and administrative expenses of TSN.

Interestingly, on 10/13 Briggeman donated $10,000 to TSN, and TSN donated $10,000 to LATA.   Of course, Briggeman’s donations were hidden because the donor was listed as “Farquhar Partners, LLC,” but we now have the grant deed indicating the two are apparently one and the same.

Given  the $20,000 donation in the first 18 days of the month, and the tendency for large donors to hold back until after the filing period, an additional donation of $20,000 to $60,000 would hardly be unreasonable.

Let’s pick a middle number:  $40,000, but please bear in mind that’s only an educated guess. It could be less, or a lot more, partly based on the polling LATA spend thousands of dollars on already.

Additional spending we know of: LATA’s expense records through 10/18 show no payment for their first anti-Parker hit piece, was the same size as the “oppose Driscoll” piece (that’s the label they used on their report, by the way), which they reported spending $4,987 on.  Stephens has already put out two full color card stock flyers the same size and style, and his campaign is deeply in debt to himself, possibly anticipating a large donation.  If those two flyers cost cost the same each as the anti-Driscoll one, that’s another $10,000.

Then there’s Stephens full page, full color News Enterprise ad, plus the 1/2 page “Los Al Employees support” ad that was actually paid for by Stephens and Poe’s campaign–maybe another $4,000 for the two ads.  Marilyn had already overspent on her campaign and loaned her campaign about $5,000 as of 10/18, so that’s probably going to get reimbursed as well.  Then I’d say we can expect at least one more big expensive “support”  flyer each for Stephens and for Poe, plus maybe one last minute “against” flyer for me and one for Parker.  (Be sure to check here when you get any last minute hit pieces in the remote case they may have misstated or overstated anything.)   Those 4 last minute flyers x $5000 = another $20,000.

Friday mail update:  Received a 4 page glossy 4 color mailer from the Los Alamitos Taxpayers Associaton, which would be one of the four flyers I projected above, but twice the pages and probably costing more like $8,000.  Even more deceptive than prior CPLA and LATA pieces, even repeating accusations publicly discredited at Council meetings and in the OC Register!

Also got two pro-Marilyn flyers.  Like Stephens, she keeps sending me the same flyer over and over again.  Either the two Briggeman candidates don’t think I have a very long memory, or they aren’t terribly creative.

Last, I received my own small post card mailer.  Yup, I finally decided early morning flyers and door knocking alone wasn’t going to compete with Briggeman’s bucks.  Dig through all those big political flyers and see if you can find it, then let me know what you think.  It’s short on vague generalities but long on specifics, and includes endorsements from some important local people but no Washington or Sacramento incumbant politicians.

In their 10/1 – 18 statement LATA reported spending $9,526 on polling.  I really don’t think they’d stop polling over two weeks before the election day, so let’s figure another $9500 for additional polling?

Add all our projected expenses up, and you get $53,500 miscellaneous, accounting, or operating expenses included! So maybe that original $40,000 “middle number” is low!  Let’s round it up to $50,000 to be more in line with our projected expenses.

Estimate for CPLA:  $53,000

Well, we know the CPLA paid for at least 3 hit piece mailers, plus a couple that were distributed by hand.  According to the Register, the hit piece mailer on Cat Driscoll  cost “nearly$5,000.”  So lets say $5,000 x 3  plus maybe an average of $2,000 for the two hand delivered CPLA flyers, assuming the members deliverd them and not a “walking man” type service.  I’m working a bit from memory here, so correct me if I’m wrong.  The first two mailers were actually 4 pages, the LATA one on Cat was just one page, so my numbers may be on the low side.  That would total $19,000 for mailers.

Then there was attorney’s fees and research.  According  to the Register, Mr. Briggeman’s former attorney was the one who requested and no doubt reviewed Parker and Driscoll’s expense records.  I can count three City Council meetings where the CPLA had an attorney present.  An attorney no doubt prepared their incorporation and other non-profit papers.  I’ve been told by membes that an attorney was also present for at least one of their meetings to caution them on what lines not to cross.  Orange County corporate attorneys fees range upwards from $300 an hour, but let’s be conservative and say $400 an hour x 40 hours for a total of $16,000 for attorneys’ fees.

Then there’s the CPLA website, which was professionally designed.  Not a simple blog like this, but lots of design, scanning documents, locating stock photos, multiple pages.  I’ll just guess $10,000 for now, but I’ve got a text in to someone who’s done website design who may have a better idea.  So about $10,000 for a website.

Now LATA spent a lot of money on polling, so it’s possible CPLA did as well.  There’s other research, possible travel, administrative expenses–and you may thnk of others.  For now, let’s just go with $8,000 miscellaneous. Again, could be high, could be low.

Add it up, & you’ve got $53,000 for the CPLA plus $50,000 for LATA after 10/18, and we’re at $93,000, not counting the original $20,000 revealed here and in the Register in TSN’s 10/1-18 report.

How much of that estimated additional $103,000 did George Briggeman pay?

Well, we know from the filings and the Register that he paid $20,000 out of the $21,000 the LATA received from 10/1 – 18, roughly 95%.  Apply that 95% to our $103,000 estimate and you’ve got just under $98,000, which would assume over $10,000 was raised from other sources, a pretty hefty sum!  Again, the number could be higher or it could be lower, but I say we stick with the 95% we got for LATA.

Add that $98,000 to the $20,000 “tip of the iceberg” and you’ve got an estimated $118,000 George Briggeman may well be putting into our local election! Assuming 2,500 votes to win, that’s over $50 per vote if just one of his candidates win, the most likely outcome given the high name recognition of both Marilyn Poe and Ken Parker.

Remember, Briggeman only needs to win one seat to gain a majority.  If either Poe or Stephens win, he’s got 3 votes locked in.  Edgar and Dean are both walking the streets for Briggeman’s two candidates.

In fact, with Cat Driscoll out of the race, the worst outcome possible for George, his CPLA, and his LATA is a 2-2-1 split, with myself as the swing vote.  About $118,000 says they wants more than that!

Please bear in mind that these numbers are rough guestimates.  The actual numbers could be less. . . or (gasp!) more.  I’m hoping it’s less. . . Sylvia or Briggeman could clear things up quite easily if they’d come clean with their books.  I’m pretty sure I can trust Sylvia, but I can’t say the same for Briggeman, and usually the person writing 95% of the checks is the one in charge.

Why spend $118,000 to win at least one Council Seat?

Well, Briggeman told the Register that “he holds about $20 million worth of property in Los Alamitos.” I’m thinking with the right zoning changes the value of that property could double. . . or more.  Let’s see, invest $118,000 to make $20,000,000?  That’s  a return of over 18,000%  on his $108,000 investment! That’s right:  Over eighteen thousand per cent!  By the way, did I mention that the Poe family owns an awful lot of property in town as well?

That ignores completely the trash contract, in which Briggeman says he has no interest, never mind that his name’s painted on the trucks.  If I was Republic, I’d have a local guy on some sort of a bonus or commission to make sure I continued to get the business.  The next contract will deal with the contract.  Ken Parker and myself are the only candidates committed to putting it out to bid to save our residents, our taxpayers, our businesses and our schools as much money as possible.

We only have 4 days left to stop the $120,000 Briggeman juggernaut.

When I got into the Los Alamitos City Council election, I was aware of the no-bid trash contract Marilyn Poe approved almost ten years ago, but I didn’t think it was that big an issue.  I was focused on traffic and teamwork:  Less gridlock on our streets and in our Council Chambers.

I’m still focused on those issues, but I now know keeping the Council independent is even more important.  If Ken Parker and I (Dave Emerson) are elected, that will result in a 2 – 2 -1 vote, with myself as the swing vote, focused on what’s best for the city alone, with no strings attached, other than the commitments that I’ve made to you here & elsewhere.  Bidding out the trash contract is one of those commitments, and on that I am definitely aligned with Ken Parker and Geri Mejia.  I look forward to working with them, as well as the other two Council Members on a number of issues.

Hopefully, a ringing defeat of Briggeman’s candidates should free Troy Edgar and Dean Grose of any undue influence.  Last election Briggeman poured thousands of dollars into Fred Freeman’s campaign but still lost.  But Fred didn’t really walk the neighborhoods.  This time Poe and Stephens are both spending a lot of time “walking, knocking, and talking.”  So are Grose and Edwards,as well as the city hall employees.

Time for action!

Briggeman has bragged that he can get a mailer produced and delivered to your door in 48 hours.  You may be inundated over the next four days.  This blog alone gives his advisors 44 different posts he can cull through to find quotes to take out of context.  We’ve already seen distortions and untruths about me (like that I want to close the base!).  Check back here for the truth–if nothing’s posted yet, post the key information, I may not have the hit piece yet).

The only way the people can win this one is to get the truth out there (and to pray!)  First and foremost, make sure every voter in your house understands the need to vote for Dave Emerson and Ken Parker this time around. If they don’t like one of us, then just vote for that one.  Make sure they know not to vote for Poe or Stephens, and that they know that Cat Driscoll has withdrawn on doctor’s orders.  She has endorsed me and Parker.

E-mail links or just the web address or excerpts from key posts to your friends in Los Al.  If you want to get a group of friends together over the weekend, let me know & I’ll try to stop by for a while, or send someone who understands the situation.

I’ve still got signs if you’ve got a good place to put them.  Corners and busy streets and entrance streets into tracts are especially helpful.  Ken and I still have a few banners if you’ve got a wall or business on a main street.  Donations are still needed as well.  And people to help get out some important flyers.  Hand made yard signs or banners are also highly effective.  Just keep it polite and positive.

A word about my opponents and their backer

Personally, I don’t think Marilyn Poe or Ken Stephens are bad people.  I just don’t think they’re what our Council needs at this time.  And I think they’ve made some very bad decisions on who they’re accepting support from.

For the record, I’m not saying that George Briggeman’s a bad person either, although after the latest smear flyer on Parker, I’m beginning to wonder.  I’ve only met him once, and I’d be happy to sit down with him again.  He’s an important local businessman, and has been generous in his support of local non-profits.  If he wants to renounce the dishonest approach taken by his campaign advisors and become a team player, I say let’s welcome him to the team!  I’d like to think there are ways we could work together to help the city and his business interests.  I’m big on finding “win-win” solutions–it’s what I’ve done for a living most of my life.

It’s now up to you.  Please help us get the truth out.

If you want, please feel free to post a comment.  Remember, try to be polite and respectful, with “family friendly ” language appropriate to our town.  Your e-mail remains private, and you can chose not to use your full name or even use a pen name.  If there’s no comment box below, scroll up to the headline & click it.

4 days and counting. . . .

I can be reached at 562.430.0262.

em>Saturday morning update: The worst part about Briggeman’s estimated $100,000+ effort to defeat myself and Ken Parker is how he spent that money.

Yesterday we found the worst example yet in our mail. I discuss that in more detail in my post, “Have you no decency, Mr. Briggeman. . . . “

Related posts:

1. The $20,500 tip of the Briggeman/Poe/Stephens iceberg
2. Is George Briggeman funding the C.P.L.A.?
3. Last Night’s Council Meeting: CPLA crew goes down swinging wildly
4. George Briggeman Jr. pulls papers for City Council!