Garcia Mayoral Campaign Ends 2014 With Over $114,000 In Unpaid Bills And Negative Cash Balance After Collecting Over $117,000 From Contributors In Six Months After Election; See Full List Of Names/Affiliations/Locations

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(Feb. 12, 2015) -- Public records show that Robert Garcia's 2014 Mayoral campaign committee ended 2014 with over $114,000 in unpaid bills and a negative cash balance of -$31.82 despite collecting over $117,000 in contributions after the June 3, 2014 runoff election.

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The "Robert Garcia for Mayor 2014" political committee hasn't stiffed those to whom it owes money and it isn't exactly destitute. It can continue raising money in 2015...although LB voters enacted the city's Campaign Reform Act (Prop M, June 1994) in an effort to prevent what they found and declared to be the negative effects of money in LB politics. The text below is from Prop M's voter-enacted verbatim Findings and Declarations:

[LB Muni Code section 2.01.120 (E)] Officeholders are responding to high campaign costs by raising large amounts of money in off-election years. This fund-raising distracts them from important public matters, encourages contributions which may have a corrupting influence and gives incumbents an overwhelming and patently unfair fund-raising advantage over potential challengers.
...The integrity of the governmental process, the competitiveness of campaigns and public confidence in local officials are all diminishing.

The sums involved in 1994 pale in comparison to what is taking place in Long Beach now.

Records filed by the Garcia campaign indicate it spent $753,175.06 (including $114,719.26 in bills remaining unpaid) from Jan 1-Dec. 31 (which includes an April initial election and June 3 runoff) and for the last six months of the year, July 1-Dec. 31, collected $117,011.50 from various individuals and entities.

Those sums are in addition to $202,494 separately spent to elect Garcia by an independent committee (about which then-endorser Mayor Bob Foster said in Feb. 2014 "You Don't See My Name On It") and another $55,000 spent by a second independent committee funded mainly by labor.

The net result amounted to $1,110,669 spent to elect Garcia who received 52.04% of the vote in a June 2014 runoff with a voter turnout of 20.77%.

The second place finisher in April and June, Damon Dunn, spent $895,046.53, most of it his own money. An independent committee sponsored by LB Area Chamber of Commerce spent $94,026.20.

These sums were for a LB elective office with no policy-setting vote.

LBREPORT.com provides access to the full Garcia campaign finance report for July 1-Dec. 31, 2014 so our readers can see the full list of names, affiliations and locations (many from outside Long Beach) of its after-election contributors. Some of the contributors list names that are less than transparent. One of them -- "Long Beach Project Owner LLC" (lists Newport Beach zip code 92660) -- is one of the more memorable.

To view the complete form listing the Garcia campaign's after-election contributors to date, click here.