Let’s follow the money and take a look at the first campaign finance reports in for the Danville City Council candidates. These reports were due on Monday, April 16th and SouthsideCentral is the first to bring you a summary of what was filed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We’re going to start with incumbent Larry Campbell. Here’s a list of donors that have given more than $100 to his campaign.<\/p>\n
$200 – Larry Campbell Sr.
\n$250 – Eric Deaton
\n$200 – Louis Eliacin
\n$300 – Zachary Hairston
\n$150 – Ben Rippe
\n$500 – United Food & Workers International Union
\nCampbell has also had 29 donors of $100 or less for a total of 2273.99 on this report.
\nIn this report cycle, Campbell reports incoming contributions of $3873.99 and has $3955.36 on hand.<\/p>\n
Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> Campbell had no chance of losing and with this much cash on hand, he’s well stocked for the rest of the campaign. What’s this union money all about?<\/p>\n Next, we’ll go to challenger Thomas Motley. Motley has 2 contributors of more than $100. Motley has had 1 contributor of $100 or less and that was for $50. Motley has ran 2 radio ads on WDVA and has given his campaign a personal loan of $600. In this report cycle, Motley reports incoming contributions of $1250 and has $720 on hand.<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> One thousand dollars from Fisher & Watkins?!?! $200 from Derrick Mercer, the former head of the Coalition For a Safe Danville ?!?! (Remember that group? Mercer hasn’t been heard from since he stopped doing anything with them) Advertising on WDVA is advertising to the people that were going to vote for him anyway. Even with this money, I just don’t see Motley getting the traction that he needs to win a seat on Council in this election cycle.<\/p>\n Next, let’s go to incumbent Buddy Rawley. He’s reporting these contributions of more than $100…<\/p>\n $227 – Bonnae Buchanan Rawley is reporting 30 contributions of $100 or less for a total of $1874. He’s got contributions of $4101 in this reporting period and has $4208.06 on hand.<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> Wow. Buddy Rawley is a professional fund-raiser and he’s done his magic for his political campaign. All he has to do is use that money effectively and he’s starting to look like more of a sure thing. $4200 can go a long way with 14 days left on the clock.<\/p>\n Incumbent Mayor Sherman Saunders is next. He’s reporting contributions of more than $100 from:<\/p>\n $200 – Dorothy Batson Saunders has 5 contributors of $100 or less for a total of $459. Saunders has given his campaign a personal loan of $966 and with total contributions of $1059 in this period, he has a cash-on-hand of $1746.80 on the books.<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> That’s a respectable run of fundraising and it shows that Saunders is working hard to get re-elected.<\/p>\n Next, let’s go to incumbent Fred Shanks. He’s reporting one contribution of more than $100 and that’s a $300 one from his father. Shanks has listed 3 contributions of $100 of less for a total of $174. Shanks has given his campaign a personal loan of $105.52. He’s reporting contributions of $474 in this period, and has $274.82 for cash-on-hand.<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/em><\/strong> What the hell? Fred has a good chance of being re-elected but he’s got to do more in fundraising than this.<\/p>\n Lee Vogler’s coming up now. He’s got 4 contributors at the more than $100 level, and they are:<\/p>\n $125 – Doris McCubbins Vogler is reporting 13 contributions of $100 or less for a total of $774.12 and is also reporting in-kind contributions from:<\/p>\n $125 – Gina’s Family Restaurant (total of $250 this year) Vogler has reported that he’s received a total of $2269.41 in this reporting period and has a balance remaining of $1091.83 .<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> Vogler may have the Young People’s support but he isn’t bringing in the Old People’s money so far. I expected Vogler to lead this field in fundraising but that’s not happening. He’s got plenty of money to make it to the finish line though.<\/p>\n Finally, Vice-Mayor David Luther has reported 3 contributions of more than $100:<\/p>\n $200 – Richard Barkhouser Luther is also reporting 7 contributions of $100 or less for a total of $550. That gives Luther $1200 in contributions and he’s got a cash-on-hand of $1164.28 for his campaign.<\/p>\n Analysis:<\/strong><\/em> David Luther is running a campaign? I haven’t seen a sign nor heard his name mentioned in conversations… but then he probably doesn’t need that anyway.<\/p>\n Recap: In one of the quietest Danville City Council races I’ve ever seen, we’ve got a few surprises when we “follow the money”. Lee Vogler’s not getting the money I thought he would, Larry Campbell is sitting on a lot of campaign money (I’m still wondering about that union contribution), Buddy Rawley is a Fundraiser Extraordinaire and Fred Shanks is running a bargain-basement campaign. Sherman Saunders is at a normal level of money, David Luther is relatively quiet and Thomas Motley finally has some money to work with. I’m writing this on Monday, April 16th and that means there are 15 days until the election. We’ll have another update before the election and then we’ll have the World-Famous SouthsideCentral Endorsements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s follow the money and take a look at the first campaign finance reports in for the Danville City Council candidates. These reports were due on Monday, April 16th and SouthsideCentral is the first to bring you a summary of what was filed.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1VD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23255,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/04\/26\/breakdown-danville-city-council-campaign-funding\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":0},"title":"BreakDown: Danville City Council Campaign Funding (UPDATED)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Running a political campaign can be expensive, even at the local governmental level. So where is all of the major money coming from for this year's Danville City Council election? SouthsideCentral has the answers after a lot of research. Let's do a detailed look at each candidate's contributions, starting with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BreakDown"","block_context":{"text":"BreakDown","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/breakdown\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/KuEywg6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13316,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/08\/breakdown-the-threat-to-larry-campbell\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":1},"title":"BreakDown: The Threat to Larry Campbell","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I've spoken with State Police on this, so now I can give out more information on the \"threat\" that Larry Campbell talked about at last night's Danville City Council meeting. Let's do a BreakDown. The Virginia Fusion Center is a clearinghouse for all potential threats and liabilities that come from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BreakDown"","block_context":{"text":"BreakDown","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/breakdown\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/KuEywg6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6814,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/29\/potential-change-in-danvilles-mayorship\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":2},"title":"Potential change in Danville’s mayorship?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Editor's Note: I rarely \"bump up\" a SouthsideCentral article since they're available on the site & Google indexes them well, but in this case I'm making an exception since this is a very hot topic. This article was originally published on: Apr 22, 2010 @ 23:20) I've connected the dots\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6500,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/03\/danville-school-board-race-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":3},"title":"Danville School Board Race – Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Three open seats, three candidates. This may be the only update on this election but I'm optimistic and calling this article \"Update #1\" anyway. Three seats are up for election on Danville's School Board. Two of the incumbents (George Wilson & Rebecca Bolton) are running for re-election and Alonzo Jones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13275,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/07\/danville-city-council-live-6715\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":4},"title":"Danville City Council – LIVE! (6\/7\/15) – Part #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Editor's Note:\u00a0I've decided to break this up this Danville City Council meeting article up into two parts. This is Part #1, featuring everything up to the end of the public comment section. We'll have what happened in the business section of the meeting in Part #2. This is a long\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Vb4PAJn.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Vb4PAJn.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Vb4PAJn.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Vb4PAJn.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7423,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/26\/endorsements-danville-city-council-race-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":7417,"position":5},"title":"Endorsements: Danville City Council Race (2012)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral has listened and talked to all of the candidates in the 2012 Danville City Council race and now it's time for our endorsements. To start the endorsements off, I want to be clear that all seven people running for the race are qualified for the office and would make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7417"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7420,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7417\/revisions\/7420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n$1000 – Fisher & Watkins Funeral Home
\n$200 – Derrick Mercer<\/p>\n
\n
\n$150 – Ben Rippe
\n$150 – Mark Herman (should be Hermann)
\n$150 – Scott Batson
\n$150 – Joe Franks
\n$250 – Eric Deaton
\n$300 – Bill Barker
\n$150 – JEB International
\n$500 – George Buchanan
\n$200 – Robert Woodall<\/p>\n
\n
\n$250 – Eric Deaton
\n$150 – Ben Rippe<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n$105 – Ronald McCubbins
\n$300 – Wanda McCubbins (with a total of $800 so far)
\n$500 – Rhonda Vogler (with a total of $565.29 so far and these appear to be in-kind contributions)<\/p>\n
\n$150 – KG Graphics 150
\n$125 – Nikki’s Family Restaurant (total of $250 this year)<\/p>\n
\n
\n$200 – George Buchanan
\n$250 – William Smith<\/p>\n
\n