After writing my piece on who owns what at City Hall, and the related bit that appeared on the Cambridge Chronicle website, I thought I’d take a look at Campaign contributions to our
City Councillors. Who is paying for who(m?) at City Hall. The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) posts the information provided by candidates on their required reporting statements. The statements are supposed to be itemized and have the name, address and employer of contributors.

Robert Winters’ Cambridge Civic Journal presents quite a lot of this information. Everyone who wants keep an eye on civic affairs in our fair city should read his material. I have him to thank for getting me started on this and steering me to OCPF You should check out OCPF's Candidates page for yourself. Once there, just click on a candidate’s name from the drop down menu labeled “Select a filer” and then click the search button. The next screen will display links to filings for specified periods. When you click one, you get a cover sheet for that filing. There, you can click “Receipts” for donation information if there is any for that period.

Rather than just summarizing all donations, I decided to look at donations from the real estate and development industry. Again thanks to Robert Winters for pointers. He has a link labeled “Information Requested” on his Oct. 12 entry. When you go there you see Marjorie Decker’s receipts for the month of September from OCPF. “Information Requested” appears in the employer column on 29 of the 81 entries. That's what appears when candidates fail to include required information on their submissions. There are three notable things about this. First, while neither OCPF nor most candidates are perfect in their reporting, on looking at all Cambridge City Council candidates’ receipts for 2009, nobody else comes anywhere near this failure rate. The second thing that pops out is that the overwhelming majority of these names hail from the real estate industry. Many I recognize, and you gotta love the Google. Third, the amounts are astounding. This seems to explain Mr. Winters’ item 10 addended to his Aug. 24 Journal entry. “Marjorie Decker’s campaign receipts for September 2009 are something to behold. It seems like Billy Walsh must be her chief campaign fundraiser. It’s all about the real estate.” (Emphasis his.)

His item 2 from that date is also interesting. “Marjorie Decker’s 2006 Annual Report showed a debt of $13,808.85 to Cambridge Offset Printing left over from her 2005 campaign. It makes you wonder why a business allows such substantial debts to remain unpaid for so long, yet additional unpaid bills for $1833.75 appeared on the 2007 report for a total liability of $15,642.60. This same report showed the illegal in-kind contribution of $2500 from the John Buonomo campaign paid to Cambridge Offset Printing which apparently covered what would have been an even greater debt. [Note: This story has been somewhat covered recently by the Cambridge Chronicle.] The report was later amended to bring the unpaid debt to Cambridge Offset Printing to $17,424.08. The 2008 Annual Report continued to show a $15,642.60 debt to this vendor with no indication yet of this debt being paid. At some point it’s fair to ask whether this is an unpaid debt or a very large in-kind donation of services.”

Yes Robert, someone other that you does find this stuff interesting.

OK back to the point. After looking at all this OCPF info, here’s some of what I found. I have probably missed an item here and there, and maybe mis-flagged one or two, but I believe it’s essentially correct. The amounts include employees, family members, consultants and attorneys connected to the real estate and development industry. Candidates are listed in descending order of dollars donated to their campaigns in 2009.

Marjorie Decker: $18,900
This is more than most candidates total donations.

Chestnut Hill Realty $7000.00
Major landlord of rentals in Cambridge.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. $3250.00
You may recall that earlier this year,they were given something approaching a half a billion dollars worth of development rights in return for around twenty million dollars worth of amenities. A return of something like five cents on the dollar. Sweet deal eh?

Scochet Associates $1500.00
Manager of Rindge Towers. See these links for some insight into what kind of job they have done.
Press release from Attorney General's office.
Article from The Alewife

Trinity Property Management $1000.00

$12,750 from these four alone.

E. Denise Simmons. Current mayor. $5300.00
A nice chunk of change, but not even in Ms. Decker’s ballpark.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc $2500.00

Trinity Property Management $1000.00

Maher, David P. $4900.00

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. $1500.00

Trinity Property Management $1000.00

First Cambridge Realty Corp. $500.00

Ward, Larry. $2250
Getting right into the swing of things, I see.

Reeves, Kenneth. $2400.00

Toomey, Timothy. $1475.00

Seidel, Samuel. $750.00

Davis, Henrietta. $450.00

Kelley, Craig. $100.00

The only notable among the challengers in this score is Edward J. Sullivan. $875.00. Remember that he was a Middlesex County Commissioner until the county was dissolved by the Commonwealth for general uselessness, and his relation to the past Sullivan dynasty, so he comes equipped with connections.

It should also be noted that Attorney Jim Rafferty, Cambridge’s go to guy for developers, donated to everyone above except Davis, Kelley and Seidel.

Photo by Nimesh Patel, from City of Cambridge website.