Good evening. The City Council election is off the ground tonight as we await the filing deadline for district 2 which is tomorrow, Tuesday October 19, at 5 pm.
A preliminary review of campaign statements so far show that the only challenger to set up a campaign finance committee so far is District 2's Octavio Martinez who organized his campaign committee on August 11, 2021 according to filings with the City of Whittier. The other candidate, Mary Sullens has not yet filed committee paperwork but all candidates have until January 30th to start filing reports.
Neither of the challengers in the Mayor's election have filed committee reports yet with Leon Savage filing a short form 460-C which is generally used by candidates who intend to raise less than a certain sum of money. In the past it was less than $1,000 but the amount may be different now.
We previous did a report on Mayor Joe Vinatieri showing he has already raised very large amounts for this upcoming city election. Today we looked at District 4 incumbent councilmember Fernando Dutra who will be the lone candidate for District 4.
What did we find from what has been filed so far? We found that Councilmember Dutra has raised a total of $30,190 of which 54. 77% came from outside the City of Whittier. Of the $16,534 that Councilmember Dutra received from outside of Whittier, 23.6% or $3,902 came from individuals whom the Councilmember may either know personally or has business relationships with. The rest came from a Union, energy company, real estate pact, and consultants.
One Consultant who gave $1,000 to Dutra's reelection campaign, Eric Day has no address or other information included about his contribution. He is simply listed as a consultant who gave $1,000. He may be from Whittier or he might not be but the campaign finance form filed by the committee did not provide that information.
The other big donors from outside of Whittier?
Abelard Cabral of The Cabral Group gave $772. A google search identified The Cabral Group as a Scientific and Technical Advisory. It is listed as a consulting business. The location of the group is listed as Los Angeles.
All Star Cable- Santa Fe Springs- $700. This business is listed as specializing in low voltage wire distribution.
Refugio Plascencio- listed as a Project Manager. $1,000
IBEW - an electrical worker union. Fair Political Practices Commission Number 822725. $2,000
Gary Clifford of Glendora- $1,000
Denise Modrzejewski of Pasadena- $2,060
CREPAC (The California Real Estate Political Action Committee) based in Los Angeles. Amount given $2,500. Fair Political Practices Commission Number 890106
Southern California Edison based in Rosemead. Amount given $1,000.
Mark Snedden of Hacienda Heights. Amount given $1,000. Listed as retired.
The remaining 45.23% of campaign funds came from individual residents and businesses with in the City of Whittier. The biggest contributions of $1,000 each came from 3 long time City of Whittier residents with a long history of involvement in city affairs and city issues.
The question now becomes what use is this information if there are no challengers in district 4? We will update on the Mayor's campaign finance reports once we have more information on that to add to what we have already published.
CORRECTION: A previous version if the report said the filing deadline for District 4 was 5pm October 19. That extended deadline was actually for the District 2 candidates because the incumbent in that district chose not to run. In the case of District 4, the incumbent is running so the deadline was last Friday. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
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