With less than two weeks until the election, almost all Boulder City Council candidates are accepting matching funds from the city and money continues to flow in from both the official candidate committees as well as the political action groups that are supporting specific slates.
As of the latest reports filed earlier this week, contributions from official candidate committees top $100,000 with those from political groups totaling just under $37,000.
According to public campaign finance reports shared by the city, City Council candidate Tara Winer tops out contributions at $15,686. On the lower end, David Takahashi has raised $8,504 and Jacques Decalo has raised $1,370.
The remaining seven City Council candidates fall within the $10,500 to $11,500 range.
Dan Williams, Lauren Folkerts, Nicole Speer and Mark Wallach have all raised $10,866. Matt Benjamin follows with $11,033 in contributions, while Michael Christy has raised $11,130 and Steve Rosenblum has raised $11,374.
This generally places both slates — the candidates backed by the Coalition as well as those backed by PLAN-Boulder County and Forward Boulder — on a fairly even playing field. Winer and Decalo, the candidates with the highest and lowest contributions, both are backed by PLAN-Boulder.
These contributions exclude the money provided through Boulder’s matching funds program, of which all candidates aside from Decalo have qualified.
To obtain matching funds from the taxpayer-funded program, which is intended to limit big spending in local races, candidates first must qualify. To do so, they can count no more than $25 of any contribution toward the qualifying amount, which is $2,173 in 2021, Elections Administrator Dianne Marshall previously told the Camera.
Upon qualification, Boulder will match 100% of all monetary contributions up to $10,866, which is 50% of the expenditure limit. Thus far, candidates Williams, Folkerts, Christy, Rosenblum, Winer, Speer and Wallach have maxed out on matching funds.
Benjamin has received $10,065 and Takahashi has received $6,927.
Contributions toward matching funds must be monetary — no in-kind contributions or loans are allowed — and must come from a natural person. Candidates also agree not to spend more than $4,346 of their personal money to fund the campaign.
Candidate expenditures, expenditures by the candidate’s official campaign committee and any coordinated expenditures with others all apply toward the expenditure limit, according to city election documents.
Another campaign finance report will be filed next Thursday, ahead of the Nov. 2 election.
