Statements Reflect Number Of People Supporting Gallegos [Eureka Reporter]
by Christine Bensen, The Eureka Reporter
January 27, 2004
On Friday, Friends of Paul Gallegos turned in its Jan. 1-17 campaign disclosure statements to the County Elections Office. The Committee to Recall Paul Gallegos missed the deadline, but turned in its information in by Monday afternoon.
In the past 17 days, the recall committee has received no donations; between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, the committee received $30,973 in monetary contributions and $43,347 in nonmonetary contributions.
Of the $30,973 in monetary contributions, $3,000 came from Steve Wills Truck & Logging and $26,000 from The Pacific Lumber Co. The nonmonetary contributions came entirely from PALCO, with $40,770 going to pay petition signature-gatherers.
Recall committee member Rick Brazeau said he did not know why no donations had been made between Jan. 1-17.
“I just went and picked it up from the account", he said.
Brazeau said the committee is not concerned about the lack of donations during that time.
In the past 17 days, FOPG has received $22,727 monetary contributions and $3,230 in nonmonetary contributions. Of the monetary donations, 40 have been $100 or more and 255 from people donating less than $100.
Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, FOPG received $44,617 in monetary contributions and $19,179 in nonmonetary contributions.
“We're just so pleased at people's incredible generosity", said Richard Salzman FOPG campaign manager.
He said people are giving donations ranging from $5 to thousands of dollars and many contributors have contributed at least twice.
Salzman said “it really speaks volumes about how people in the community feel about this attack on democracy."
Although many contributors are Gallegos supporters, he said others are not sure if they support Gallegos, but “sure as hell don't support the recall."
Salzman said he hopes to raise $50,000 in the next week to pay for advertising. He said so far $10,000 has been raised.
He said although comparisons have been made between the amount of contributions FOPG and the recall committee have received, it is difficult to compare the two.
Salzman said all the recall committee has to do is make a call and they can get a check for thousands that day. He said running a "grass-roots campaign" such as FOPG comes with a lot of overhead cost such as installing phone lines and paying utilities at the headquarters.
