So far in 2019, aspiring mayor-for-life Jeff Gahan has raised close to $150,000, combined it with cash on hand in excess of $100,000, and spent more than $200,000 of the total -- and as he's fond of reminding us, he's not finished yet.
CFA-4 Follies: OMG, just look at Gahan's huge pile of special interest donor cash flowing to out-of-towners.
All this so Gahan can continue his enlightened, selfless administration of a city of 36,000, one with negligible population growth, and with increases in the poverty rate and concentrated poverty rate; few new jobs offering anywhere close to a living wage; but more than 100 new city employees, lots of bread and circuses, and a huge increase in public indebtedness "engineered" by Gahan to convince those few who are doing well that he is a benevolent dictator.
After all, their grandchildren can figure out how to pay the deferred bills.
Gahanism is a bizarre delusion abetted by the unchecked consumption of Kool Aid and Rice Krispies Treats, but the following numbers are purely factual.
They're cumulative Gahan campaign finance haul totals for 2019, to be appended to the numbers quoted in this link (valid through 2018). I'll release an updated list later in the week.
The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 20: Buying and selling a city? Our master list of 59 Gahan wheel-greasers is a pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.
Yes, there are the occasional small donation going toward the perpetuation of Jeff Gahan's personality cult, but not many come from disinterested parties (translation: people who don't work for the city and owe their positions to Gahan). They're so numerically rare as to be non-existent.
I hate to be the one to burst pie-in-the-sky bubbles, but the following Top 30 donors are not writing checks to Dear Leader because they think the mayor is handsome or they trust his good nature to improve the lot of humanity. They're doing it because there'll be something coming back to them in return -- and boy, does it ever.
Full stop.
If you're comfortable with this, so be it, but for all our sake, can you stop being hypocritical about it?
* indicates more than $10,000 in donations since 2011
+ is a first-time donor
$1,400
Sprigler Development Co. LLC (local developers; currently building the townhouses on Vincennes)
$1,650
Axis Architecture & Interiors (no-bid contracts for engineering and design) *
---
$2,000
Jacob L. Brown (Marian Development Group, apparently working with Chad Sprigler on the Vincennes Street townhouses) +
$2,000
Mitchell Green (HMB Professional Engineers; Adam "Tricky" Dickey's no-bid employer) +
$2,000
Infinity Homes & Development (suburban McMansion builder; its presence here is one of few mysteries) +
$2,000
James Kemp (Kemp Law Office/Kemp Title/affiliated with Lancaster Lofts)
$2,000
Robert E. Lee (EcoTech, the city's sanitation contractor; total includes $1,500 from EcoTech)
$2,000
Patricia Yount (of Lochmueller Group, wastewater consultants) +
$2,400
Frost Brown PAC (no-bid contract-holding legal firm) *
$2,500
Amy Letke (Integrity HR; no-bid city contractor)
---
$3,000
Form G Companies ("land development" company from Jeffersonville) +
$3,000
GM Development Co LLC (Indianapolis-based "consultant") *
$3,000
ProMedia (de facto city propaganda ministry and no-bid contractor) +
$3,000
Colin Receveur (Mt. Tabor Road commercial property owner; this link should explain it) +
$3,000
Christopher Stewart (from no-bid HMB Professional Engineers; Adam "Tricky" Dickey's employer)
$3,000
Dennis Wesley Co. (apparently part of property holding companies connected to Mike Coyle; the total includes $1,000 from Coyle Chevrolet)
$3,150
William E. Hall (United Consulting; no-bid consulting engineers)*
$3,650
DF Development (Denton Floyd; M. Fine/Mansions on Main, and more recently the Reisz Mahal "extreme special contractor treatment" city hall project)
$3,650
Lemor Dowell (Democratic Party financier and grandee, includes $650 from his company New Albany Heating & Air Conditioning) *
---
$4,000
Beam Longest & Neff LLC ("consulting engineers and land surveyors" and recurring recipients of no-bid contracts) *
$4,000
Bennett's Towing and Recovery (extended information here; now we know why the tow trucks are allowed to drive so recklessly) *
---
$5,000
Fagre Baker Daniels LLP (no-bid legal firm) *
$5,000
John Neace (former insurance mogul, now building a Southern Indiana wheeling and dealing empire via Neace Ventures) *
$5,000
Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 502 (a rare, huge union tithe, and the first from Local 502 since 2013)
$5,500
Terry Baker (HWC Engineering -- see Jolliffe -- and CRS Marketing) *
$5,500
Ed Jolliffe (HWC Engineering, a "full service consulting engineering firm" and frequent no-bid contract recipient) *
$5,650
Stephen Triplett (total includes a $650 donation from AllTerrain Paving; this is to be regarded as a Neace investment) *
$7,500
Ohio Valley Properties of Kentuckiana (it's a Jorge Lanz company, and why not? Lanz is one of Gahan's best and most enduring big-money friends) +
$9,000
Clark Dietz (CD) PAC (no-bid engineering contractors; with a narrow lead over Jacobi Toombs & Lanz and HWC Engineering, they're Gahan's biggest all-time donor)
$27,000
Indiana Democratic Party (its first ever reported donation to Gahan in two massive installments, both coming in October) * +
In 2019, these 30 contributors have accounted for $131,550 out of the approximately $147,000 raised by Slick Jeffie.
Looking at these 30 donors with an liberal view of residency, perhaps 7 or 8 of them (but no more) reside or do primary business in New Albany.
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