Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 18: Clark Dietz, CD PAC top Gahan's "Quality of Distant Corporate Donors" chart.
A few thousand dollars here, a few more there ... fish bowl at the fundraiser, manila envelope under the mattress ... multiply the bounty by eight lucrative annual fundraising cycles ... and pretty soon, we're talking about real money.
The heavy hitters have been revealed. Here are six mid-range donors, their cumulative totals, and a pleasant golfing digression.
Lemor Dowell, New Albany Heating & Cooling
New Albany resident and business
Longtime Democratic Party fundraiser, shadowy back alley eminence grise with a given name impossible for the campaign treasurer to spell correctly on a consistent basis.
Total: $9,200
Edward and Dana Culpepper Cooper, Culpepper Group
Out of towners
Insurance and all-purpose local notoriety (formerly of Maverick, yet another Neace Lukens connection)
Total: $8,600
Lochmueller Group, Dean Boerste
Out of towners
Evansville-based engineering and wastewater consultants. The fiefdom of Dean Boerste, described to the Green Mouse as "the Warren Nash of Tell City." Ouch.
Total: $5,750
David and Karen Wood
Out of towners
Ambiguous financial planners in Louisville. Perhaps Big Daddy G needs a retirement savings plan for all of Clark Dietz PAC's and HWC's easy money.
Total: $5,500
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Ecotech (Robert E. Lee and Bryan Slade)
Out of towners
Garbage collection and purported recycling.
Total: $4,050 in nine installments over the years
Ironically, at the Covered Bridge Golf Course web site there's a testimonial by Ecotech's Bryan Slade about the great success of a corporate golf outing. In 2015 both Robert Iezzi (Covered Bridge CEO) and the legendary Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller Jr. dropped $400 into the GahAnTM -- and also in 2015, with Gahan having surreptitiously funded a renovation for Valley View Golf Course, Laurie Kraft of Valley View handed back $650 to the mayor. Golfing combined total: $1,050.
And not to omit our good friends at Flaherty & Collins
Out of towners
Indy-based nationwide developers of apartments; with the help of Gahan's TIF subsidies and sewer tap-in waivers, Flaherty and Collins built the Breakwater -- twice.
Total: $2,250
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You may have been wondering about unions, a traditional source of funding for Democratic candidates. There have been a few union donations to Gahan, most of them made during 2011 and 2012, and the most recent in 2015. It's a relatively paltry sum, leading observers to speculate just how helpful Gahan's "economic boom" has been for unions.
Perhaps the mayor's current efforts to squelch unionization at the wastewater treatment plant are a more accurate barometer of his (un)helpfulness to working people.
- Carpenter’s Union 12-10 United Brotherhood Local 613
- Int’l Brotherhood of Electrical Workers & PAC
- Indiana State Building & Construction Trades Council Legislative Fund
- Indiana UAW SAC Joint
- General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers #89
- Laborer’s Intl Union of New Albany
- Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 502
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The single biggest personal contribution from someone who remains untraceable is $3,500 from Adam U. Kahn in 2014. Nothing before or since.
We have absolutely know idea who he is or why a guy from New York City would give this much money to a hack politician from New Albany.
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It should be obvious by now that nepotism is a huge part of New Albany politics during Our Time of Extractive Gahanism. As such, donor roles sometimes overlap and become intertwined, as with the family members of a son-in-law appointed to a city job, the brother-in-law assigned to a board, and so on.
Just the same, here are two lists of people who work for Gahan and also give to Gahan. They're the ones who'd prefer all paradigms remain static.
First, the department heads, appointees, board members and various other higher-ups.
Terry Ginkins ... NAHA board member 8,525
(Stan) Robison Law Office ... City Attorney 5,250
David Duggins ... Redevelopment/New Albany Housing Authority 3,146
Linda Moeller ... Controller 2,398
William Todd Bailey ... Police Chief 2,000
Edward J. Wilkinson ... Sewer Board 1,860
Shane Gibson ... City Attorney 1,295
Steve Bonifer ... City-County Bldg board 1,215
Warren Nash ... Party goon, Board of Works 1,049
Cheryl Cotner (Bailey) ... Board of Works, mayoral secretary 1,000
Carl Malysz ... (Ex) economic development 700
Bob Norwood ... NAHA board member 350
John Brinkworth (Ex) sewer board 300
Matthew Juliot ... Fire chief 300
Scott Wood ... Planning & zoning 300
Michael Hall ... Non-communications stifler 250
Nathan Grimes ... Sewer board member 200
Joshua Staten ... Redevelopment director 150
Tonya Fischer ... Economic development 100
Alicia Meredith ... Parks Director 100
John Rosenbarger ... Planning & zoning 100
Anthony Toran ... NAHA appointee 100
Total: $30,768
Then, a handful of rank-and file; most of them are police and fire. I've combined them, and may have missed one or two: Seven donors, 11 separate donations over an 8-year period.
Total: $2,625
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The preceding may seem like small totals compared with the bigger corporate donors, and yet in this installment we see just shy of $80,000 in donations, or $18% of Gahan's $438,000 from 2011-2018.
Coming next in Part 20, a summary. Then we move to the expenditures side of the ledger.
#FireGahan2019
Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.
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