These 30 free-spending special interest donors top Jeff Gahan's 2019 pay-to-play campaign finance windfall of $150,000 (so far).

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.

Primary 2015: Love and affection for the machine.

It's ain't nuclear physics: DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party critics were hammered, and most of the anointed passed through.

Gahan handily defeats White in New Albany mayoral primary

Benedetti loses seat in New Albany Democratic primary

There are perils to analysis in a primary, given that it is an exercise designed to aggrandize the party faithful at the expense of most other rational considerations. For this reason, and in spite of his commendable bravado and self-confidence, it wasn't ever going to be easy for David White in challenging King Hologram. David himself seemed to realize this as the campaign progressed, commenting to me at one point that while he thought his opponent was the incumbent mayor, it actually was the Machine.

But of course it was, and is. That's the whole point: To maximize power by reducing friction.

The party chairman occupies a seat at Redevelopment, and the party treasurer is the city attorney. Megabuck capital projects pass through these hands, and campaign finance is monetized accordingly, as it has in any municipal machine that ever existed, anywhere.

Machines are not designed to be open and transparent systems. They are not intended to tolerate the existence of David White. Rather, they are built to channel money and power in predictable directions. This is what the Democratic Party machine in New Albany does. It's what it did yesterday.

David tried to poke the machine from within, and he found that when it comes time to gather together for a round of Kumbaya and Bud Light longnecks, only members of the clique need apply. Outsider stay outside. That's why there's a pass code.

In like fashion, with Dan Coffey increasingly assertive in his role as rubber-jowled Luca Brasi to Gahan's stately impersonation of Vito Corleone, and deploying vast portions of city council time in orchestrating various petty takedowns of Diane Benedetti -- the only council Democrat to consistently question the Corleone administration -- we now find Benedetti sleeping with the fishes, in purely political terms.

Barring the unexpected, the way is paved for yet another pliant, rubber-stamp council, suitable for City Hall's use only when a stitch or three of political cover is needed for a pre-ordained expenditure (see "monetizing," above).

Yesterday's primary election results argue persuasively for rage against the machine -- against the clique, the usual suspects, the fix, and business as usual. I suspect that in the months to come, Republican nominee Kevin Zurschmiede will be making this case, although he, too, has a machine of his own to honor, albeit it of less horsepower in the city.

I have no machine at all. but for those seeking a democratic critique of the current Democratic machine, I'll be offering it in the months to come.