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Funders of "Attack" Postcards in UA City Council Election Revealed

“ATTACK PAC” AND ITS SUPPORTERS STOOP TO NEW LOW IN RECENT CITY COUNCIL RACE WITH GUTTER-LEVEL ATTACK POSTCARDS

As the 2017 Upper Arlington City Council race came into the home stretch in October, many Upper Arlington voters received two mailings that were unlike the campaign mailings in previous City Council elections.  One mailing was a postcard trying to smear Michaela Burriss.  It was the typical “dirty trickster” mailing – bad picture with bad shading, black and red coloring making it look like a Halloween-related mailing, with plenty of innuendo.

Another mailing targeted Bob Foulk and Omar Ganoom with the same dirty trickster tactics. 

Regardless of whether or not they were supporting the candidates targeted by the attack postcards, many of the Upper Arlington voters who received these mailings reacted negatively, and they were right to do so.  The mailings violated the values of civility and reasonable politics that most citizens of Upper Arlington celebrate about our community.  Some have wondered who among us created and supported these mailings that, frankly, trashed Upper Arlington’s community values as they tried to scare away Upper Arlington voters from supporting these candidates.

The attack postcards were paid for and sent by an organization that calls itself “UA Neighbors for Good Government”.  We’ll refer to it here as the “Attack PAC”, because, from the campaign finance filing that was made for it, these attack postcards appear to have been the reason it was created.

The Attack PAC was an anonymous organization until a campaign finance filing revealed its supporters.  The supporters hid behind the name of the Attack PAC organization when the attack postcards were sent out.  Their names are now revealed with the public filing.  Here are the 15 individuals who supported the Attack PAC, their addresses and how much they contributed to it:

 

Peter Walsh 4271 Woodhall Road $200.00
Joseph Davis 1802 Riverside Drive, Apartment 2126 $100.00
Ann-Lee Investment Company LLC (John Royer) 1480 Dublin Road $500.00
Developer Resources LLC (P. Brent Wrightsel) 3300 Riverside Drive, Ste. 100 $1,000.00
James Hendrix 3113 Carriage Lane $300.00
William Guy 2094 Edgemont Road  $100.00
Mark Wagonbrenner 2235 Tremont Road $2,500.00
Angela Lanctot 3974 Patricia Drive $100.00
Joel Lilly 2030 Tremont Drive $100.00
David DeCapua 2279 Canterbury Road $1,500.00
Michael Kenney 2072 Tremont Road $1,000.00
Nicholas King 2730 Abingdon Road $1,000.00
Michael Edwards 1895 Cambridge Road $1,000.00
Kelley Swiney 3492 Newhall Road $200.00
Debbie Johnson 1903 Brandywine Drive $1,000.00

                                                        

So, there you have it.  And, believe it or not, two outgoing City Council members – David DeCapua and Debbie Johnson – thought that, as they exited the City Council stage, what Upper Arlington needed was an Attack PAC to pay for gutter level attack postcards mailings to try to influence voters in Upper Arlington City Council elections.

If you know these folks and you don’t like the gutter level attack postcard mailings, we hope that you will make a point of telling them that you hope they’ll cease the dirty trickster tactics and find more adult and reasonable ways to express themselves.

Upper Arlington Progressive Action Executive Committee  -- February 11, 2018

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