Did the Candidates Shop Poway?

We still do not know 100% for sure who won the special election for Poway city councilmember. The top 2 candidates, Steve Vaus and John Mullin are within 78 votes of each other a week after the election, and there are still more votes to be counted.  So, I decided to ponder the question, "Who is the real winner in the election?" I mean, financially. Is it Poway? Did the candidates spend a lot of money locally? Did they "Shop Poway"?

I looked at all of the campaign disclosure statements that were on file in the Poway City Clerks office as of Jun. 11, 2010. Here is a summary of where the candidates spent their money.

Pete Babich spent a campaign total of $2875. He (and every other candidate) bought signs from an out-of-town company. Babich spent $1186 for signs from International Marketing Services (IMS) in El Cajon. All the rest of Babich's expenditures were from Poway: $50 filing fee, $26 for flower seeds from Wal-Mart, $501 for printing at JRC, $1012 for postage and $100 for a booth at the Poway Chamber street fair.

Howard Collins spent $50 for the filing fee. He had no other expenditures for the campaign.

Chuck Cross spent a campaign total of $2037.96.  Other than the filing fee, Cross spent only $5 in Poway, for checks from US Bank. He also reimbursed Mary Cross $81.93 for stuff bought at Costco, but which Costco location was not indicated on his forms.  Cross' out-of-town expenditures were $800 for a web site, $21.40 for paypal, $100 to a Texas firm for bumper stickers, $297 to IMS for yard signs,  $100 to Cafe Merlot for hired help, $500 to a Long Beach firm for slate cards, another $247 to a Los Angeles firm for more slate cards, $168.72 to an Arizona firm called Dr. Don Buttons, and $113.91 from Overnite Prints, an Irvine, CA firm.

Dave Grosch spent a campaign total of $1252. Besides the $50 filing fee, Dave spent $51 in Poway for t-shirts from Express Me. Like many of the other candidates, Grosch bought yard signs  ($594 worth) from IMS in El Cajon. Grosch spent $100 for bumper stickers from a Texas company, $19 on checks and bank fees from a San Diego bank, and $438 from Staples, San Marcos for flyers.

John Mullin was the biggest spender. He reported spending $15,419.44.  (I tallied a figure $50 lower.)  Liked the other candidates, Mullin forked over $50 for the filing fee and he had a booth at the Chamber Street Fair ($150).

One of Mullin's biggest items were for  ads in the Poway News Chieftain ($2381).  He also spent some serious postage money in Poway ($1617.68 at the post office and $132 at Office Depot) ) and had some small printing jobs done in Poway-RB Printing ($135.94) but Mullin also had printing done out-of town: $3488.55 at Streeter Printing in San Diego, $154.80 for street fair handouts from Sanzo Specialties of New York, $341.61 from Select Mailing in Kearney Mesa, and $43.36 from the Xpedx paper Store on Aero Drive. Mullin also spent big on slate mailers and campaign literature, all from Laguna Niguel firms: SD Co RLVG ($570); Rep Wmns Voice ($400); SBAC ($520); Save Prop 13 ($400) and NTLC News ($560)

Mullin also reimbursed his wife for $3670.00 for buying signs and stamps and whatnot, most likely not in Poway. He spent $122.92 for window decals at the El Cajon firm where most everyone else bought signs.

Mullin paid $220 for renting something from David Calvert. My best guess is that Mullin paid Calvert for allowing him to put his campaign sign over the old Pomerado Publishing sign at the Chieftain's old building on Poway Rd.

David Radcliff spent a total of $1382.64. His filing fee ($50), chamber booth ($150) and Chieftain ad ($412) were his only Poway expenditures. He bought signs from a Florida firm ($340.64), and literature ($430) from a San Diego firm.



Steve Vaus spent a total of $9,753.  He paid the $50 filing fee, spent $150 for a booth at the Poway Chamber Street Fair and $560 for postage at the Poway post office. Other than that, the only other expenditure Vaus made in Poway was $3028 for ads in the Poway Chieftain. Vaus spent $65 at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Staples and $151 at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Home Depot.

Vaus, also spent some money on webservices: $566 to a TN firm (Carl Miner Idea Group) he also uses with his business (Steve Vaus Productions), $98.05 to paypal and $50 to a Florida firm called Political Technologies LLC.

Vaus did not specify an expenditure explicitly for signs, but he paid $1501 to a Pennsylvania firm for "campaign paraphernalia" that could be for his signs, and he paid $626.28 to Overnght Prints in Irvine. Vaus did not have any printing done at Poway shops. He spent $53 form Rubber Stamp Champ in San Marcos and he paid a Torrance, CA firm $950 for a slate mailer.

Vaus did reimburse a supporter $245 for some items bought at Costco and Albertsons, but which Costco and which Albertsons was not specified.


Roger Willoughby spent $781.69 on his campaign.  Willoughby paid the requisite $50 filing fee to the City of Poway and he also paid the city $20.60 for copies from records requests. Willoughby spent $225 for his booth at the Chamber street fair.  He bought signs from an Iowa firm ($355.57) and printing ($126.55) from JRC in Poway.

The only big winners among Poway merchants this campaign season were the Chamber of Commerce and Pomerado Publishing. (Hmmm- could that be the reason that the Poway Chieftain was so in love with the recall?) Other local merchants were out of the loop. In fact, only 3 of the candidates had any printing done in Poway. Mullin had a small amount of printing done in Poway, whereas Pete Babich and Roger Willoughby had all their printing done locally.  Dave Grosch bought some t-shirts in Poway.  Babich bought some flower seeds at the local Wal-Mart. Other than that,  save for postage and mailing expenses, no money was specified as spent at Poway locations.

My guess is that one of the reasons that the candidates did not "Shop Poway" is because they can find a better deal elsewhere. Same reason many of us might chose to buy something somewhere else. But it is a little disconcerting to see the candidates talk about the need to support local business and then see them not support local business with their campaign dollars.  For goodness sake, you can't get a better price at the Carmel Mtn Ranch Home Depot than you can get at the Poway Home Depot, can you?  So, what's up with the candidates talking the talk, but not walking the walk, when it comes to supporting Poway businesses?

Note: I have uploaded copies of each candidates campaign reports. If you want to take a closer look at a particlular candidate's expenditures and contributions, click on his name below.

Pete Babich
Howard Collins
Chuck Cross
Dave Grosch
John Mullin
David Radcliff
Steve Vaus
Roger Willoughby

Poway's Sewer Slush Fund

In my last post, I tried to explain some of the anomalies and inequities in the way Poway charges single family home ratepayers for using the sewer. In this post, I am going to show that Poway has collected way more money than it needs in sewer fees and not all of that money even goes to pay for sewer-related expenses.
To get an idea of how much money goes into and out of the Poway sewer utilities fund, I looked at the most recent budget documents. (note: Staff is currently working on the next budget. Until they release it, this is the most current document.)

Sewer Utilities Fund 2006-2010

The budget documents cover the years from 2006-2010. Although the last years are not yet in their "actual" form, the proposed numbers  should be pretty close to what the actual numbers will be.  In each of the budget years, you can compare the total operating expense (red box) to the revenues (green box).  Notice that in every year, the revenues are 1-2 million more than the expenditures.  Even when the capital projects are added in, the total expenditures were less than the total revenues in every year except the year 2006-7. The result of the sewer fund taking in more money than it was paying out is  that the sewer fund has about $11.861 million extra dollars in it.

The main costs that are charged to the sewer fund will always be "public works" and any capital improvement projects. Public works includes the charges Poway has to pay to have the sewage treated and the costs for Poway employees who work on our sewer system.  This FY (fiscal year), the public works costs are expected to be $6.43 million.  An additional $1.237 million goes for administrative,legislative and development services and something called "indirect cost allocation". Those administrative/legislative/development/ (and whatever indirect cost allocations are) tally up to almost 20% of the public works cost. That is a lot of administrative overhead.  But for the moment, let's assume that the City can justify dinging the sewer fund for money to pay the costs of running the city manager's office other administrative offices.

The sewer fund is pretty flush, with $11.861 182 in excess funds. But there is more.
More? How? See the line that says "TOTAL TRANSFERS/LOANS"?  In 2009-10, the sewer fund is expected to transfer out almost a million bucks- $861,460, to be exact.(BLUE CIRCLE)
Transfer Loans Sewer Fund
 $111,460 of that was to go for paying off "city debt service"(pay off bonds for the new city hall)  and $750,000 was to be a loan to the Water Fund. A loan to the water fund? The city just raised water rates, but deferred raising the rates on the higher tiers because the fund was flush with money.  Let's hope they are so flush, that the water fund doesn't need that loan from the sewer fund after all.

You know what's really weird about the sewer fund loaning money to the water fund? Well, besides the fact that the staff said that they don't need to raise the higher tier rates because they have enough money in the water fund? Well, the water fund has a loan to the redevelopment fund on the books. Yeah, really. The water fund was gonna borrow from the sewer fund, and all the while they have millions loaned out to the redevelopment fund and the redevelopment fund hasn't paid it back yet. Instead of the water fund going to the redevelopment fund and getting their loan money back, they go begging to the sewer fund for a loan. The sewer fund is the "go to" fund. Sweet, isn't it?  Especially since not everybody pays into the sewer fund, and the rates are constructed so that those who use the least, pay more per unit.

If you look in the blue box in the document above, you can see that every year the city takes some money from the sewer fund to help pay for the new city hall (city debt service fund).  In 2009-2010, they expect to take $111,460. The city also takes some money from the water fund to pay off city hall.  I would have expected that property taxes would be the main source for funds to pay off a new city hall, but a lot of property taxes in Poway are diverted into the redevelopment agency, so I suppose it was one of those "no brainer" things to raise water and sewer rates to pay off the new city hall.  Not everybody is on the sewer or pays sewer fees. In fact, several of our councilmembers are not on the sewer, but they approved the new city hall and hiked up water and sewer fees so that those on city water and sewer can pay for it.

Before Poway incorporated, we had a water and sewer dept. The city currently owns the old water dept building on Poway Rd (across from the library.)  Recently, Tina White, asst city manager, mentioned that the City intends to sell that building.  I'm not totally positive, but I expect that building was paid for by bonds which were paid off by Poway water and sewer ratepayers. If I am correct then I think that when the building is sold, the profits from the sale of that building should be returned to the water/sewer ratepayers. That seems only fair since we paid for it.

The blue box (in the document above) also shows that the sewer fund has loaned money to at least 4 other funds- redevelopment, CFD 88-1 (bonds to build the industrial park), the water fund and the
drainage fund.

Certainly it does make budgetary sense to transfer money between funds, especially on a short term basis. If something unexpected comes up, a loan from another fund can mean that the city saves the costs of borrowing new funds. For example, the sewer fund loaned some money to the drainage fund in 2005-2006, which it repaid in the following year. But not all the loans were short term.

According to Peter Moote, Asst Dir of Administrative Services, Poway, there are 3 loans from the sewer fund that have not yet been paid off.

1.  $5.5 million remains of the loan to the redevelopment agency. This loan was made in 1983 or 1984.
2. $1 million balance on the loan to community facilities district (CFD) 88-1 (to pay off bonds for the industrial park). This loan was made in 1994.
3. $214,500 still owed on the Street Development loan from 1993.

Water/Sewer Loan to Redevelopment

I don't know why the loan to CFD 88-1 wasn't paid off already. I know the sewer fund lent money to them because the redevelopment agency was going to default on the bonds when all the developers in the industrial park were going bankrupt, in the early 90s. But I thought that Poway brought in McMillan and worked out a deal with McMillan, where McMillan  paid off the bonds in return for future tax increment of  properties in the industrial park. So, how is it that the sewer fund didn't get paid off?

Poway's redevelopment fund owes money to both the water and the sewer fund. According to city manager Penny Riley, the $13.7 million that Poway had to give back to the state, was only about a third of this years redevelopment income. If Poway has $40 million coming in from redevelopment every year, why can't redevelopment pay back the sewer fund? And the water fund? Sheesh, those loans go back to 1983.

Poway made such a big deal about having to send that $13.7 million check to the state. $13.7 million is a lot of money. But it isn't even close to the amount the city has over-collected from sewer ratepayers. The sewer fund has a total of $6.7 million in loans on the books, $7.45 million, if you count the pending loan to the water fund. Add to that the surplus $11.86 million in the sewer fund and the grand total of excess money collected on our sewer bills is $19.31 million.

19.31 million dollars. That is quite a slush fund. Remember, not everyone in Poway pays into the sewer fund. Many people are on septic. Several of the councilmembers (Higginson, Emery, Rexford) who approved the sewer fee structure and the recent sewer fee increases do not pay these fees because they are on septic systems. They do not share the honor of loaning money to the street fund or the water fund or the redevelopment agency or to the community facilities district 88-1 to pay off bonds to build the industrial park. Those on septic do not share the privilege of paying off the bonds for the new city hall to the same degree as those on the sewer do. (Both the water fund and sewer fund pay equally for the debt service on city hall).  Sewer fee increases will be on the agenda again in a few months.   I suggest we remind our council members of how very thankful we are for the honors and privilege of keeping the city afloat with our sewer fees.