By George Fallar August 28, 2012
Ten THOUSAND dollars in a PRIMARY election, and not to support a candidate but in opposition to one single candidate. WOW!
Several days ago a gentleman he said his name was Peter, but I’m sure he is Bill or Billy, Mac or Buddy, was on this blog and bragged about how he was so happy to be able to spend 10 thousand dollars to get rid of Joyce Clark. Since I have recently become familiar with the requirements of Campaign finance reports, I decided to look into who had spent such an outrageous amount of money AGAINST a candidate running for a local city election.
I reviewed each campaign finance reports for Political Committees. I was unable to find any single group that claimed to have paid that amount of money against ANY candidate. As a political committee not only do you have to state who you are but also if you are in support of or in opposition to a candidate or proposition.
The next move I made was to look at what is called Independent Expenditures. These groups have a separate area within the Glendale City Clerk’s webpage. I found only one group (either corporations, limited liability companies and labor organizations)who was registered to make independent expenditures. That was The Arizona Free Enterprise Club. They have spent $10,080 in this primary season in an effort to defeat Joyce Clark. Here are the first and second expediture reports.
This is not the first time that AFEC has gotten involved in Glendale city politics, they were responsible for a bunch of robocalls to Glendale residents in the days leading up to the June 8, 2012 Special City Council meeting.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club , according to their website is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization whose mission is to advance policies that promote a strong and vibrant Arizona economy. The Club believes that entrepreneurs and private enterprise are the principle drivers of our economy. The founding members of this organization have their bios listed on their website, and can be found here.
There are several founding members, but the one I found interesting was: Randy Kendrick
“Randy Kendrick is active in political, civic and charitable causes.” Not only is Mrs Kendrick the only woman in the founding members (You go girl!) she is also very accomplished, please read her full bio listed on the page, as I only posted a short portion of it here.
I was excited a woman was on this board as a founding member until I realized that Mrs. Kendrick was the ONLY member to have her spouse listed, not only by name, but also listing his occupation. While this would generally not be a big deal, it does takes away the girl power I mentioned earlier, if you need to have your husbands info listed to it is in the context of this post. Mrs Kendrick is married to Ken Kendrick. And as her bio states: ” Randy and Ken, her husband of thirty years, are involved in numerous charitable causes in Arizona and throughout the nation. Ken is Managing General Partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and founder of Datatel, Inc.”
Why would Mrs. Kendrick be the only member to have their spouse listed on the bio page. Could it have anything to do with Mr. Kendrick’s job? The position of a Managing General Partner of a World Series Winning baseball team (yes I know that was all the way back in 2001!) generally carries some weight in a community.
Mrs Kendrick is also on the board of Directors of the Goldwater Institute. Another non-profit, (this one is a 501(c)(3)) that constantly interjecting themselves into Glendale’s negotiations with potential buyers of the Coyotes, the hockey team that is currently owned by the National Hockey League after the former owner, and former Goldwater board member took the team into bankruptcy.
Why do the Kendricks care so much about Glendale? Or is it just the Coyotes? I guess that we will never know.
Just a little something to think about as you head to the polls today.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have donated $50 to Joyce Clark’s re-election campaign. I beleive she is a hardworking council member, who regularly meets with the people she represents in her district to discuss their concerns. She is a proven jobs creator. And she has had the ability to make well thoughtout decisions and tough votes, even one that I don’t agree with, if they are in the best interest of the City of Glendale.
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