Usually candidates with the means to loan their campaigns large sums of money wait until the end of their campaign to pay themselves back. That’s not the case for AD-69 candidate and Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michele Martinez.
Martinez loaned her Assembly campaign $15,700 on December 31, 2011. The timing of the loans, and their combined dollar amount was designed to give her campaign the appearance that she had raised more than $100,000 mark for the fundraising period. This strategy is not uncommon in the early filings of political campaigns, with the idea is to show fundraising strength and leverage that strength to gain support from other potential donors. It’s a tactic that says “get on the bandwagon.”
After a review of Martinez’s campaign filings for the period that eneded on March 17, the Martinez for Assembly campaign has paid Martinez back $10,000 of that loan. The reports do not specify what date the payment was made, and since her campaign has refused to respond to any inquiry’s from us, we are left to assume that the repayment could have occurred as soon as January 1st, the day after the loan was made.
We get regular calls from Martinez advocates asking why we’re so hard on her coupled with a “I don’t blame her for not talking to you” usually in the same call. We also get the “you don’t live in Santa Ana so you can’t ask her questions.” That doesn’t seem to be a problem for other candidates in AD-69. And Martinez had an LA County fundraiser recently, so taking money from people who don’t live in Santa Ana isn’t a problem.
Our response to her freinds is pretty simple: if she won’t address the issues with us directly, we’ll talk to everyone else. Her campaign is free to use the comments section of this post to address any inaccuracies.
The loan payment from Martinez to her campaign and the relatively quick repayment of part of the loan explains some of the questions we have had over how Martinez, who several months earlier escaped foreclosure on her condo through a short-sale, could come up with the resources to loan her campaign nearly $16,000. If you had $16,000 available, why not use it to save your home?
It seems doubtful that the $16K would have made the difference to keeping the house, doesn’t it? I can’t blame her for not throwing good money after bad.
Now, the $6,000 bike….
It is possible Michele’s bike was repossessed, not “stole”? She may have needed the cash back fast to get the bike back from the repo men.
Get it right John; Commissioner Sean Mill reports that Santa Ana PD recovered her bike and the approximate value of the bike.
Greg — even if Michele’s Mortgage was $4K a month, then that’s a four month extension by whcih to find a solution to remaining current. We have no way of knowing how far behind she was on her bills. But it’s funny how those who will use Julio Perez’s credit card bills use that as an excuse to disqualify his candidacy while giving Martinez a free pass. The truth is — neither of them can manage their personal finances well. If they can’t managing their own money, how can we expect either of them to be wishe stewards of the taxpayers money?
It seems that it is a prerequisite of the state legislature to mismanage financials.
The Martinez and Perez financial issues should be private beyond the required disclosures.
However, they do create concern about the need to raise large sums of money without personal resources to shield them from temptation. We see time and time again good people swayed by $$$. If either are elected, they will be challenged to raise even more for State activities. Just talk to a new assembly-member 6 months in office, they are desperate for donations, else no appointments or staff budgets. Not to mention assigned to dungeon office space.
Sacramento is broken, and not just financially!
It does matter. Let’s see Michelle’s tax returns to find out where $17,000 came from and how she got a $6000 bike. Did she get it as a gift? It should be on her form 700. Perez and Martinex can’t be trusted to manage the states money if they can’t manage their own