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With less than a month before a special election to decide the final member of Irvine’s City Council, money is starting to flow into the race as candidates make their final pitches to voters – giving one candidate a more than 10-to-1 spending advantage over the others.
The race will decide the seventh member of the city council, who is expected to be a tie breaker for the newly seated council that’s already run into a 3-3 deadlock multiple times, including on deciding who should be vice mayor and who should represent the city on the OC Fire Authority board.
The last day to vote is April 15.
Most of the money isn’t getting raised by the candidates themselves – it’s coming from outside spending by political action committees paying for things like mailers, digital advertising and legal costs to support former Councilman Anthony Kuo’s candidacy, who’s running to retake the seat he lost in 2022.
Some of the biggest funders include one of the city’s most prominent lobbyists, the largest Republican donor group in the county and a coalition of fast food chain franchisees.
He’s also facing questions over his ballot designation, in which declared himself a businessman despite working over 40 hours a week for the county government.
[Read: Is an Irvine City Council Candidate a Businessman or Government Employee?]
Combined with outside expenditures and fundraising, Kuo had a more than 10 to 1 spending advantage over the candidate who fundraised the second most so far – Betty Martinez Franco.
Altogether, it’s five times what Kuo has raised himself.
As of March 1, Kuo raised nearly $17,000, according to the latest campaign finance disclosure he filed.
Franco fundraised around $10,000 plus $1,000 of her own money, with no outside interests disclosing any spending on her race as of March 1.
Candidate Dana Cornelius has disclosed no fundraising as of the start of the month.
The Lincoln Club, a conservative donor group that spent over $155,000 advertising Kuo’s 2022 campaign, has already spent over $20,000 advertising his bid to return to office.
Nearly $50,000 in support came in from a committee dubbed “A Better Orange County, sponsored by California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses,” which lists all its Orange County donations from McDonalds’ franchisees.
Another group dubbed California Leadership Today supporting Anthony Kuo for Irvine City Council hasn’t yet spent money advertising Kuo’s race, but has paid over $30,000 on legal fees.
While it’s unclear what the legal fees were for, the money was paid to the law firm Bell, McAndrews and Hiltachk, the same law firm that represented Ron Scolesdang when he sued former Councilwoman Tammy Kim to have her removed from the ballot in the special election.
[Read: Former Irvine Councilwoman Abandons Campaign Amid Residency Questions]
The committee received almost its entire funding from the Friends of the Great Park Political Action Committee, using money that’s been sitting in its committee account since 2018, according to disclosures.
Back then, it received over $300,000 in funding from developer FivePoint, along with an additional $65,000 from Starpointe Ventures, the lobbying firm where Patrick Strader is CEO.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
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