Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Fix Wilson Yard Finances Available For View

From Fix Wilson Yard:
"Anyone looking through the documents will find the money going to legal fees and administrative costs. FWY has nothing to hide; this group was about transparency in government so why would we not be open about where the money of our supporters went? Supporters without whom we could not have made as big of an impact or gotten as far as we did. Collectively, as a community, we made history. Nobody had taken on the city like we did. In the end, we may not have gotten the court on our side but we shook things up in City Hall and down in Springfield. Our voices were heard."

Readers with further questions may contact Nick Dorado at nick.dorado1@gmail.com

FWY Finances

16 comments:

  1. So, there ya go.

    Definitely a +2 for Molly - if only for demonstrating an ability to keep (and share) detailed records.

    Something which certainly can't be said for our existing alderman.

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  2. It's done so I hope we can move on to other issues.

    We have an election next week.

    Since I'm not running may the second best person win!

    It's about time for Yellow Dog to make some silly comment on this.

    I awaited his baited dog breath response.

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  3. Now that FWY has accounted for all the expenses . . . how about accounting for all the contributions that were received. This is only half the picture.

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  4. @Pablo: I'm sure FWY will not publish a list of supporters or the amounts donated, that is private financial info.

    I wouldn't want my info to be put out there like that and I would hope it was safeguarded.

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  5. @pablo -

    If you scroll down, you'll see that Uptown Update has been kind enough to post the bank records, so there actually is an accounting of contributions received.

    I think most people who have worked for non-profits will agree that UptownD is spot-on. Donors have a reasonable right to privacy, and its a big No-No to release donors' info without their consent.

    Some donors, I'm guessing, don't want that list to end up in certain hands.

    @IrishPirate - Little too much coffee with your whiskey this morning? No need to be so surly, you're still King of the Blog in my book!

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  6. I just want some accounting for the contributions. It means nothing to me if they spent $60k, but received $100k. Where's the rest? Did they lose money?

    Showing a bank statement means nothing to me. How does that prove all the funds received wound up in the bank account?

    I contributed to FWY and I want to know everything was on the up and up. AS a CPA with audit history in my career, the documents provided don't prove much. It's not transparent in my opinion. I'm not saying provide every contributors name, just a dollar figure.

    I just have a feeling FWY wasn't preparing regular financial statements, suddenly the heat was on and they threw some sloppy worksheets together for last night's meeting.

    I feel a little used by FWY - as in I contributed and all Molly was doing was using it as a spring board to get her name out there to run for alderman. Something in the end just doesn't smell right to me.

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  7. MOLLY PHELAN... give us the list of VENDORS (law firms, pr firms, etc, etc) you used for Wilson Yard and an updated (as in as of today) listing of your Aldermanic CONTRIBUTORS... I would bet MONEY there is crossover... please prove me wrong!

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  8. YDD was right on the money. The info requested was provided, and as he predicted you are acting like the so-called "Birthers". I just don't get it. You always want more.

    My vote is for Cappleman, but Molly is a close second. People keep kicking and screaming about Fix Wilson Yard, where her campaign contributions are coming from, etc etc etc. We want businesses in Uptown, wouldn't it be a good sign that she is getting contributions from outside the ward, since there is no money in the ward?? Wouldnt those contributions mean that if she would to get elected they may consider doing business in Uptown? I don't know, maybe I am way off base there, but that is how I see that aspect.

    I have only lived here 4 years, but I have seen Cappleman everywhere in the neighborhood during that time. While Molly's efforts with Fix Wilson Yard were noble, that is the only thing I know her from. If I knew of her before Fix Wilson Yard, I may give her more credit. Having said that, I love the fact that she fought city hall on TIFs, and it tells me not everything will be business as usual with her.

    Cappleman has just done more in my eyes, I swear the guy must never sleep.

    Regardless, both would be great alderman in my opinion. The good thing about a runoff between Molly and Cappleman is that even if my horse doesnt win, I will be happy with the winner. Also, I know whether Cappleman is alderman or not, he will still have a strong presence in this neighborhood continuing what he has been doing with his efforts to make this community better.

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  9. @pablo -

    I can do alot of things, but I'm not sure teaching you how to read a bank statement is one of them.

    Still, here it goes:

    Every statement tells you how much money was deposited.

    If you scroll down to the very last statement, you'll see there's something like $500 left.

    Every statement includes a photocopy of the checks that were written.

    Honestly, I can't think of what more you could possibly want, except maybe, as Capstone points out - an ORIGINAL copy of her birth certificate.

    @SIR!

    Um, see post above. Every check and who its made out to is there for you to see.

    No smoke. No fire. Not even any kindling.

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  10. Good lord Pablo and SRR!, at least put your own name and contact info in your post if you're going to demand other people's donor records. And please throw in the amount and date of your own contribution(s) while you're at it.

    People anonymously posting demands for full disclosure at the stretch run of a campaign season, my cynicism meter just went to 11.

    FWIW I never gave a dime to FWY, because that bandwagon got going way too late to stop that train from coming to town.

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  11. +1 for Molly releasing the FWY financials. -1 for it taking months of inquiries and the threat of losing votes. I don't see anything terribly suspect about the incomplete financials released, but she did provide quite a bit of detail.

    Hopefully we can all put this question aside and move on to the real issues of the campaign.

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  12. Joe,

    Go back and read my last post. At no time did I request private information. I just feel more information is required before we can applaud Molly for transparency.

    These are not financial statements, it's an expense report. It doesn't tell the full story of what happened.

    I'm not saying fraud occurred, but with so many missing pieces how would we ever know?

    Nobody else is curious as to how much money was collected versus how much was spent?

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  13. I'm with SIR!. The real money trail to follow here is who did Fix Wilson Yard have "expenses" with and who has contributed to Molly's campaign...When I have some time, I'll be really interested in doing a comparison.

    Speaking of following the money, it seems to me yesterday's post of Molly's campaign flyers was more about the funding of her mailings than the FYW expenses. But, we can thank Yellow Dog Democrat for obfuscating the real issue. At the end of the day, at least we finally received some sort of accounting for FWY since Molly has been publicly dodging the question for months now. I first saw her punt the issue to the Glazebrooks at an aldermanic forum last fall.

    It is too bad the people's champion for transparency in government didn't release the financial statements to her donors out of an ethical commitment, but only under mounting pressure a week before an election.

    So, just like today's blame game for an overzealous volunteer for the Phelan campaign posting signs on public property, yesterday we had a forgetful graphic designer leaving off the "paid for by...." disclaimer on not only one, but two pieces. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it.

    If Molly's campaign wasn't literally having thousands of dollars pour in from outside the ward every day, I wouldn't be nearly as suspicious. But, when you take everything into context, it all seems fishy...almost as fishy as a TIF funded fish farm. Again, who is trying to buy our ward?

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  14. First off, like Capstone, I too voted for Cappleman. He and Richard have been there through thick and thin and, from my personal interactions with them, I feel they really know this community and can serve it best. James has also demonstrated the competence and experience as a volunteer to deal with significant issues, such as, for instance, problem landlords. I even think he might be the only candidate of the bunch that can reach across all parts of the ward and bring some unity after the extremely divisive reign of our current alderman.

    That said, in my opinion, Molly is a pretty good second. Not terribly thrilled with where her funding is coming from and I think she may be a bit overly optimistic on the art-in-the-windows concept and Uptown-as-national-world-music-destination, but I very much like that she has a grand vision for the ward as well as her gumption.

    For pablo and other birther's out there, here is the revenue side of things based on the bank records:

    Fix Wilson Yard Revenues

    11/07/08 - $1,078
    12/08/08 - $42,334
    01/09/09 - $0
    02/09/09 - $5,381
    03/09/09 - $5,540
    04/09/09 - $5,185
    05/07/09 - $11,255
    06/09/09 - 715
    07/10/09 - $2,992.24
    08/10/09 - $350
    09/10/09 - 3,959.50
    10/08/09 - $0
    11/09/09 - $130
    12/09/09 - 0
    01/??/10 - $1,875*
    02/08/10 - $0

    * - January statement wasn't provided, backed into net deposits based on December/February statements plus constant $45 montly auto-withdrawal.


    Total Deposits: $80,794.74
    Total Expenses Paid Per Summary Statement: $69,907.14 (sloppy excel spreadsheet work here; Ramsdell total doesn't foot and there is no grand total).
    Difference: $10,887.60

    Though it'd be nice to have a breakdown of the other material expenses (surely it went into fundraiser expenses, advertising, office supplies, etc.) that make up the unaccounted $11k, I'm not terribly torn up that this wasn't provided.

    If anything, I wonder why this disclosure info wasn't just provided months ago; there is really nothing of interest to see here. Lawyers are expensive and it doesn't look like they were ever paid in full for their services. Don't politician's ever learn that it is better to just release the info as early as possible (especially if there is nothing to hide) and just let it blow over in time for elections?

    P.S. I personally can't be bothered, but for those who want to cross-reference contributors -- just look at the two main law firms on the summary page compared to the d-2 filings (all of it is online; rather than speculate, just do the detective work and let everyone else know what you find).

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  15. Pablo,

    My apologies for misunderstanding the extent of disclosure you were asking for.

    I think El did a great job pointing out that if anybody wants to cross-reference D-2s with those legal invoices on FWY whatever info you want is there to find, or not to find.

    As for Phelan's out of ward contributions, I think there's a pretty simple explanation for a lot of them - everybody wants to be a friend with a winner, and they think she has the campaign organization and message to win. We'll see if they're right in 6 days.

    As for me, I'm just very much looking forward to debates between Cappleman and Phelan this March. Either would be a great choice for the future of the 46th Ward.

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  16. Joe, I would agree if these friends mostly lived in the ward, but they don't.

    I wonder more if everyone with big pockets wants to be friends with someone who will do them favors later on?

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