Go norman!

We won, as did all of the other hard-working councilmen and women. Thanks to everyone for their support--everyone who volunteered, gave money, put up a sign, or even just checked the facts for themselves before voting. And thanks to my mom for her endless hard work.

Hal Ezzell's funny finances?

The transcript didn't publish campaign donations like it usually does, but they are available on the city website.

As you can tell from my prior posts, I'm not a big fan of Ezzell, but I was still really shocked when I heard about his finances! His total contributions are almost $64,000, but if you go to the actual list of donations there are less than $17,000 from 44 donors. The rest is a self-contribution/loan of $46,274!!! So, either Ezzell is totally self-financed and utterly without support, or he's hiding the sources of his funding. Hopefully it's not the latter, but it's strange that these questions were removed overnight from his facebook page when a few Norman citizens (not me) asked about the discrepancy. It just doesn't make sense to spend so much money running for a job that basically amounts to volunteering.

On the bright side, Cindy's finances are impressive. Something like 463 donors (not sure if I counted right!) plus more than $5,000 in small donations. I'm particularly impressed by the small donations, because they demonstrate the depth of her support. Ezzell had only $270 in small donations!! All of his money is coming in big checks.

I hope that a news outlet picks up on this story. People have the right to know that the nasty postcards filling their mailboxes are essentially personal ads paid for by Ezzell himself, not Norman residents.

UPDATE: apparently this was in the Transcript's monday paper, it just isn't on their website.

Mittens off in Mayoral Campaign

This morning, the Norman Transcript ran a story about how dirty the Mayoral campaign has gotten: Gloves off in Mayoral Campaign. They're right, it has gotten dirty, but the story is also pretty flawed. If you read the whole thing, you discover that their leading paragraphs are about a situation with no violations at all. And one that it's pretty hard to spin as dirty... A private citizen gives his name to the campaign, exercises his right to free speech.

Hal Ezzell, not Cindy Rosenthal, has made this campaign dirty and negative:

• Look at his mailers: these contain major distortions and very little information (see my prior posts). There's a reference to one of these at the bottom of the Transcript article. I wish the paper had used the space to clarify the issue.
• Make a visit to the campaign websites. Ezzell's seems to say that he wants to talk about the issues and that Cindy Rosenthal won't talk about them, but there are very few specifics on the site. Rosenthal's is all about the good things in Norman. All about those issues that Ezzell claims she refuses to address.
• Follow Ezzell's supporters' twitter accounts (twitter.com/sindyrosenthal is by far the nastiest! shockingly mean, actually. I'm not going to dignify it with a direct link, you have to type it in yourself.)

The main issue about which my mom has been critical of Hal Ezzell is the fact that he has missed many, many finance committee meetings and important budgetary votes--that's something that voters should know about considering that budget cuts are a major part of his platform. Cindy Rosenthal has had plenty of opportunities to twist the truth, and at every turn she clarifies it instead!

I will give the Transcript credit for a good general article on the mayoral race and their reasoned analysis of the council races.

Please help get the word out. Volunteering will start at 1pm at the Chouse at 717 W. Boyd. You can go any time until 5pm, and you don't have to knock doors: we also need people to drop off door hangers reminding our citizens to vote.

If you can't go out, call your friends, remind them to vote, and make sure they aren't being misled!