The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood has been fined $5,000 for failing to file a required campaign finance disclosure form before the May 24 referendum.
The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission issued a fine of $4,875 in September, after imposing a late reporting fee of $125 on May 9.
Ballot committees are required by law to submit full disclosures before a referendum; the East Cobb Cityhood group maintained it wasn’t obligated as a 501 (c)(4) organization.
A complaint was filed by Bob Lax, a leader of the anti-cityhood East Cobb Alliance.
The cityhood referendum was soundly defeated with 73 percent of the vote against incorporating a population of 60,000 people along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
According to the state ethics agency, the East Cobb Cityhood group reported raising $112,525 and spending $64,338.
(You can read the full report by clicking here.)
It was the only ballot committee involved in Cobb cityhood referendums that did not file a report. The East Cobb Alliance report filed on May 9 showed total contributions nearing $30,000.
The largest contributor to the East Cobb Cityhood committee was Owen Brown, founder of the Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate firm, and who is one of the group’s founders.
He contributed $20,000, and several others contributed $5,000 or more, some of them corporate executives.
Nearly $49,000 of the cityhood group’s expenses were for political consulting services and billboard ads.
Related:
- Editor’s Note: Community and the East Cobb cityhood saga
- East Cobb Cityhood referendum precinct-by-precinct votes
- East Cobb Cityhood group: ‘Our polling told a different story’
- East Cobb Cityhood referendum defeated in landslide
- As East Cobb Cityhood vote nears, recent votes have sputtered
- East Cobb News Cityhood information page
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Thanks for sharing a nice list of great information. It is really useful for me and others.
ECC Campaign Finance Disclosure Report – including Contributions and Expenditures:
https://efile.ethics.ga.gov/ReportsOutput/103/2c1e5c84-efd9-4dc3-935e-a9e51bf3cd8b.pdf
Matt Dollar donated $500, not $5K as stated in the article.
$66K of the ECC donations were from the 30067 zip code -which includes the Atlanta Country Club area.
Plus another $35K was donated by people who also reside in 30067, but used their business address.