Elk Grove city council race – where the money comes from

Ever wonder who funds the candidates running for the Elk Grove city council? According to filings with the city clerk, most of the money comes from outside of Elk Grove.

It comes mostly from real estate developers, lawyers and various business and labor interests. A very small amount comes from small individual donors.

For the first six months of 2008, the following city council candidates (see table) have filed information with the city clerk regarding the sources of their contributions.

The table below shows how much cash each candidate raised and what percent of those contributions were from Elk Grove and what percent were from out of town. Obviously there is a lot of outside interest about what goes on in Elk Grove.

	Funds raised	% raised in E.G. (in $)	% raised out of E.G.
Jim Cooper	$22,879	0	100
Steve Detrick	112,317	98	2
Mike Leary	31,550	14	86
Katherine Maestas	13,682	0	100
Sophia Scherman	28,295	6	94

In the following days, we will dig a little deeper into these 460 filings and hopefully show who really influences Elk Grove politics.