Ly Takes Elk Grove Mayoral Fundraising on Roadshow

September 19, 2016 |

In what is a new development for Elk Grove politics, Vice Mayor and Mayoral candidate Steve Ly is taking his fundraising activities on the road.

According to information on the Vice Mayor's Facebook page, he will be holding fundraisers in Fresno, Calif. as well as in Oakdale, Minn. Ly's Fresno affair, dubbed Fresno Son Returns Home, will be held on Friday, September 25 and his Minnesota event is scheduled for Friday, October 14. just three and a half-weeks before election day.

While Elk Grove City Council members have raised money from out-of-state interests for as long as the city has been incorporated, Ly's fundraising out-of-state fundraising events are believed to be a first. In his successful run for City Council in 2014, Ly raised several thousands of dollars from out-of-state individual donors, primarily in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Ly, who is of Hmong ancestry, is making his ethnic background a focus of his bid to become Elk Grove's next directly elected Mayor. In social media Ly has mentioned his family's work picking tomatoes in the Fresno area and his father's role in aiding American forces during the CIA's secret war in Laos.

Neither Ly or Capital Campaigns, who handles the candidate's fundraising operation, responded to email request seeking comment on the Fresno or Minnesota events. In late August Ly reported on his Facebook page that he was conducting fundraising activities while visiting Minnesota and Wisconsin.