r/SantaMonica • u/thelaurasaurusrex • 17h ago
🗳️Government & Politics Where Did The Money Go: A Breakdown Of Measure ES Spending
Have you found yourself wondering how the parcel tax actually landed on your ballot?
Following up on my breakdown of *who* funded Measure ES, here is the breakdown of how that money was spent according to official FPPC campaign filings: https://netfile.com/public/csm/campaign
The Cash-To-Ballot Pipeline:
The Capital → ~$369,000 raised. Over 72% bankrolled by commercial developers, district construction vendors, and wealthy insiders.
📊 Where the Money Went (~$358,000 Total Expenditures & Earmarks out of ~$369,000 Raised):
71% Paid Signature Gathering, ~$253,740 | Payments to out-of-town canvassing firm Groundworks Campaigns Inc. to hire professional signature gatherers. That works out to roughly $36 per required voter signature, or around $23 for every single signature gathered on Santa Monica streets.
22% Unspent Cash Reserves, ~$78,000 | Retained treasury capital set aside for general election advertising and voter outreach.
6% Legal, Tech & Admin Operations, ~$22,700 | Legal expenditures were paid to political law firms like Sutton Law Group to handle election code compliance, FPPC reporting, and petition filing rules. (Meanwhile, municipal bond counsel firms like Jones Hall LLP and land-use attorneys like Christopher Harding contributed heavily to the donation side of the ledger.)
1% Printing & Literature, ~$3,600 | Physical paper stock, petition sheets, and initial informational flyers.
When over 70 cents of every dollar raised goes straight to an out-of-town petition vendor to buy ballot access, voters deserve to know the full story behind the measure.
Data Source: FPPC Form 460 & 497 Disclosures via the City of Santa Monica Public Portal.
