Howe Continues Consultant Spending

Fred Howe continues to spend a lot of his own money for his mayoral campaign, with most spent on consultants.

Randall Gilliland is the president of Sustainable Impact LLC since January 2011 and Howe has paid him $16,374 to date. Sustainable Impact LLC also uses a PO Box out of Hampton. Gilliland has a political history in Hampton where he was a candidate for delegate and city council.

Howe has paid almost $14,000 to date to Digital Reality. William G "Bill" Holweger is listed as the principal for Digital Reality and he is an advisory panel member for the Virginia Public Access Project that provides campaign finance reporting for most state candidates. Since 2000, he has charged more than $200,000 for consulting to numerous political campaigns.

Holweger also owns William G Holweger LC, which is listed in the Yellow Pages as data processing and computer services at 11 South Dooley Ave in Richmond. He has supported Democratic candidates or platforms.

Howe also loaned himself another $6,000 this period from his company Utility Pros. For the period of April 1-April 20, he got three donations above $100 that totalled $3,052, and most of it ($2600) was from a family member. He received 16 donations of $100 or less for $1,450. He's spent $20,592, more than double both of his two opponents, Mary Katherine Greenlaw and Matt Paxson.He has $2,323.84 left in his coffers, and the unpaid loan of $48,000.

Howe said he is concerned about the city's future and he wants to win this race to try and make a difference. He said he doesn't think his loans are out of line for this race and he referenced Mayor Tom Tomzak, who spent more of his own money to win.

"Regrettably, political campaigns are expensive," he said. "One cannot rely on the press, especially print press, or enough public forums to get a candidate’s message out. The only way to do so cost-effectively is to invest in modern communications methods used by candidates every day across the country.  That is what I have done."

Mary Katherine Greenlaw

Greenlaw, a commercial real estate broker with Thalhimer, has the most money left in her coffers at $14,636, but she still has $6,213 in unpaid debts to herself, for mailings and for advertising. Greenlaw said it was just timing why she hadn't paid for the mailings and advertising.

"We actually paid all bills we had in hand yesterday," she said today in an email. "They simply had not been paid by the reporting deadline for this financial report.  All of our bills are net 30 and we paid all within net 30."

Carey Louthan, a homemaker in Atlanta, gave her $1,500 this period and Teel Goodwin, of a union corrugating company in Orange County, gave her $1000. She raised a total of $3,700 this period and spent $1,2015.50, mostly on a Free Lance-Star advertisement. Six people gave her more than $100 this period and 12 more people gave her less than $100 for $1025 total.

Matt Paxson

Paxson, the associate pastor at Fairview Baptist Church, has the least amount of money left in his coffers with $607.98. He's spent $12,246 and loaned himself $6,590 total, including $1,500 he added this period.

He received a $500 donation from David Blackwood of Blackwood Real Estate and $200 from Spotsylvania County Supervisor David Ross. Tom Byrnes, his pro-bono consultant gave $1000 more for an in-kind contribution and Oryx Capital Group in-kind gave $750 to come up with his campaign smartphone app. Paxson spent $3,058, including $635 to the Parks and Recreation Department of his "Reclaim the Riverfront" event on Saturday. Five people also donated less than $100 to his campaign for a total of $294.02.