As you may remember, a prior post, The Beer Board Story, referenced the BP located at 701 Dickerson. In that post, the owner enlisted Ms. Murray to assist him to restore his beer license after selling crack pipe craft kits. The owner also indicated to neighbors that he had given her money for her previous campaign, though he did not appear in her campaign financial disclosures that year.
This time 701 Dickerson is back along with some other businesses. Council Member Murray filed her campaign financial disclosure statement on Monday (why, yes, wise reader, that IS after the deadline). It turns out, many of her supporters are owners of businesses that have a less than stellar record when it comes to maintaining a safe neighborhood. For each property, we took a look at the calls for service to the East Precinct police for the period of her tenure, 2003 to now.
Here is a sample:
Donor Address: 701 Dickerson Rd.
Amount Given: $500 (She also got an additional $500 from the FORMER owner of 701 Dickerson Rd).
Calls for Service: 1,477
Donor Address: 803 Dickerson Rd.
Amount Given: $250
Calls for Service: 1,984
Donor Address: 2202 Dickerson Rd.
Amount Given: $250
Calls for Service: 578
Meanwhile, how’s she doing on grassroots support? Out of the $3075 she reported in campaign contributions this period, only one donor gave less than or equal to $100. The rest of her contributors are all from gas station and hotel owners that don’t live in the district (except the $475 Ms. Murray gave herself). Her competitor reports $2720 in contributions that were $100 or less.
Which candidate do you think is more focused on supporting the actual constituents in District 5, the constituents that are improving this community?
UPDATE
Her official Campaign Financial Disclosure Statement: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22412220/Pam-Murray-Campaign-Financial-Disclosure-Statement-11-09-09
The incomplete form the election commission accepted on Friday: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22412341/Pam-Murray-Incomplete-Financial-Disclosure-Statement-11-06-09
Districtfive Blog 
November 11, 2009 at 9:48 am |
Thanks for posting this. Any chance you can upload those forms to the web for everyone to see?
November 11, 2009 at 9:57 am |
Hi Kay,
We have hard copies of the financial disclosure forms that we can scan but don’t know where we would post them or how we would post them on here. Do you have suggestions? We could send them to you, if you want to post.
With regard to the calls for service, Sgt. Ogren said the files on these properties are so big we would have to go down to the Central Precinct and go through a bureaucratic process to get them printed out. A quick phone call to Sgt. Ogren could verify the stats, though.
November 11, 2009 at 10:31 am |
Up load to: http://www.scribd.com/ and then do another blog post letting us know what the URL is. Thanks.
November 11, 2009 at 10:34 am |
Great article! This shows what we have known for a long time – Pam cares more about the people that don’t even live here than she does her own neighbors. In many instances, these business owners are harming our community.
November 11, 2009 at 12:05 pm |
[…] Districtfive Blog « Pam Murray Supporters and Public Safety […]
November 11, 2009 at 2:14 pm |
She had to fill in these forms for her first election, and her re-election and now the re-call election and she seriously thought she could get away with leaving out so many of the basic details on her 11/5/09 forms? She left off her phone number and her treasurer’s signature for starters. And then thought leaving out addresses for donors was gonna be OK.
Just amazing. Each and every time, I’m still amazed. I know I shouldn’t be but I am.
November 11, 2009 at 2:29 pm |
Do I remember correctly that her boyfriend and or employer donated to her previous campaigns? Is he listed on this one? I didn’t notice any Detroit addresses.
November 11, 2009 at 2:54 pm |
We didn’t see him listed, either. Perhaps, he’s had enough of this, too…
November 12, 2009 at 11:05 am |
Make it a little clearer for me. How is it an indictment against a business that it has to call the police for help (a lot)? It seems to be that the number of calls for service is more of a problem with the neighborhood or the customers. Or am I missing something obvious?
I already voted for Hollin so I am not a Murray supporter. I’m seriously just trying to understand the point about the high # of calls for service. I get the overall point that Murray is more about supporting business owners in the district rather than supporting the people who actually live there and voted her in.
November 24, 2009 at 10:32 pm |
A reasonable question, jj.
Community members have dealt with properties on Dickerson Road with high calls for service before. A place called Paul & Ray’s had over 800 calls for service in one year! The thing is, you don’t get to a level of nuisance like that unless you are allowing the activity to take place on your property. Police can track who it is that makes the call to the police. In the case of Paul & Ray’s, it was community members making the calls. Management did not call the police. Eventually, the store was shut down for good and the community successfully lobbied the Beer Board to never allow that property to have another beer license again as long as it is owned by the same individual (and now there is a daycare across the street, so it couldn’t have one even with a change of ownership now).
So, though it is a bit of conjecture on our part to assume that the owners in question here are similarly at fault (as we did not pull the stats on who made the calls to the police), the sheer number of calls suggests that the owners are not doing a good job of preventing crime on their property. It is unlikely they would have that number of problems if they partnered with the police and community to address them.
November 25, 2009 at 10:37 am
That’s a good explanation. I appreciate it.