Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma thinks so.

Baarsma, (who, by the way, is endorsing Rojecki’s opponent, Victoria Woodards), just told me he thinks the $15,000 independent expenditure to Rojecki’s at-large bid for city council that I reported earlier today is the single largest donation he has seen in any municipal race going back decades.

“That’s huge,” Baarsma said of the donation. “That’s never happened before. Ever.”

(I’ve looked through online PDC reports going back over the past several years, and so far haven’t found anything to dispute Baarsma’s thinking.)

Baarsma, a former political science professor and Tacoma history wonk, said the biggest previous donation in any city race he can think of was dropped into the coffers of his opponent, Harold Moss, in the waning days of the 2001 mayor’s contest.

George Russell donated $5,000 to Moss, who, in turn, put out what Baarsma called a direct-mail “hit piece” against him featuring a cartoon rendering of Baarsma.
Read more »

UPDATE: (@2:11 p.m)  Cody Arledge, legislative director for Sheet Metal Union Local 66, said the Rojecki ad was funded by his union, as well as by the Washington State Council of Firefighters, the Tacoma Firefighters Union, Kent Firefighters Union and SEIU 775.  These groups have participated in the past in making such donations through the Washington State County and City Public Employees’ PAC, Arledge said.

“For most of us, we’ve been friends of Keven’s for years in the Legislative scene,” Arledge said of the reason for the spot.

For the state firefighters union, Rojecki has been “successful at building coaltions and bringing people together in Olympia,” Arledge added.

ORIGINAL POST:

A PAC for the state’s biggest public employees’ union recently bought a $15,000 television ad supporting at-large Tacoma City Council candidate Keven Rojecki, state campaign records show.

Listed in Rojecki’s campaign finance reports as an independent expenditure (a political action intended to help or oppose a candidate without the candidate’s direct cooperation) from the “Voter Education Committee,” the TV ad apparently began airing on Oct. 26, according to Barbara Corcoran, who is affiliated with the Everett-based PAC.

I haven’t seen the spot (anyone out there who has?), but Corcoran told me today she’ll have Pat Thompson, Director of Legislation/Political Action  for the Washington State County and City Public Employees (associated with AFSCME and the AFL-CIO) give me a call to tell me more about it.

I just spoke by phone with Rojecki, who said he wasn’t aware the ad was coming, but caught it recently while watching the Keith Olbermann show. His wife also saw the ad while watching Monday Night Football.

“I am not entirely sure exactly what it said, because it ran so fast,” Rojecki said. “It basically looked like a support position for me.”
Read more »