Lots Of Dark Money and PACs Fueling Barbara Peck’s Ward 3 Oklahoma City Council Campaign
The Ward 3 City Council race is beginning to blow up as it heads into the stretch for the finish line with voters going to the polls on Tuesday, February 11th.
Two candidates are vying for the Ward 3 seat, the incumbent, Barbara Peck and her challenger, Katrina Avers.
Ward 3 contains the City of Mustang and the Will Rogers International Airport.
NonDoc hosted a candidate forum with both candidates. The area including Ward 3 is growing at a very fast pace. Annexation from Oklahoma City and a large $100 million dollar amphitheater has concerned residents of the Ward.
Candidate positions aside, when former ROPE Board Member Julia Seay sent me the direct mail piece published at the top of the article, it felt important to look into exactly who was funding both candidates.
The address of the direct mail piece is 6608 N. Western Avenue #1392, Oklahoma City, OK 73116. There is a phone number listed as 405-534-4870, but it is clearly a Google number with a generic “leave a message” voice note. The card says it is “authorized and paid for by The Revitalization Project”.
The address goes to the Nichols Hills Pack-n-Ship. If you’ve read any of my articles on Dark Money in Oklahoma, you’ll know that this is an often-used address in the Dark Money world. It was used to knock out Ronda Peterson in Edmond’s HD39 election. In addition, it was also used for numerous other PACS during the 2022 election cycle.
Consequently, I looked up The Revitalization Project. Here’s what I found:
- There is no listed entity for them as an Oklahoma registered PAC in the Guardian System on the Oklahoma Ethics Commission website.
- There is no listing for them as a PAC on the FEC website (Federal Election Commission).
- There is, however, an organization that I found with the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool.
Consequently, we know that The Revitalization Project is NOT A PAC, it is a 501C-4 organization that is OPERATING AS A PAC.
The Revitalization Project was begun with a Dayton, Ohio address and in 2010. This is the year the Citizens United court case opened the door for dark money funding of political campaigns. I am going to paste a copy of the Dark Money flow chart I made in 2022 below for reference.
For the first several years, there were no expenditures and post cards were filed as the organization had less than $50k in filings. The organization has changed it’s structure several times over the past decade, but in 2017 and 2018, Demetria Gill was identified as the President, Norma Church was the Secretary and Evan Handy the Treasurer.
Evan Handy is the manager of South Creek Group (SCG), a political consulting group linked with numerous Dark Money PACS/501C-4’s in my 2022 research – as with the Advance Oklahoma and Build and Protect PACs above. In 2020, only Alex Mendez was listed as Director, with no one else associated with the organization and in 2022 the address for The Revitalization Project changed from Dayton, to Springfield, Virginia.
Looking through the organizations 990’s, several names identified with Dark Money PACs in 2022 were listed. In 2020, the C4 received $160k from America’s Values First. In 2021 they received money from the Commonwealth Conservative Fund and in 2022, they donated to Americans United for Values ($100k), Affordable Energy PAC ($155k), A Public Voice ($72k) and $750k to the American Exceptionalism Institute to name a few.
Why in the world, is an organization like this involved in an Oklahoma City Council Race?
This got me more curious, so I went to the City of Oklahoma City ethics filings for Ward 3.
This was fascinating.
BARBARA PECK
Up to now, Barbara Peck has spent a little over $47 thousand dollars.
- She’s received money from the Oklahoma Realtor’s PAC ($2500), OMCA PAC (Oklahoma Municipal Contractors $2500) and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber PAC ($4000), Oklahoma Firefighters Association PAC ($5000)
- In individual contributions, she’s had $2500 contributed by Terry Zerby (a developer), PB Odom – a developer – $1000 and a bit over $1000 by Xavier Neira – a Norman developer – and 2 donations from Tyler Media for $800. There are other $500 from developers and contractors as well
Then, there’s this rather large donation:
KATRINA AVERS
Dr. Avers has, up to now, spent a bit over $7600.
Her largest donations have been individuals: Dr. Warren G. Low ($3300) and his wife Peggy ($3300). The second highest have been 2, $1000 donations from Randy and Lana Elliott Construction Unlimited.
The rest of her donations have been under $500.
CLOSING
Look, I understand that Peck is the incumbent in an Oklahoma City Ward with a lot of growth and growth potential, but there is an ENORMOUS difference in these two candidates in terms of their fund raising. It is apparent that Peck’s supporters are hoping (nay, expecting) to see quite a bit of work in the Ward.
Is that all that good governance is about? Creating growth and jobs? In this Ward – after the million dollars worth of amphitheater was voted down by residents – I don’t think so.