Campaign Finance Errors Uncovered

Editors note: this article, originally posted on July 23, 2022, was updated with new information on July 21, 2024. There are updates throughout the article in italicized text. 

Strange Payments

Two local political candidates - Anne Bannister for Mayor of Ann Arbor and Stephen Ranzini for Washtenaw County Commissioner, District 2 - have together spent more than $17,000 on consulting services from one anonymous entity with no address and no paper trail, bearing the name "Household Words." This morning, community members, collaborating on the twitter hashtag #a2council, discovered that the likely recipient of these thousands of dollars in campaign funds is Patricia Lesko, who runs the Ann Arbor Independent. In a Facebook message received, Tuesday, July 16, 2024 Stephen Ranzini stated that his campaign had hired Patrica's wife, Marjorie Lesko, runs Household Words as a consultancy focusing to help campaigns with "obtaining voter lists, including absentee ballot requests, mailing to those voter lists and absentee ballot requesters, and some mailer design work to optimize mailing costs, to save money on mailings." 

The Ann Arbor Independent bills itself as "an award-winning digital newspaper committed to excellence in community journalism," and no disclosures of these direct payments by the campaigns were found on the site at the time of this article's publication.

A Trail of Missing Addresses

In this year's disclosures, Ranzini and Bannister both list Household Words under campaign expenditures, to the tune of $15,500 and $2,125 respectively. However, unlike every other disclosure, neither campaign lists a full address for this entity, just a city and zip code. The two candidates list "campaign consulting" and "postcard design services" as the services rendered. The trail from here appears to run cold, as Household Words is not registered as a corporate entity with Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA).

One of multiple payments from Stephen Ranzini's campaign to Household Words,
totaling more than  $15,000

Anne Bannister's disclosure, paying Household Words $2,125

This doesn't appear to satisfy the reporting requirements for campaign finance laws in Michigan, which states candidates must disclose "the full name and street address of each person to whom expenditures or other disbursements totaling more than $50.00 were made." Note, in this context "person" can mean a business, individual, proprietorship, LLC, firm, etc. Given this substandard finance reporting, we appear to be at a dead end, with no further clues for who is behind "Household Words," a lucrative local entity receiving thousands of dollars in campaign funds. Ranzini's campaign submitted amended campaign finance documents on August 4th, 2022, which contain the P.O. Box for Household Words listed in the campaign expenditures portion of the document. 

However, in 2018, Jack Eaton ran for Mayor of Ann Arbor, and his campaign also paid "Household Words" $100 for design services. Unlike the current candidates, Eaton previously disclosed a PO box, 130117, for this entity.

Jack Eaton's 2018 Mayoral campaign, showing the P.O. Box of Household Words

A quick search for this PO box reveals it is shared with Adjunct Nation and the Ann Arbor Independent, both of which are online properties of PD Lesko, or Patricia Lesko, a self-described local "independent journalist."

Ann Arbor Independent: PO Box 130117, shared with Household Words

When details of the "Household Words" expense came to light, Vivienne Armentrout, who served as Jack Eaton's campaign treasurer in 2018, had the following to say on Twitter, confirming the expenditures were indeed to a consulting firm owned by "local journalist" Patricia Lesko. In Ranzini's July 2024 Facebook message, he stated that Household Words is not Patricia Lesko's business, but rather her wife, Marjorie Lesko. He stated further "During the time that my campaign was using those services, Pat told me that she would be very careful not to write anything about my campaign or my opponent. 

A Firewall between Journalism and Campaign Consulting?

Through the Ann Arbor Independent, Patricia Lesko has published many election 2022 pieces, some of which target Bannister's opponent, incumbent mayor Christopher Taylor. She has also written more positive articles about Anne Bannister, whose campaign appears to have paid Marjorie Lesko through  "Household Words." No recent articles have been published regarding Stephen Ranzini. It appears that as Ranzini stated in his communications there was a "firewall" between Household Words and The Ann Arbor Independent for the purposes of his campaign. 

This piece promoting Anne Bannister appeared on the Ann Arbor Independent
one month after Bannister paid Household Words $2,125.

We reached out to both Bannister and Ranzini campaigns for comment, but neither had responded at press time. This article will be updated if/when we hear from them. Stephen Ranzini reached out via Faecbook Message on July 16, 2024, which prompted the italicized updates throughout this article. 

Disclosure: Neither Damn Arbor, nor any entities associated with Damn Arbor, have been paid by any candidates seeking political office in Washtenaw County in 2022.

Art Fair Bingo, an updated retrospective

Art Fair Bingo has a history that stretches back over two decades. Let's take a look at the bingo cards over the years. 

Art Fair Bingo 2020 by MillerYear

Reddit user MillerYear posted this early pandemic bingo card to the Ann Arbor subreddit.

2004 Art Fair Bingo via https://osric.com/bingo/

According to osric.com/bingo, the authoritative source of Art Fair Bingo history, the game goes back to at least 1999. That said, some folks online have a distinct memory of Art Fair Bingo in 1998. The 1999 version is credited to the Tanya of the Blast-Off Girls, a WCBN show. The earliest digital versions I have been able to find are 2004 (above) and 2005 (below).

The most recent true version of Art Fair Bingo that I have been able to find is the 2017 edition by Umich grad, RJ Cron.

We also have an undated Art Fair Bingo card that appears to be from the late aughts:

If anybody has other Art Fair Bingo Cards, please share them. There are digital traces of a 2007 edition I would love to see. And of course, if someone has a copy of the 1999 or 1998 cards, that would be awesome.

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: July 18, 2022

 

Gentle readers, tonight is the final #a2Council meeting before the August Primary. Let's dive in. Here's the agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a modest, 11-item consent agenda. Items 1 through 5 are street closures. CA-11 is really exciting: prohibition of on-street parking on Barton. This will allow more space for protected bike lanes, which we know make all road users safer. 

There are no public hearings on the docket tonight but there are two ordinance first readings. C-1 is several amendments to the Unified Development Code (UDC). Specifically for marijuana licenses, trees in the right-of-way, and landscape modifications. These look pretty minor. C-2 is pretty huge. It's an ordinance to remove parking minimums from the UDC. Parking minimums are bad for equity and bad for the climate. They make developers over build parking and increase the cost of housing while increasing automobile dependence. I am really excited for this. It's coming with unanimous recommendation from the Transportation and Planning Commissions but I expect this to be contentious nonetheless. 

Closing out the evening, we've got two resolutions. DC-1 is a resolution directing the administrator to expand compliance evaluations with regard to the city's prevailing wage requirements. Finally we come to DC-2, "Resolution to Organize a Joint Meeting of Interested Individuals from the Environmental Commission, Transportation Commission, Energy Commission, A2ZERO Ambassadors, and other Community Stakeholders to Identify Opportunities for Greater Coordination around Transportation, Pedestrian Safety, and Sustainability Initiatives Related to Sidewalk Expansion and Maintenance." Not only is this a mouthful, but it also looks like a meeting about a meeting. 

And that's all there is. What items are you most looking forward to seeing? Hopefully we will see you there. The CTN stream starts at 7 pm. Make sure you follow the action on the #a2Council hashtag.