When District 8 Candidate Lynda Bell ran for Mayor of Homestead she had some excess funds at the end of her campaign. She donated half to a church (hers?). What bothered me, however, she sent the rest, $800, out of Homestead, where there is no shortage of needy charitable organizations. Her campaign money went to Altamonte Springs to her Right to Life group. Even the Vile Natacha Seijas kept most of her excess funds in Miami Dade County (chamber, LBA, Voices for Children, Kiwanis, etc.) except for a donation to her employer the "Y" that has a location in North Carolina. Natacha's priorities are to her employer most definitely but she also spread the wealth locally like she should have.
This donation shows me where Lynda's priorities are -- her real priorities. They were not focused on helping the less fortunate in her community in need of food or housing or to beef up struggling charities in Homestead. That is where the money should have gone.
15 comments:
I don't think anyone is surprised by Lynda's "choice" (pun intented).
The people from her church are the one's who worked the polls for her during the primary. But, they were conveniently not invited to her campaign party at the Burger King headquarters. There were too many suits with money there, it wasn't for the "worker's".
I also have to wonder if her campaign is the one who is continually taking down Eugene Flinn's campaign signs. While she blanketed the area with "Bell" signs all over vacant property, easements and wherever she could, Flinn had his signs legally placed, then stolen.
If it is someone from her campaign, they will be caught soon enough. It's been reported and spotters are now watching strategically placed signs to see who steals them (yes, it's a crime).
For those who remember the Bateman campaign, the same thing happened to him too.
This woman is not fit for any elected office. She just cannot win honestly because she has no substance.
It is the do as I say, not as I do mentality at work here. Once again, Mayor Flinn, you better be ready for anything and everything to be thrown your way.
Bell is walking on eggshells trying to reinvent herself. Her past will follow no matter how hard she tried to erase it or run from it. Mayor Flinn is running a clean campaign, Lynda will implode hers when her past catches up, and I'm talking about stuff before she became Mayor of Homestead.
I believe it was not appropriate to direct those funds directly to one church. It would have been better to refund a prorated portion of the funds to contributors with a suggestion that they direct those funds to a charity or local church of their choice. This would have been more work, but it would have respected the contributors and would have supported the idea of the separation of church and state (an ideal that gets fuzzy when you start funding churches from campaign war chests.) This is not, in any way, meant to degrade or diminish the work that the congregation of Lynda's church engages in. I am sure they are good people.
Very perceptive about Lynda Bell reinventing herself. Those who know the real Lynda need to stand up and talk about it because there are a lot of voters who buy her bull.
When I google "Lynda Bell", EOM is the first link EVEN ABOVE HER WEBSITE! haha.
It's hard for candidates to pro-rate contributions back (if there are hundreds of contributors and a minimal amount of money left -- does anyone really want $3.00 back?). However, I do know that Mayor Flynn gave his leftover campaign contributions from his mayoral campaign to the PTAs at Palmetto Bay schools.
Previous anon, it seems more appropriate that Mr. Flinn gave money to the PTA serving the children in his area. In this way, that money would be serving a wide cross section of the local community where that campaign was run and children who are Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, etc. would all benefit indirectly through the PTA. I think the Mayor got it right.
At any rate, with Ms. Bell's contribution to the church, I am sure it went to good use, but I still think there could have been a better way of appropriating those funds, personally.
This brings me to another concern. When Commissioners carry over their excess budget monies to another year, they can build a war chest of sorts, doling out money every three years or so right before elections. I think we should have trimmed their budgets back based on their last three years of actual spending. To this, however, I would add that I would give them a living wage and tighten the ethics on their personal business endeavors. That's just me.
You all don't care that money went to Altamonte right to life group? The church is at least in the district.
She must have been their media darling up there in Altamonte because she is quoted lots of times in their paper.
Why would she do that? Is that misuse of campaign funds?
Funny! I posted this on my FaceBook page and soon after Lynda Bell removed me as her friend. Hahahaha!!!! What a joke she is.
returning funds to the donors is appropriate and has been done by many candidates, including Judge Victoria Sigler, Cutler Bay Council member Peggy Bell, Coral Gables Comm. Maria Anderson and countless others. It is the RIGHT thing to do. People donate to candidates not to charities when they write campaign checks. Those same people deserve to get the tax-write off when charitable donations are made, don't you think?
Lynda Bell's anti-choice donation is unacceptable.
I got 3 checks returned by candidates-- let me choose where my money is to go!! If my money went to an anti choice group, I would be livid.
I have a real problem with religious organizations/RTL being the recepient of campaign funds and a lot of donors who are pro choice/not religious, if they donated to Bell, I'm sure are pissed off. I certainly would be.
I received my campaign check back from Pam Gray. I think she sent everyone back 100% of their donations.
There is a difference between candidates who drop out of the race (Grey) or don't get an opponent (Peggy Bell) versus candidates who finished their run. The former still have all their money left. They send it back. But if a candidate gets $100,000 in donations, and spends $95,000 of it, it's a little more complicated to try and pro-rate the remaining $5,000 between 200+ donors. To make it simple, if there were 200 $500 donors, they'd each get $25 back. But that's not how campaign reports go. Some people give $5, some give $100. Some are going to get back a dollar or less . . . and it has to be prorated. And that's why candidates give it to charity instead. Yes, it would be good if they gave it to a community charity (such as a school) or one with whom their supporters would agree (L. Bell's supporters might actually be okay with the right-to-life group), but to say it is unethical to donate unspent money to charity, simply because a few candidates who dropped out gave it back, isn't considering the issue carefully.
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