The report’s in the mail

Questions about contributions to the campaign of Reno City Council Ward 4 candidate Dwight Dortch have at least one other candidate for the office seething with frustration. You may have heard of Dortch. He has billboards in several high- visibility places. But, according to records obtained by the RN&R, Dortch has paid next to nothing to Clear Channel, a media company that owns and rents billboards.

“Dwight Dortch has had eight billboards up since May,” complained Ward 4 candidate Kendall Stagg, who drove around town Monday taking a tally. “The average cost for those boards is conservatively $2,000 a month. You take the seven Clear Channel boards that he has had up for at least four months, that’s 28 monthly boards. By a very conservative estimate of $2,000 a month, that’s $56,000 worth of billboards.”

Donating billboard space worth $56,000 is not only a hefty in-kind campaign contribution, it would be an illegal one—more than $46,000 over the $10,000 contribution limit.

“In order for all those boards to be legal, Dortch has to show that he has paid approximately $46,000 to Clear Channel out of his campaign account,” Stagg said. “He would have had to raise more money than any other city council candidate currently running for office.”

How much money has Dortch raised? Well, as of Tuesday—the day campaign finance reports were due at the Reno City Clerk’s office, Dortch’s report hadn’t been received.

Why did the candidate miss the deadline? Dortch said his intentions were right. But he was unsure where to send the report.

“I thought we had to send it to the Secretary of State’s office,” he said. “So we were sending it by certified mail to get it there in time. My wife got to the post office and realized she didn’t have the address. She called me, and I called the Secretary of State’s office, and they said, ‘Send it to the county.’ I said, ‘That’s not right, it’s got to be either you guys or the City Clerk’s office,’ and they said, ‘Send it to the county.’ I called the City Clerk’s office, they said, ‘Send it here.’ “

Dortch didn’t know how much he’d paid for the billboards he’d had, how many billboards he’d had, or how long they’d been up. He didn’t know how much in-kind contribution he’d received, suggesting that his treasurer, Ron Avery, or his campaign manager might know.

Dortch’s campaign manager, Tiffany Frisch, said her candidate had four billboards up in July and eight in August. Frisch also verified that Dortch had billboards out since early in the election cycle.

“In the spring, we had paper printed, and I worked out a deal,” Frisch said. “I said, ‘If you guys have space available, let us know.’ They called one time and said, ‘We have some space,’ and so they bonused us a couple of boards. They do it for a lot of people; they do it for events; they do it for businesses; they do it for non-profits. They just bonused him a couple of boards in the spring."On deadline, Frisch called and said Clear Channel had “bonused” Dortch, “two boards before July, and in July they bonused us five.” She said they received no bonuses in August, but expect five in September.

“As of this moment, I paid for 14, and they have bonused us 12,” she said. “Our total buy up to this point is $8,752, which includes a $3,500 deposit. That works out to $372.50 per board, she said—far below Stagg’s estimation. For fairness’ sake, Frisch was working from notes, not a copy of the C&E.But does Clear Channel give out its bonuses to just anyone? Some suspect that Dortch and a few other politicians received favors from Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns the vast majority of the billboards in the Truckee Meadows and would most benefit from a change in Reno billboard ordinances—which will come up for review during the next four-year term. That’s a serious allegation.

Under Nevada law, the RN&R has the right to ask such companies as Clear Channel for their records of campaign advertising. So we did.

Candidates who advertise with Clear Channel include: Dwight Dortch, Sharron Angle, Steve Elliot, Greg Brower, Bob Cashell, Dawn Gibbons, Maurice Washington, Brian Krolicki, Jim Gibbons and Michael Langton. When we asked for the account records of these clients, Clear Channel provided some incomplete—and in some cases, private— media-buy records after a conversation with its legal department.

Out of those 10 candidates, only three received apparent in-kind contributions (free billboard space) from Clear Channel: Maurice Washington, Steve Elliot and Dwight Dortch. Reno mayoral candidate Bob Cashell received no in-kind contributions from Clear Channel. On the invoices, the in-kind contributions showed a value of $0.

How much are those billboards worth? Neither Dortch nor Frisch, not even Matt Montano, staff accountant at Clear Channel Outdoor, could say. How much would they cost the average advertiser? Montano was evasive, saying that depended on location and time of year. He suggested that the billboards given to Dortch would have sat idle without Dortch’s image.

“They’re not worth anything to me,” Montano said. “It’s up to the candidates to disclose the value on their reports.”

Perhaps he hasn’t heard that another Nevada regulation, Nevada Administrative Code 294A.043, requires that anyone who gives an “in-kind” contribution “shall, within 30 days after the time he furnishes those services, provide to the recipient a statement signed by him that sets forth the actual cost of those services or, if that amount cannot be determined, the fair market value of those services.”

The first campaign-finance reporting day is always a nail-biter for candidates. C&Es reports basically tell which candidate got how much from whom, and where they spent it. Candidates use the information to see who’s funding their opponents’ campaigns. News media use the information to see who’s pulling whose strings. It’s been shown that the person who raises the most money wins 96 percent of elections in Nevada, so it’s good information for the sports book.

Often what is or isn’t listed in the contribution and expenditure reports will garner headlines. Last election, an irregular report brought in by Ward 4 Reno City Councilwoman Sherrie Doyle touched off a state investigation that has Doyle under indictment for 16 felony counts of theft from contributors and her own campaign funds. If the case is taken to trial, it won’t be until after the general election in November. This year, Doyle’s report looked pristine, and it even showed the itemized addition on separate pages.

Only four candidates, out of 20 fighting for Reno offices, didn’t bring their reports into the clerk’s office: mayoral candidates Ken L. Haller and Andrew Putnam and Ward 4 candidates Rose Gordon, who withdrew from the race in May, and Dwight Dortch.

Dortch insists that all of the information about the value of in-kind contributions and the costs per month for billboards will be on his contribution and expense report when it arrives at the clerk’s office.

Just about the only information that can be accurately gleaned from the statements offered by Clear Channel Outdoor, is that Dortch, after months of billboard advertising around Truckee Meadows, has been invoiced $1,904 by Clear Channel. He’s actually got a credit of $3,028.Frisch said there were charges that were not included in the Clear Channel statement provided to the RN&R.When Dortch’s C&E arrives at the Reno City Clerk’s office, all these questions may be moot. Stagg said he will file a complaint with the Secretary of State if these questions are not addressed on the reports when they arrive at the Reno City Clerk’s office. One thing seems certain: Nevada candidates still have a great deal of difficulty with their campaign finance forms.