Where Has All the Money Gone?

Has the lack of funding ever become an obstacle for a community program which you consider a priority?  Graffiti, litter, senior services, after-school enrichment, after-school sports, police services, fire services, neighborhood beautification?  

I remember a talk which I had a couple of years ago with a member of the Montebello school board.  I mentioned that I thought that a campaign mailer—those often uninvited and unwanted pieces of propaganda which get placed in our mailboxes, hung from our doorknobs, and dropped on our porches during the weeks before an election—would run $5,000.  The member said that the cost might be more. 

Those of us who are registered to vote in Montebello are getting mailers now, because of the November elections.  If we figured that each of ten thousand Montebello addresses would be receiving a colorful mailer costing the candidate $.50 apiece, then each mailer would represent an expense of $5,000.  

$5,000 times how many mailings until now?  

Why bring this up?  A grant application was submitted last week for six graduate students at Cal State Los Angeles to test an idea in improving democracy.  Through the idea, donors, before transferring a donation, would instruct a candidate on how to spend the donation.  If the candidate did not agree, he would not have to take the donation.  

What purposes does it serve for donors to instruct candidates on how to spend donations?  Four purposes:  keep money circulating in Montebello, get youth meaningfully involved, elevate the integrity of political campaigns, and create a community chest from which anybody with sufficient understanding who lives, labors or learns in Montebello may discuss and help decide on how to spend the money for community improvements.  

Here is an option which, hopefully, would motivate fellow Montebelloans to think up equally beneficial options:  

I am donating $100 to candidate John Doe to pay college students and high schoolers at least a living wage to organize and manage neighborhood coffees.  I understand that 10% of my contribution will be set aside for Montebello residents to have the resources (1) to research and report to me before the election on how well the candidate has followed my instruction and (2) to keep working to strengthen democracy in my community.   Susan B. Anthony

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2007 by a local nonprofit organization.  

1.   A campaign mailer in Montebello has significance because

(a)  there is much paper wasted in printing the mailer.

(b) there is a $5,000 expense which could be expended better. 

2.   If a donor instructed a candidate on how to spend a donation,

(a) we could see more campaign money stay in a community;

(b) we could see more youth involved in democracy, even before they turned eighteen;

(c) we could see the integrity of political campaigns improve;

(d) we could set up a community chest which would let people participate directly in improving the community.

October 25, 2007