The Palm Springs election for Mayor and City Council is just a little over a week away and while residents will be going to the polls for the first time since the PouGhazi scandal and FBI raid, one man is doing his best to influence the election by throwing plenty of money at just four candidates.
Via The Desert Sun:
Harold Matzner, the chair of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, has donated more than $91,000 to [Ginny] Foat’s campaign, according to fundraising statements filed with the city. Matzner is the single largest donor in this election, also dropping $85,000 in the race for two council seats.
In a previous story, The Desert Sun reported that Matzner had donated about $35,000 each to council candidates Geoff Kors and J.R. Roberts, with an additional $15,000 being donated to Paul Lewin.
$176,000 is a lot of money. Matzner could have instead chosen to spend that money on a variety of things. including…
- 44,110 Big Macs
- This 2 bedroom condo in Palm Springs
- 9 Jeep Renegades
- This bottle of wine
- 176 VIP tickets to the Palm Springs Film Festival Gala
- Paying the mayor’s salary for over 4 years
- 1,232,000 meals at F.I.N.D Food Bank
…but instead, he chose to give it to four candidates for yard signs and television commercials.
No word on what issues may be of importance to Matzner in the upcoming election, but he did tweet out this Desert Sun article (posted in May) on October 2nd:
Palm Springs film festival seeks to stop Aberdeenhttp://t.co/NqX70KAKQk
— Harold Matzner (@haroldmatzner) October 3, 2015
All candidates combined have raised almost a million dollars for the election thus far – which seems like a fucking lot for a town of under 50,000 residents.
