Bill Thompson. Photo by Buck Ennis
Bill Thompson can’t catch a break.
After months of being slammed by the tabloids for fighting a six-figure sanitation fine for illegal postering by his 2009 campaign, Mr. Thompson finally paid the piper last week.
But the bashing continued.
“Former controller and mayoral candidate Bill Thompson is a weasel,” screamed Tuesday’s editorial in the Daily News. The tabloid chided Mr. Thompson for using taxpayer dollars via his campaign matching funds to pay off $444,029 of the $594,375 fine for plastering campaign posters on public property.
Others questioned the rationale of using taxpayer-funded campaign cash to pay a fine imposed by the city’s Environmental Control Board.
“I’m not saying that the fines aren’t deserved, but the fact that public funds are used to pay for it … What’s the point?” asked one insider. “Isn’t it robbing Peter to pay Paul?”
The source predicted that other campaigns will continue to rack up sanitation violations knowing they can eventually use matching funds to pay the penalties.
“You do end up at a place that says, if you don’t have a deterrent, they will do it all again,” the insider said.
A spokesman for Thompson pointed out that the city’s campaign finance rules allows for this kind of transaction.
“The settlement of the outstanding 2009 poster fine violations is, under Campaign Finance Board rules, an allowable expense and the 2009 campaign committee is proceeding along those lines,” the spokesman said.
Jerry Skurnik, a political consultant at Prime NY, also defended Thompson’s decision to use matching funds.
“Let’s say the campaign has a budget of $10 million of which [half] comes from city (I’m just making up the numbers),” he wrote in an email. “It doesn’t matter if he takes the money to pay the fine for the illegal signs from the $5 million he got from the [Campaign Finance Board] or from the $5 million he raised from contributors. He still has that much less to spend on the campaign.”
Besides, the money used to pay the fine is from Mr. Thompson’s 2009 account, and cannot be used towards his 2013 run for mayor, Mr. Skurnik pointed out.
Eric Friedman, director of external affairs for the CFB, said Mr. Thompson’s decision to use taxpayer-funded matching dollars to pay down public debts is ultimately in the public’s best interest.
“Remember why the campaign finance system is here in the first place: to provide incentives for candidates to focus on small contributions, instead of chasing big-money donations from wealthy individuals or special interests,” he said. “The public is better served when candidates can settle their campaign debts with public funds they earned through their low-dollar fundraising, instead of asking big contributors to help them retire their account.”