Campaign financing disclosures by councillor candidates in Chilliwack point to a wildly divergent range of spending on the 2018 municipal election.
The most spent on campaigning by councillor candidates was by Coun. Jeff Shields, who won a seat on council, with $23,188 reported in campaign expenses, and $22,744 in campaign contributions.
Originally the most expensive campaign appeared to be the one waged by candidate Debora Soutar, who according to the initial disclosure documents from Elections BC spent $27,942 on her bid for a council seat, while taking in $7,580 in donations. But Soutar has since clarified online that the actual cost of her campaign was in fact $12,050, not $27, 942, which was reported due to an error.
The three incumbents city councillors, who were all re-elected to council in the October election, had election spending in the range of $13,000 to $16,000 for their campaigns.
Coun. Chris Kloot’s campaign shelled out the most among those re-elected, at $16,020, and received $10,550 in total campaign contributions.
Coun. Sue Attrill spent $13,290, with $10,333 in campaign donations from all sources, while Coun. Jason Lum spent $13,695, and had $9,473 in contributions.
In terms of the newly elected city councillors, Coun. Harv Westeringh spent more than the incumbent candidates, disclosing campaign contributions of $17,855, and the exact same amount in campaign expenses, $17,855, according to Elections BC.
Coun. Bud Mercer, reported spending $13,057, with $12,100 in campaign contributions, in the online statements.
Candidate Ken Smith spent $20,282 and received a total of $15,282 in campaign donations from all sources.
Candidate Louis De Jaeger disclosed contributions totalling $7,154, while his expenses were $6,974.
Candidate Terry Cross reported spending $2,206 on the “campaign financing summary” document, but no campaign contributions were noted.
Candidate Patti MacAhonic had similar levels of spending and donations, with $5,311 in campaign spending versus $5,150 in contributions to her campaign, as did candidate Sandy Mathies, who took in $5,149 in total campaign contributions, and had expenses totalling $4,878.
Candidate Lisa Morry saw donations of $2,463 to her campaign, and shelled out $1635.
Candidate Cameron Hull submitted documents stating that he took in and spent the same amount: $1,205.