2011 Civic Election Candidates Expenses

---

 Money Spent To Get Elected 

To Nanaimo City Council

The above shows the total number of votes received, the percentage of eligible votes, total spent and the cost per vote based on total spent divided by number of votes received.

On the high end Mayor John Ruttan spent $28,437.55, he received 8815 votes which represented 13.8% of the eligible votes and works out to a cost of $3.23 for each vote received.

On the bottom end of the scale Councillor Jim Kipp spent $300.00, he received 7479 votes which represented 11.7% of the eligible votes and works out to a cost of $0.04 for each vote received.

Councillors Greves and Brennan spent approximately twice as much as Councillor Bestwick who captured the highest number of votes at 9108 at a cost of $6,993.66 for a cost of $.77 per vote.

Another comparison shows the incumbent Councillor Greves spending nearly 4.5 times as much as newcomer Councillor McKay and 3.5 times as much as the other newcomer Councillor Anderson.

Of course Councillor Kipp is in a league all his own when you consider that Councillor Greves spent a whopping 47 times more than Councillor Kipp and actually gathered 500 fewer votes.

It is noteworthy that Mayor Ruttan and Councillors Greves and Brennan have the dubious honor of being the exclusive members of the Double Digit Club with the total of their campaigns far exceeding the rest elected to city council.

Comment: The question that always rolls around in my simple mind when I see large amounts of money being spent for the privilege of serving as a city councillor is what agendas are at work in the background that compel wallets to open so wide to support a candidate. As one who watches such things closely I would think it fair comment to say that money spent for fancy ads and the like seem to have made up for a real lack of substance when it came to defining the issues that different candidates stood for.

I can't remember one candidate saying that they promised to raise our taxes by actually defying a spending recommendation of the city manager which added $700,000 to the current financial plan. Usually previous city councillors have rolled up their sleeves, burned the midnight oil and told the city manager he needed to reduce the budget, but in this case we seem to have elected a new group of trend setters. That charge was led by Councillor Brennan and supported by other newcomers Anderson and McKay with the support of incumbents Mayor Ruttan and Councillor Johnstone.