Rather than examine contributions this time, it’s best just to look at how much cash each party has on-hand in its federal account and how much it spent.

RPK’s year-end report covers the period July 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011

• $320,035.30 Cash On-Hand

Notable Disbursements

• $353,390.48 on staff
• $82,672.37 on telephone & internet
• $1,082.03 on travel
• $60,863.42 on equipment, supplies, rent
• $6,979.79 on food & events
• $111,323.39 on printing
• $18,152.27 on postage
• $18,000 on polling
• $9,500 on video production
• $17,500 on direct mail for Jamie Comer
• $12,500 on direct mail for KC Crosbie
• $5,000 to KC Crosbie
• $266,975.85 to Todd P’Pool
• $30,000 to Williams-Farmer

KDP’s year-end report covers the period 12/01/2011 through 12/31/2011

• $575,220.08 Cash On-Hand

Notable Disbursements

• $64,745.21 on staff
• $3,707.41 on telephone & internet
• $1,129.14 on travel
• $7,927.19 on equipment, supplies, rent
• $7,272.69 on food & events
• $3,486.81 on printing
• $5,885.69 on postage
• $50,000 transfer to non-federal account

Unfortunately, the governor skipped their gubernatorial forum because he was afraid to debate.

Only Gatewood Galbraith and David Williams bothered to show up.

Here’s the additional information the FEC requested on January 17:

1. Itemized disbursements must include a brief statement or description of why the disbursements were made. Please amend Schedule(s) B, H4 of your report to clarify the following description(s): “Equipment” and “Fundraising Event.” For further guidance regarding acceptable purposes of disbursements, please refer to 11 CFR §104.3(b)(3).

2. Schedule H4 of your report discloses a payment(s) for “Health Insurance Stipend” and “Housing Stipend.” Please be advised that a political committee may maintain a petty cash fund out of which it may make expenditures not in excess of $100 to any person per purchase or transaction. (11 CFR §102.11) However, if this expenditure(s) represents an apparent reimbursement(s) to an individual(s) for apparent travel and subsistence advances in which the total amount reimbursed exceeds $500, there are additional reporting requirements. Please provide clarifying information regarding this activity and amend your report to include any missing information as noted below.

When the reimbursement amount to staff for travel and subsistence advances exceeds $500, the payments by committee staff that make up the reimbursement have to be itemized as memo entries regardless of the amount. Each memo entry must include the complete name and address of the original vendor, as well as the date, amount and an adequate purpose. Schedule H4 should clearly identify which reimbursement each memo entry relates to. (11 CFR §§104.10 and 104.17, and Advisory Opinion 1996-20, footnote 3)

3. Please clarify all expenditures made for “Event Catering” and “Event Tickets” on Schedule H4. If a portion or all of these expenditures were made on behalf of specifically identified federal candidates, this amount should be disclosed on Schedules B, E or F supporting Lines 23, 24 or 25 and include the amount, name, address and office sought by each candidate. (11 CFR § §104.3(b) and 106.1)

Alternatively, if the payment(s) on Schedule H4 is associated with fundraising activity conducted for your committee’s federal and non-federal accounts, it must be allocated according to the funds received method and the ratio reflected on Schedule H2. Further, it must be categorized as a fundraising activity on Schedule H4. Please provide clarifying information regarding the nature of this transaction(s) and amend your report(s) as appropriate.

A response is due by February 21.

Seems the ole KDRP isn’t so keen on providing details about who it pays and whether or not its events benefit specific candidates. As you can likely guess, that runs afoul of the law.

Here’s what the KDP spent in November:

Notable Disbursements

• $200,677.46 on staff
• $2,188.61 on telephone & internet
• $7,513.80 on travel
• $17,132,48 on equipment, supplies, rent
• $5,100.66 on food & events
• $1,051.14 on postage
• $515,000 transfer of federal funds for non-federal (papaw) purposes

We’ll examine the KDRP’s year-end report – along with the Republican Party of Kentucky’s report – in a later post.

KDRP folks will attack in 3, 2…

Walter Blevins, Jr. has decided not to seek re-election. Eastern Kentuckians aren’t happy about it. [Ruh Ro]

The local press in the Fourth District is paying close attention to Thomas Massie’s candidacy to replace Geoff Davis in the U.S. Congress. [Ashland Independent]

Poor people in the United States pay way more for care insurance than the wealthy. Don’t act like you’re surprised in the least. [HuffPo]

Mitch McConnell’s new revisionist history is about the worst we’ve seen out of him in a long time. [TPM]

One of the sad things about Greg Fischer’s lack of any sort of experience is watching EMS workers like this guy suffer the consequences. [The 'Ville Voice]

Did you know that February is EARTHQUAKE AWARENESS MONTH in Kentucky? The more you know, kids. [SoS]

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services received a $600,000 federal grant – handed over by the Governor’s Office of Electronic Health Information – to connect behavioral health and primary care providers. We can’t help but wonder if those funds wouldn’t be better spent making sure social worker caseloads weren’t outrageous. [Press Release]

Will Warshington do the right thing and stop insider trading by lawmakers? [The Consumerist]

Dear Kenny Coleslaw: You should have included quotes from Steve Beshear saying we WOULD NOT consider tax reform in Kentucky. That would maybe prove he’s lying his ass off about flip-flopping. And it’s not just now that people are talking about this. [WFPL]

Former Rand Paul staffer Chris Hightower filed today to run for the State House. Mainstreamers are clamoring for the opportunity to interview him so they can dredge up the Paul campaign history. They likely won’t mention that all of the shenanigans were caused by David Adams and will attempt to lay all blame at the feet of Hightower. [Page One]

Can you hear them now? The Federal Reserve is making its views heard loudly and clearly. [The Economist]

Remember the McDonald’s incident in 2004 where a crank caller talked a manager into forcing an employee to strip? There’s a film about it. It premiered at Sundance. [Sundance]

A hearing over redistricting maps will be held Monday. So the filing deadline has officially been put on hold in Kentucky. [Ryan Alessi]

Carl Fannin is, based on what we can tell, the first Republican elected to county office there in more than 70 years.

You may remember his opponent, Georgia Ison. She’d previously been indicted while County Court Clerk. Steve Beshear appointed her to replace the former Judge-Executive, who also was indicted while in office.

Fannin was the only Republican to win in Elliott County. No other local or statewide candidate was able to do so.

The amazing thing? Less than four percent of Elliott County is registered Republican.

It’s a testament to how disjointed and broken Steve Beshear has allowed his party to become. In the land of Rocky Adkins, Walter Blevins, Jr. and John Will Stacy, no less. It’s a preview of what’s to come in 2012.

While a dying newspaper in Louisville is spending every cent it’s got protecting Steve Beshear – even after the election, I’m going to spend a bit of time doing what I do best: complaining. About campaign finance shenanigans.

While Jerry Abramson was busy traipsing around the state talking about Steve Beshear’s recent trip to India, claiming the efforts are going to be as big as Martha Layne Collins’ efforts with Toyota, we just couldn’t resist raising a few questions that make us more than suspicious. Primarily because everyone involved refuses to answer anything asked.

Here goes…

Larry Hayes, Jennie Prather and Jimmie Wheeler are listed as the officers for DSP, LLC, the limited liability corporation that owns 771 N. Black Branch Road – otherwise known as the T.J. Patterson Industrial Park.

According to the News-Enterprise, the facility Steve Beshear is luring here from India will be located in that very same industrial park:

Tyle joined state and local officials in announcing the construction of Uflex’s first manufacturing facility in the U.S. It will become the first company from India to create a greenfield project — one built from scratch on property where no previous facilities exist — in the U.S., said Anantshree Chaturvedi, director of Uflex and Chairman Ashok Chaturvedi’s son.

The plant, which will produce polyester packaging film, will be constructed in T.J. Patterson Industrial Park on Black Branch Road in Elizabethtown.

In total, the company plans a capital investment of $180 million for the plant, which will be built in two phases.

And according to Hardin County Property Valuation Administrator Danny Hutcherson’s website, 771 N. Black Branch Road is the last address in the 700 block. 850 N. Black Branch Road and 875 N. Black Branch Road are owned by the Elizabethtown/Hardin County Industrial Foundation. You can learn more about their available properties by clicking here. Note that on the odd-numbered side of the road is I Pay Technologies – at 801 N. Black Branch Road.

If this is the location of the fancy Indian plant, wouldn’t it seem that Larry Hayes owns the property one door down and across the street?

Other property owners on that street:

• 641N. Black Branch Road: Elizabethtown/Hardin County Industrial Foundation
• 730 N. Black Branch Road and 750 N. Black Branch Road: Co-owned by Metalsa Structural Products and the Lexington Elizabethtown 730 Corp
• 800 N. Black Branch Road: Elizabethtown/Hardin County Industrial Foundation
• 801 N. Black Branch Road: I Pay Technologies

DSP, LLC also owns property at 907 Peterson Drive, which is just around the corner from that site. It houses Service First Warehouse and Distribution.

On April 22 – just a day before Steve Beshear’s office announced the India deal – Dana Bowers, an executive with I Pay Technologies, along with her husband, Michael, a member of the board of the Elizabethtown/Hardin County Industrial Foundation, each contributed $1,000 to the Beshear-Abramson campaign.

What’s interesting is that Beshear left for India on Saturday, April 19. According to his KREF report, the day before he departed, there were 27 individual $1,000 contributions made to his campaign from Hardin County. The most recent fundraiser around that time was Joe Prather’s $67,000 fundraiser that took place on March 30.

You tell me that’s not pay-to-play with the same bad actors that have been haunting Kentucky for decades. Or at the very least, it barely passes the appearance of impropriety smell test.

Was going to bring this up during the campaign but knew it would be completely ignored by the mainstream. And that stupid religion bit David Williams came up with (wtf?) completely tainted the mess.

Wow.

He suffered with emphysema for quite a while but his family hasn’t yet confirmed the cause of his death.

UPDATE: The State-Journal has a great gallery to help you remember Gatewood.

For a few hours today, releases came from Secretary of State Alison Grimes’ office looking like this:

Only to be changed to this a bit later:

Caused several jokes to start floating around Frankfort and none of them were at Grimes’ expense. The best? Alison had to clean so much up in her office that she needed to go all the way back to when Trey was still around. That’s paraphrased for mixed company, of course.

And here they are:

You’re welcome.

The man had such little positive involvement with neighborhoods that he left everything up to chance. And Louisville’s Metro Council had the freedom to spend willy nilly any Neighborhood Development Funds it saw fit. Fortunately, in 2010, then-president of the council Tom Owen stepped up and demanded a spending review. Jim King, the current president, continued to push for a review on policies and procedures from the Government Accountability and Ethics Committee.

And some changes were made:

• Annual training of Council staff on policies, periodic review of policies and procedures by Council
• Revised procedures to the NDF applications to include an NDF checklist prior to submitting requests for Council review. Specifically, acknowledgement in the application, proceeds of fundraisers, grantee monitoring, additional disclosures of compensation, and more stringent restrictions on funding organization with a relationship to a council member
• Tightening up the subrecipent pass through procedures for nonprofits acting on behalf of other organizations
• Designation of NDF transfers to Cost Center prior to approval
• Limits the use of Kroger Cards for operational costs of the district offices only and requires a dollar amount limitation.

“This Metro Council, through these changes, has taken responsible action in its review of how we spend tax dollars. Transparency and accountability are key to what we do and the public should know this process of checks and balances are needed for the future when groups come to us asking for assistance,” says Council President Jim King (D-10). “I commend Councilwoman Ward-Pugh and Councilman Kramer for their leadership in moving us forward.”

Members of the council tell me that if Jerry had been even remotely involved in running the city, none of this would have been necessary. Had he been involved, former councilwoman Judy Green may not have gotten away with wasting thousands upon thousands of neighborhoods dollars on her friends and family.

P.S. The foreclosure crisis did more for neighborhoods in Louisville than Jerry ever did.