Someone’s Not Feeling the Love: City Council Colleagues Donate Zip, Zero, Nada to This Incumbent

by P.D. Lesko

Tony D.’s campaign finance forms turned in on time to the Washtenaw County Clerk’s office show that he has raised $8,475 to finance his effort to defeat challenger Sally Hart Petersen. Interestingly, Derezinski reported spending only $2,377.11 of the money he had raised. Combined with what remained in his campaign finance war chest, Tony Derezinski is sitting on over $7,000 as of the July 27th filing deadline, just 11 days away from the August 7th primary election. Perhaps Derezinski’s convinced he won’t lose, in which case he’s hoarding money for a future mayoral run. It’s a possibility that he is running his campaign somewhat lackadaisically. Perhaps he’s planning a huge last minute mail blitz of Ward 2 voters. Time will tell. Time will also tell whether sitting on $7,000 through June and July will cost him his seat on City Council.

Among Derezinski’s donors were many of the usual Hive Mind Collective supporters: Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home and Garden, donated to Derezinski, Ward 1 candidate Eric Sturgis, Ward 5 candidate Chuck Warpehoski and Ward 4 incumbent Margie Teall. Hodesh has been steadily writing $100 checks to candidates supported by Borg Queen John Hieftje and his Council drones. William J. Davis, owner of Arbor Spring Water, donated to Derezinski’s campaign, as well.

County Commish Leah Gunn (who is the Treasurer of Margie Teall’s campaign) donated to Derezinski, Sturgis, Teall and Warpehoski. Gunn’s colleague on the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority Board Joan Lowenstein cut checks to Derezinski, Sturgis, Teall and Warpehoski, as well (in varying amounts; she gave Derezinski $100). JoLo and Gunn are backing Ward 1 candidate Eric Sturgis who, A2Politico revealed, ran for precinct delegate in two counties at the same time, and claimed in May 2012 to AnnArbor.com to be “finishing his degree” at EMU. Officials at the university confirmed a month after Sturgis made his claim (which he posted to his web site, then took down) that he had never attended the school.

Derezinski’s colleagues on City Council donated a grand total of nothing to their Ward 2 compadre. While Derezinski’s Ward 2 Council colleague Jane Lumm contributed to other Council candidates, she did not contribute to the re-election campaign of her present Council counterpart. Popular Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin, whose praise of him Derezinski has been using on the campaign trail, didn’t donate to Tony D., but rather to other candidates.

Absent from Derezinski’s campaign finance forms are the name of the big wig Michigan GOP supporters who cut checks to him in 2008, including former Michigan GOP chair Ron Weiser and his wife, Eileen, who donated $500 each. He did have a fundraiser at the home of Ann Arbor District Library Board member Jan Newman. Newman also gave Derezinski $500, as did Newman’s husband. When Jan Newman ran for the Library Board, she listed as supporters former Republican mayor Ingrid Sheldon, Ron Weiser, and Governor Rick Snyder donor and devotee Dr. Beth Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons and Derezinski, through donations to the Friends of Eastern Michigan University PAC, supported Republican state representative Randy Richardville and a variety of other anti-choice candidates. The other fundraiser Derezinski had was at the home of Robert and Marina Whitman. Dr. Marina Whitman, a University of Michigan faculty member, was on the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors under Republican president Richard Nixon and was an economic advisor to the McCain camp when he ran for the presidency.

No doubt to shore up his shaky cred as a “lifelong” Democrat, Derezinski is one of only two Ann Arbor City Council members who have sent financial support to Representative John Dingell. Tony D. contributed $250 to the Congressman’s campaign fund. The Dean of the House is endorsing Derezinski in this race, but unlike in previous years did not send along the usual $250 check to the candidate. It could be because, according to FEC records, Representative Dingell is sitting on only $660,000 in cash in his own campaign war chest, and he faces a self-funded, pro-choice Republican in the general election.

Carol Kuhnke, who’s running for 22nd Circuit Court judge, donated, but no other candidate for either local, county or state office ponied up.

Like Sturgis, Warpehoski and Teall, Derezinski took PAC money from the Hive Mind union pal Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters PAC—a union whose PAC routinely supports Republican candidates and county Republican parties. The union backed Governor Rick Snyder in the 2010 gubernatorial race. In 2010, the Detroit Free Press reported: “The carpenters union supported Republican Dick Posthumus’ gubernatorial bid in 2002, and has given money to Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and the Oakland County Republican Party.”

Neither Derezinski, Teall nor Warpehoski, however, received donations from the DTE PAC. As for taking donations from the company Citizens for Tax Justice have dubbed one the nation’s top “corporate tax dodgers,” here in Ann Arbor that seemed to be a no-brainer for local fauxgressive politicos, perhaps until a November 2011 piece on A2Politico connected some dots. A quick visit to the campaign finance watchdog site FollowtheMoney.org, and one sees that DTE’s largest political donations have been to House Republican Campaign Committee of Michigan, the Michigan Republican Party, Senate Republican Campaign Committee of Michigan and the House Republican Campaign Committee of Michigan. In 2010, DTE gave the majority of its donations to Republicans in the Michigan Senate and Dems in the Michigan House, as well as John Hieftje and former Ward 2 Council member Stephen Rapundalo.

As of July 27, 2012 Derezinski’s largest single expenditure was $800 for his new campaign website. The second largest expense—at $536.40—was an advertisement in the Ann Arbor Observer.