Carlos Ramos

Local activist Carlos Ramos' firm collected $43,000 from the anti-Measure O committee funded by Cal Am between March 18 and June 30.

The campaign against Measure O, the citizens' initiative to start the ball rolling toward public ownership of California American Water's Monterey District, was notoriously deep-pocketed. Final campaign disclosure forms confirm the numbers reported during election season: More than $2.4 million, almost all of it from Cal Am.

(The pro-Measure O campaign, by contrast, stitched together about $100,000 and lost.)

But the Risk We Cannot Afford Committee's final Form 460, published today on the Monterey County Elections website, reveals a bit more about where all that Cal Am money went. Among the highlights of the May 18-June 30 expenses, rounded to the nearest thousand:

  • $116,000 to Buying Time LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based "political paid media strategy" firm
  • $25,000 to campaign manager Paul Higgins (who collected another $23,000 March 18-May 17)
  • $32,000 to Google, presumably for web ads
  • $8,000 to Facebook (not a surprise to those of us who saw the No on O ads bombard our feeds)
  • $54,000 to Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, a Santa Monica-based public opinion research and strategy firm
  • $41,000 to NCC Media
  • $29,000 to KSBW-TV
  • $26,000 to KION-TV
  • $13,000 to NSBW-TV
  • $9,000 to KCBA-TV
  • $6,000 to Monterey County Herald
  • $2,000 to Monterey County Weekly
  • $2,000 to Carmel Pine Cone
  • $101,000 to Trilogy Interactive, a Palo Alto-based design and strategy firm
  • $240,000 to Terris Barnes Walters, an S.F.-based campaign firm
  • $15,000 to Ramos Cordova Strategy Group, which collected an additional $28,000 between March 18-May 17. (The firm includes local activist Carlos Ramos and Salinas-based attorney Juan Uranga)
  • $12,000 to campaign worker Chris Marohn, who was paid another $10,500 March 18-May 17.

The campaign spent just under $2.3 million all told, leaving an ending cash balance of almost $128,000. It still owes on a $250,000 loan made by Cal Am.

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