When told fellow District 1 city council candidate Patrick Wojahn raised more than $2,000 in campaign contributions, Jonathon Molinatto had a simple reaction.
“Wow.”
The $2,285 Wojahn raised beat Molinatto’s $266. It dwarfed the contributions the district’s other candidates collected – Larry Bleau raised $123 and William Flanigen scraped together $35.
But few of the candidates in the city’s most competitive council race could compare with Mark Cook, an uncontested District 3 candidate who raised $2,050, mostly from his own pocket, according to campaign finance reports.
Wojahn, who has spent more than three-quarters of the money he raised, said the main reason he has spent more than the other candidate is that in addition to the flyers most candidates hand out, he also purchased lawn signs for over $400 and door hangers for over $700.
“I think I’ve done a good job of getting my name out there,” Wojahn said.
Still, thick pocketbooks haven’t always translated to winning campaigns in past city council races. In fact, five-term District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin said many times a long list of donors has been compensated for candidates’ other shortcomings.
“If you spend a lot of money, it’s because you’re doing something wrong,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money to win. People should know who you are years before you run for office.”
This was the very reason Bleau said he passed up the lawn signs. In District 1, he has run a self-financed campaign along with Flanigen. In District 2, home to the city’s only other contested election, none of the candidates accepted contributions aside from their own money.
Wojahn raised all of his campaign cash through donations ranging from $25 to $250. Although some of the donors were from College Park, many were from elsewhere in the D.C. region and from places as distant as Wisconsin and Miami.
He said the people who donated money to his campaign were friends, family and people who he talked to about his campaign who “support him as an individual.”
The door hangers, which Wojahn said he has only put out in the past week, are intended to remind citizens when and where to vote, he said.
“It concerns me that the turnout for the municipal elections is very low,” Wojahn said.
Cook expressed similar concerns about low turnout in city elections, pointing out that although District 3 has an educated voting base, only about 400 of the district’s roughly 3,300 voters make it to the polls for the last city election.
“Although I don’t have a formal opponent,” said Cook, who is running alongside incumbent Stephanie Stullich for two seats, “the opponent for a lot of College Park is apathy.”
Cook compared the amount College Park candidates are raising to the amount candidates are raising in nearby Bowie, where three candidates for two open council seats have combined to raise more than $25,000, according to The Gazette.
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