"Why did IMPAC donate $1,000 SIX DAYS after the April 12, 2016 election? Is this how the bulldozer club spikes the football?" - reader comment
The final list of contributors and their generous donations to the 'Yes On Measure UUT' campaign does not become available to us until sometime in June, but certain information has begun to surface. Especially the larger amounts like this $1,000 beauty pictured above. Those need to be declared a bit earlier, as Ms. Putnam has apparently become aware recently.
The identified source of this loot is something called the "Issues Mobilization Political Action Committee," and is an entity of the California Association of Realtors. This is probably the largest donation from them to any campaign in Sierra Madre since the bumping big sums of cash they coughed up in the attempt to defeat Measure V a little less than a decade ago.
That didn't work out quite as well for them.
Here's the mystery as I see it. What exactly was in it for the CAR this time around? What was it about Measure UUT that caused them to write so large a check to Amy Putnam? And, even more to the point, what exactly is this 'Issues Mobilization Political Action Committee' anyway?
Here is how that one is described on the California Association of Realtors website (link):
I was not aware that Measure UUT was a local ballot measure that might "affect real property rights in California." Something that appears to make reference to the longstanding claim of the Arcadia Association of Realtors group that those it favors should be allowed to build whatever they want, and wherever they want, despite what concerned locals might feel is best for their community.
In short it is the belief that developers and their Realtor allies should have more favorable land use rights than residents.
This does make you wonder what might have been promised to them by the folks running the Yes on Measure UUT campaign. Most of whom were opposed to Measure V back in the day.
There are a few huge land use issues this city will be facing in the next couple of years. The origin of this $1,000 donation from what should have been an unrelated source does raise a few questions.
Especially when you consider the stated political purpose of that source.
Maybe there is something we don't know yet. Or perhaps we do.
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