Pasadena Candidates Release Finance Reports

Nicholas T. Conway, a candidate for the District 1 seat on the Board of Directors, has raised about $4,000 more than his opponent, Isaac Richard, in the weeks leading up to the April 16 runoff election.

According to campaign finance reports filed a week before the election, Conway raised $18,610 to Richard’s $14,310 in the six-week period covered in the reports from Feb. 17 through March 30.

Coupled with the $10,797 Conway raised before the March 5 primary, his overall campaign was monetarily ahead, with $29,407 to Richard’s $25,178.

Conway, a municipal auditor with his own business and a past president of the Linda Vista Annandale Assn., received 65 contributions of $100 or more. Many were from his business contacts and from businesses in Northwest Pasadena.

The largest contribution, $2,000, came from the Supervisors Recreation Fund, a political action business group headquartered in Los Angeles. Another $1,500 came from Owl Rock Products, an Arcadia cement company with a plant in Pasadena.

Other contributors and their amounts included $300 from Larry Mielke, president of the Gemtel Corp. and developer of the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, and $500 each from Scott Shaeffer, manager of Checker Cab; American Golf Corp., operator of the city’s Brookside Golf Course; Binney, Chase & Van Horne, a Pasadena law firm; the Pasadena Athletic Club, and the Union Oil Co. in Los Angeles.

Contributions of $250 each came from Dennis Gertmenian, owner of Ready-Pac, a Pasadena food packaging company; Pasadena architect Robert McClellan; Anchor West Financial, and Cole & Co., financial consultants.

Conway contributed $500 to his campaign in office help from his own business, Arroyo Seco Associates.

Richard received 31 contributions of $100 or more. They included $2,500 from Sanford/Pillsbury Inc., a Los Angeles film company, and $1,000 each from Lonnie Bunkley, an investor in a Northwest Pasadena commercial development; Pasadena developer Jeylene Moseley, and Peter Vaughn of Community Bank.

Those contributing $500 included Pasadena attorney Carolyn Carlburg, who filed a lawsuit against the city’s growth management initiative; Pasadena physician Daniel Eisenberg, Beverly Hills investor Leyton Hull, actress Patti Johns Eisenberg, and the Orange Grove Body Shop in Pasadena. Architect and former mayor Tim Matthews contributed $250.

Meanwhile, in the runoff election for the board of the Pasadena Unified School District, incumbent Elbie Hickambottom reported receiving more than three times the amount of money reported by his challenger, E. Clark Coberly.

Hickambottom reported $12,924 for the period from Feb. 17 to March 30, while Coberly reported $3,845 for the same period. Altogether, including the primary, Hickambottom raised $22,161 and Coberly $8,495.

Of the amount Coberly raised during the runoff campaign, $1,000 came from the California Real Estate Political Action Committee and another $1,500 was loaned to the campaign by Bonneville Steel Inc. in Irwindale, of which Coberly is chief financial officer.

Hickambottom received 43 contributions of $100 or more. They included $500 from ACT , $250 from Oscar and Lydia Fernandez-Palmer of El Centro Cultural de Accion, and $100 from the Pasadena Firefighters Assn.