{"id":1638,"date":"2007-04-26T06:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-26T12:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/pro-spaceport-tax-group-raised-more-than-141k\/"},"modified":"2007-04-26T06:31:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-26T12:31:00","slug":"pro-spaceport-tax-group-raised-more-than-141k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/pro-spaceport-tax-group-raised-more-than-141k\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-spaceport tax group raised more than $141K"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>People for Aerospace<\/a>, the group formed earlier this year to promote approval of a 1\/4 percent gross receipts tax in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> to help fund Spaceport America<\/a>, raised more than $141,000 and spent about $140,000 on its successful campaign. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The group provided its final financial figures to me Wednesday afternoon. They will be formally filed with the secretary of state\u2019s office in mid-May, as required by law.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The group had contributions of $10,000 each from Citizen\u2019s Bank, El Paso Electric, First Community Bank, Memorial<\/st1:placename> Medical<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype>, MountainView<\/st1:placename> Regional<\/st1:placename> Medical<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype> and Verde Realty, the company that plans to create a new city<\/st1:city> in Santa Teresa, west of Sunland<\/st1:placename> Park<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>. There were 10 contributions of $5,000 each and a number of smaller contributions from, primarily, businesses and business owners.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to view the entire list of contributors.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The group has been criticized by opponents of the tax as being funded by the rich, and the list of donors won\u2019t likely change their minds. Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler<\/a> has called the campaign \u201cthe rich versus the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

But John Hummer<\/a>, a real-estate executive and one of three co-chairs of the political action committee, said the opponents should ask themselves why they didn\u2019t raise more money.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy for the opposition to focus on our successful fundraising efforts, but it\u2019s also fair to ask, as passionate as you were, why were you not able to get organized and raise funds like People for Aerospace was,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery respectable organization has political action committees, and it\u2019s fair to raise money.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The group\u2019s expenses included almost $60,000 for advertising through Wilson Binkley Advertising and Marketing<\/a> and almost $47,000 to The Victory Group, which is owned by Butch Maki<\/a>, a close friend of Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Maki\u2019s group coordinated door-to-door efforts and campaign strategy.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The PAC spent almost $20,000 paying canvassers to go door-to-door. The group also had dozens of volunteers who knocked on doors and helped with other tasks.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Even with all the money People for Aerospace spent and the volunteers who helped, the tax was approved by only a 1.6-percent margin.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The approximately $1,300 the group has left will be donated to the Las Cruces Public Schools Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People for Aerospace, the group formed earlier this year to promote approval of a 1\/4 percent gross receipts tax in Do\u00f1a Ana County to help fund Spaceport America, raised more than $141,000 and spent about $140,000 on its successful campaign. The group provided its final financial figures to me Wednesday afternoon. They will be formally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}