Pueblo mayoral candidates have raised over $250,000 for the 2023 election

Pueblo candidates for municipal offices filed their first campaign finance reports with the city on Oct. 18.

Although there’s fewer people running for mayor than in 2018, the nine candidates have already raised approximately a quarter of a million dollars — that’s about as much money as in the two mayoral elections five years ago.

The Chieftain obtained these records through an open records request. Here are some takeaways from our analysis of how campaigns are raising and spending money, including how many donations candidates have received from businesses, as well as the average sizes of donations.

Gradisar raising way more money than other candidates

Incumbent Mayor Nick Gradisar has been raising more money than all of the other candidates in the mayoral race. He reported bringing in nearly $96,000 in contributions over the past year.

Gradisar told the Chieftain that shows him that he still has broad community support.

Mayoral candidate Randy Thurston reported over $46,000 that went into his campaign, and Heather Graham brought in over $42,000. Regina Maestri has raised $20,196 and Dennis Flores reported $19,240.

Brandon Martin has raised the most compared to other city council candidates, with over $9,000 reported since he first launched his run for office.

Most of the candidates in contested races have raised at least $1,000, with the exception of water board candidate Celeste Arellano. While Arellano is the only candidate to have qualified for the ballot, incumbent Sandy Gutierrez is mounting a write-in campaign and has raised nearly $5,000.

How many businesses/committees are contributing?

The majority of candidates in this year's local election have not directly accepted donations from limited liability corporations or small donor committees, but approximately 40% of Gradisar’s monetary contributions — $38,000 — have come from non-person donors, according to the Chieftain’s analysis of campaign finance data.

The Pueblo Firefighters Small Donor Fund, affiliated with the International Association of Firefighters Local 3, has given $16,000 to his campaign. The statewide firefighter labor union also has donated $15,000.

The IAFF Local 3 has also given Gradisar’s campaign some in-kind donations through the usage of the union hall in downtown Pueblo for campaign meetings. Gradisar most recently hosted a telephone town hall out of the building Wednesday evening.

He also received $1,000 from the political action committee of the Tacoma-based Consumer Fireworks Safety Association.

In addition, Gradisar has accepted substantial donations from multiple LLCs, including $2,500 from Stem Beach LLC. This is linked to a dispensary which also gave Gradisar’s campaign $500 in 2018.

Brian Cisneros, a Pueblo School District 60 board candidate that has been endorsed by the conservative Christian group Forging the Future, is the business manager at Stem Beach LLC. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Gradisar also accepted several donations from LLCs that he says are connected to developers who want to bring more growth to Pueblo, such as $2,500 from an LLC registered in Key West, Florida called Legends of Golf.

The Legends of Golf LLC is linked to Joseph Cleghorn, who has registered multiple cannabis-related businesses with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, including one in Pueblo West.

“(Cleghorn is) a local developer and has an interest in making sure that Pueblo remains under good, progressive, thoughtful leadership, so I’m happy to have that donation,” Gradisar said.

“One of the goals we've had is to try and make it easier to do business in Pueblo, and I think you'll see that there are contributions from numerous developers there that believe that we're doing that. I'm not bashful, I pretty much asked everybody for money,” Gradisar added with a chuckle.

Thurston’s campaign also accepted multiple large donations from LLCs, but not as many as Gradisar's.

Thurston received a $4,000 donation from Avant Academy LLC, which is linked to a Virginia-based online program that teaches middle and high school students about artificial intelligence.

He also accepted $1,000 from Bhuvi Belmont Place LLC, which purchased a 114-acre plot of land east of Troy Avenue in 2019.

Don Banner, a Pueblo attorney who initially supported Graham but later gave a $1,000 donation to Thurston, represented Bhuvi Belmont Place LLC in a breach of contract lawsuit filed in Pueblo County Court in August 2022 against Fidelity National Title Insurance Company.

The registered agent of Avant Academy LLC, Rajani Kopparapu, appears to be married to Madhusudhan Kopparapu, the registered agent of the Belmont Place organization.

Thurston told the Chieftain that he thinks Pueblo needs to grow faster and that some parts of “doing business with the city” are difficult for developers.

“It doesn't surprise me,” Thurston said about the donation. “In fact, I probably should even have more people wanting to develop and grow Pueblo supporting me as well.”

Thurston has also received a few smaller donations from two Pueblo-based businesses, such as $500 from ASK Insurance Brokers and $150 from Alpha Protection Services.

Graham appears to be the only other mayoral candidate who has accepted a donation from a non-person entity, which was a $2,500 donation from the local police union which announced their endorsement of Graham in September.

It appears that only two city council candidates have accepted monetary contributions from non-person entities and the amounts are much smaller than the mayoral candidates.

At-large city council candidate Elvis Martinez accepted a $90 donation from Perko Law and Vicente Martinez Ortega has accepted a total of $150 from Trujillo Maintenance and Remodeling.

More election coverage: Pueblo elections 2023: Who's running for mayor, councilor? Begin to get answers here

How many people are contributing to the candidates?

Gradisar has received nearly 200 separate itemized donations, outpacing all of the other candidates. Graham is the only other candidate to have reported over 100 separate donations.

Martinez Ortega recorded donations from 80 separate donors, which is the most among the city council candidates and more than most of the mayoral candidates.

Mayoral candidates Larry Atencio, Chris Nicoll, Flores and Thurston all reported between 40-49 separate donations.

City council District 2 candidate Sam Hernandez has only accepted contributions from himself and one other person. Pete Madrid, also a District 2 candidate, has so far only contributed his own cash to his campaign.

What is the average size of donations?

Pueblo municipal races do not have any campaign contribution limits, but some candidates have accepted relatively large individual contributions.

The average size for all of the donations to the municipal candidates so far is $356, but the average size of donations to each of the candidates varies from $58 to over $1,000.

City council District 2 candidate Tom Carrigan reported the lowest average donation. Elvis Martinez for at-large and Vicente Martinez Ortega, the incumbent for District 4, both recorded average donations under $100.

Mayoral candidate Atencio has the lowest average donation size for mayoral candidates at approximately $101.

The average donation size for several of the candidates exceeds the $425 limit for candidates running for state offices: Gradisar, Hernandez, Maestri and Thurston all had an average donation size of over $500.

Thurston had the largest average donation — partially because of the multiple contributions he made to his own campaign — of $1,117.

Gradisar has the largest single donation among all of the candidates for local office: a $25,000 check from Ji-Hyun Bae, who is the director of corporate affairs at CS Wind, according to his campaign finance form.

“They’re very supportive of me and I'm very supportive of them, so I'm so thankful for that donation,” Gradisar said.

Pueblo City Council is likely to freeze the current campaign finance rules before the end of the year, anticipating the implementation of a new state law amid the likely mayoral runoff election. However, councilors could later vote to implement some changes to the city’s campaign finance laws, such as extending the retention requirement and imposing contribution limits.

Gradisar said that he does not think that limiting the size of campaign contributions is a good idea because it could limit donors’ freedom of speech. He said that he would rather see a public financing system, such as what Denver voters approved in 2018.

Several candidates are contributing significantly to their own campaigns

The majority of the candidates have written a check to their campaigns, whether as a direct contribution or in the form of a loan.

The mayoral campaigns of Flores and Thurston are more than half self-funded — Flores loaned his campaign $10,000 and Thurston has directly contributed $25,000.

Graham has not yet contributed to her own campaign, but she told the Chieftain she is considering making a contribution soon to help pay for mailing flyers ahead of the election.

Thurston told the Chieftain he is proud of the fact that he’s contributed so much himself.

“Investing in your own campaign is a show of confidence in your commitment to the community,” Thurston said.

Mayoral candidate Tom Croshal is not accepting any donations from others.

“Potentially, somewhere down the line if I were to get elected, I don't want to be beholden to anyone,” Croshal told the Chieftain about why he’s funding his own campaign.

District 2 council candidate Pete Madrid so far is also only self-funding his campaign.

2023 mayor's race has more money than last time

Although there’s fewer candidates than in the 2018 mayoral election, more money has still been raised than had been at this point in the last election.

Gradisar’s lead over other candidates is proportional to that of 2018 — he had out-raised the runner up by twice as much — but the scale is different.

The nine mayoral candidates this year have already raised approximately as much as the 16 mayoral candidates who qualified for the ballot in 2018, as well as the runoff election in early 2019.

Gradisar told the Chieftain that everything is more expensive today than five years ago.

A few candidates aren't reporting any contributions or expenditures

Croshal and Deryk Trujillo, both running for mayor, have reported not raising or spending any money so far.

Croshal also ran in 2018. He told the Chieftain that he mostly spent his own money during the last race, with the exception of some donations from family members, and is planning on doing the same this year.

He is re-using some of his signs from five years ago.

Croshal said that since the report was filed, he has spent his own money on a local radio advertisement.

Trujillo has his own YouTube show called StreetChamps with nearly 4,000 subscribers, where he has been promoting his mayoral candidacy. He told the Chieftain that he is doing all of the work himself to get the word out about his campaign on social media, so he’s not planning on raising or spending any money on anything else.

“The other candidates are out of touch — they think that these messages are falling upon listening ears, when in reality, you drive by a sign and don't pay two cents about it,” Trujillo said, adding that he’s connecting with people who don’t usually vote.

Water board race heating up

Gutierrez has reported more contributions than several other candidates who are listed on the ballot — but she’s running as a write-in.

The incumbent has raised nearly $5,000 for her write-in campaign to retain her seat on the water board, which includes a $1,000 loan she made to herself.

Gutierrez has raised $3,975 from 22 different donors, including $100 from Pueblo County Commissioner Eppimenio “Eppie” Griego and $150 from former commissioner Chris Wiseman.

Arellano is the only candidate who qualified for the ballot through the petitioning process.

Arellano did not report any monetary contributions or expenditures but did report a $21.52 non-monetary contribution from Michelle Gray, the chair of the Pueblo County Republican Party, for business cards.

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: How Pueblo city candidates are raising money in the upcoming election