For weeks, a political action committee known as the “No on Prop J PAC” has funded ads falsely accusing Proposition J’s supporters of using “dark money” to push for Prop J, which gives Austin residents the right to vote on big changes to our local land-development laws.
What hypocrisy!
According to an official complaint filed with the City of Austin, the No on Prop J PAC illegally concealed the powerful Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) as its main donor until October 30th, when the PAC filed its 8-day financial report. According to that financial report, RECA made a $10,000 contribution to the No on Prop J PAC on October 22nd, but that contribution was not disclosed on the group’s previous ATX-1 report, as required by law.
That means Austin voters were kept in the dark about the identity of the land developers and realtors opposing Proposition J for almost the entire early-voting period. It also means that the No on Prop J PAC has broken Section 2-2-32 of the Austin City Code.
“RECA’s contribution makes up about half of this PAC’s funds, so it is difficult to believe this was an oversight,” said Community Not Commodity President Fred Lewis, who filed the complaint. “By failing to disclose its $10,000 contribution, this PAC hid its largest and most controversial donor from the public. This is the oldest dirty trick in the books.”
According to Lewis’s complaint, the No on Prop J PAC’s failure to report the money it received from RECA appears to be intentional, “since sophisticated political insiders are heavily involved in the PAC, such as Mark Yznaga (political consultant) and John Michael Cortez (political aide).”
This Election Day, let’s put a stop to the real dark money in this race. Let’s show Austin’s profit-driven real-estate industry that we are more interested in community values than land values. Let’s prevent the “next” CodeNEXT.
Let’s have a say and vote YES on PROP J!
Paid Political Advertisement by Community Not Commodity, Austin Texas.