Schor is a lousy mayor, but a great campaigner

July 30, 2021; updated August 12

The pre-primary campaign finance reports are in, and Andy Schor has done it again! Raised more money than he could possibly need. The reports cover the period from 1/1/2021-7/18/2021. Click name to see actual report.

	Andy Schor	Kathie Dunbar	Patricia Spitzley	Farhan Sheikh-Omar
Ending Balance	179,750.32	75.86	1,214.15	0
Contributions	179,745.36	28,810.01	18,130.00	1,621.48
Expenditures	125,457.55	16,308.88	16,072.78	1,265.10
New Balance	234,038.13	12,576.99	3,271.37	356.38

Candidates Melissa Huber and Larry Hutchinson Jr. were granted reporting waivers, which means they did not expect to receive or spend more than $1,000.

Schor received 448 contributions, including multiple contributions from some individuals. 53 of the contributions were over $1000. Top contributors:

Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 333 PAC	11,000
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC	10,000
Michigan Laborers Political League PAC	10,000
Christman Company employees	6,540
Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters PAC	5,000
Friedland Industries Inc (Lawrence and Diana Bass)	4,200
Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber employees	3,350
Clark Construction employees	3,100
City of Lansing employees	2,798
Board of Water & Light employees	2,350
Karoub Associates employees	2,250
Gillespie Group employees	2,100
Manvil Grewal Sr - Grewal Law PLLC & Church Wyble	2,100
Judi Herbert	2,100
Jason Lichtman - Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Berns	2,100
Joel R Szirtes - HealthCall	2,100
Governmental Consultant Services Inc PAC & employees	2,000
Honigman Miller Schwartz & Co employees	2,000

Here is the entire list of contributions in three sequences:

Contributor name
Contribution amount
Employer/affiliation

Schor's 3 fundraisers netted only $15,717:

Date	# Attendees	Type	Location	Total Contributions	Cost
3/10/2021		Kickoff 2021		$9,700	$0
6/30/2021	14	Lansing Happy Hour	Private residence	$5,400	$507.42
7/13/2021	22	Lansing Westside	Private residence	$1,625	$500

Campaign expenditures totaled $125,457.55. Here is the detail in 3 sequences (In a few instances, the amounts are zero. I assume that this is a glitch in MERTS, the primitive reporting software provided by the state that the campaign uses):

As reported
Payee name
Purpose

Some of the larger expenditures:

Payee	Purpose	Amount
Grassroots Midwest	Consulting, printing, etc.	40,252.99
Heather Ricketts	Fundraising consulting	40,000.00
Megan Crane	Consulting and health care stipend	19,030.77
Kylee Johnson	Field consulting	2,833.33
Jose Ventura	Field consulting	2,820.00
Cubesmart Lansing	Storage	2,076.76
Rachel Winfield	Field consulting	2,000.00
ActBlue	Credit card processing	1,199.49
USPS	Postage	980.00
Cole McEldowney	Field consultant	500.33

Some examples of Schor's failure as mayor:

He is being sued by former fire chief Randy Talifarro and 8 other Black former City employees for racial discrimination.
An Ingham County medical examiner determined Anthony Hulon's April 2020 death in the city jail was a homicide by positional asphyxia. Schor claims not to have learned of that determination until 6 months later, when the family filed a lawsuit.
He has not lifted a finger to get Tamara Arend out of the toxic home she was left in after a botched roof replacement done through the City's Homeowner Rehabilitation program. Story here.
His administration managed to lose the report of an inspection done on Tamara Arend's home before the roof replacement. They acknowledge that the inspection was done, but offer no explanation for why there is no report.
His administration refuses to provide a report of employee payroll information for 2020. The Bernero administration did so each time I asked: 2010 and 2016.
As I said in this story, retirement board meeting minutes cannot be found under AGENDAS & MINUTES on the City's new website.
From the CP Edit in the City Pulse, 7/7/2021:

...

The City Pulse described Schor as "detached". That may be because he has little interest in being mayor. When he first ran in 2017, he started off with $90,000 left over from his state representative campaign account. His strategy in the current campaign is to accumulate as much as possible so he can eventually transfer it to his next campaign - for governor, U.S. representative, U.S. senator - whatever. Winning that higher office is all-important. Performing official duties? Not so much. Winning takes money, and Andy Schor is a master at hoovering up money, as demonstrated by the fact that he has $234,038.13 in his account. His ability and determination to run a professional, all-out campaign is reassuring to his big money backers. Once he's in office, they don't expect him to do much other than what they want. (See top 3 contributors, above.)

Note: Michael Lynn Jr mentions this story in the 8/11/21 edition of his Facebook show Merica 20 to Life. He has some insightful things to say about Andy Schor and the Democratic machine or "monster" in Lansing and Ingham County. The show is nearly 3 hours long, so start at 2:33:50 and watch/listen for about 10 minutes.

A note about reporting campaign finance data.

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