Deena Winter: Let the games begin

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The new year hadn’t even begun when campaign accusations began flying last week.

The city’s spring elections suddenly don’t seem so far away; a mayor and four council members will be elected in the April 3 primary election and May 1 general election.

The state Democratic Party kicked off the campaign season last week by filing a complaint with the state Accountability and Disclosure Commission alleging Republican mayoral candidate Ken Svoboda violated state law with a poll conducted by his campaign.

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In a press release, the party said a Svoboda telephone poll in early December “included a number of negative references to (Democratic mayoral candidate) Chris Beutler” and therefore amounted to a campaign message, which requires pollsters to identify who paid for the message if asked.

The Democrats say they received at least two complaints from people who were polled and asked who was taking or paying for the poll, but weren’t told.

“As the campaign for mayor in the city of Lincoln gets under way, it is critical that all parties involved follow the applicable laws associated with campaigns in this state,” Steve Achelpohl, state chairman of the Democratic Party, said in the press release.

Svoboda said the law does require disclosure if it’s a push poll, but he said his was an internal poll to gauge how the public feels about issues facing Lincoln. A push poll is a campaign technique in which the “pollster” attempts to influence voters’ opinions under the guise of a poll.

Svoboda said people were asked questions about he and Beutler, but the questions were balanced in both numbers and content. Two questions referred to Beutler as a liberal and “friends with Don Wesely,” but Svoboda said, “Since when is that a negative?”

People also were asked about Svoboda’s support for neighborhood issues and his landscaping company’s performance on a city contract. Earlier this year the public works director threatened to yank Svoboda’s contract to maintain certain city medians because he was unhappy with the company’s performance.

More than 80 questions were asked altogether.

“There is nobody that does a push poll with 80 questions,” he said. “And nobody does a push poll five months out.”

And if it were a push poll, tens of thousands of people would have been called, he said.

A spokesman for the Democratic Party, Eric Fought, said it doesn’t matter whether it was a push poll or just a poll; either way, the person paying for it should have been disclosed when asked.

“Our understanding of the law is that a poll would fall under that part of the act,” he said. State offices were closed Tuesday and so Accountability and Disclosure Commission officials were not available for comment.

Svoboda’s pollsters also asked people who they’d vote for if the election were held that day, and while Svoboda wouldn’t disclose the results, he did say, “I’m very pleased with the way the poll turned out.”

Budget blues

Piles of paper were handed out during a recent five-year budget forecast meeting. We won’t make you read them all. We did it for you, and here are the highlights:

* The forecast includes a long wish list compiled by city departments, bestowing asterisks beside wishes the mayor would likely grant and therefore included as costs in the five-year forecast. There aren’t many asterisks, although the Antelope Valley Project gets a lot of them, along with new parks and trails maintenance.

* While the police department would like to add 10 officers per year in order to reach its goal of providing 1.5 cops per 1,000 population by the year 2016, the budget forecast includes no dollars for additional officers.

* The public works department would like $1 million over the next five years to implement elements of the new Downtown Master Plan, such as a new bus transfer center and light rail trolley, but got no asterisk for that.

* The engineering services division of public works requested a whopping $270,870 in the next five years to cover the cost of “attending meetings/putting information together on economic development projects.” No asterisk.

* The fire department would like to add new fire stations in the next few years, along with new firefighters, but they got no asterisks.

* The Urban Development Department didn’t get an asterisk to spend $3.1 million to do improvements associated with the civic plaza planned for 13th and P streets, nor $300,000 to implement a downtown shuttle recommended by the Downtown Master Plan.

* The forecast includes money to increase the city subsidy for the Pershing Center by $75,000 annually for the next five years, for a total annual subsidy of $600,000.

* The planning department would like $40,000 in annual consulting costs restored to its budget, arguing that it’s cheaper to hire a consultant than to hire full-time staff to handle “specialized areas” such as the recent revisions to the Downtown Master Plan. No asterisk, however.

Altogether, city departments would like to hire nearly 181 full-time employees in the next five years, and spend $109.6 million on projects and needs, or to restore previous budget cuts. But the budget forecast predicts fulfilling only about $2.3 million of those requests next year.

Even after rejecting most of those spending requests, the city is still predicting a projected budget gap of nearly $9 million next year. Which means it’s pretty unlikely most of those wishes will come true.

And that makes three ...

Another candidate has emerged for the City Council’s northwest Lincoln district, District 4.

Justin Larsen plans to run for the District 4 seat now held by Annette McRoy.

Larsen ran unsuccessfully for the Airport Authority in 2005 and has helped with other Republican campaigns. He is a response management coordinator for Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha. He is planning a kickoff on Tuesday.

“This is going to be a different kind of campaign than we’ve seen in the past,” he said. For example, he plans to start a charity to provide needy children with school supplies and clothing.

John Spatz, another Republican who is legal counsel for the Nebraska Association of School Boards, also plans to run for the seat. He also will formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday.

McRoy, a Democrat, intends to seek re-election.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.