Smilin'SammyVille
Looks like the man who garnered margin of victory votes that helped elect Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan last November, James-Not-Jim Green, still owes people money. Mike Howell of the Vancouver Courier has the story:
The company that rented a bus for $9,000 to former independent mayoral candidate James Green for his campaign still hasn't been paid, says the owner of the company.
But Sheldon Eggan of Charter Bus Lines of B.C. Ltd. said Green has stayed in touch with his company and promised he will pay his tab for the use of the 40-foot bus.
Eggan didn't know Green admitted in a Courier story to owing more than $150,000 in debts-an amount he owed prior to renting what Green described as a "rock star" bus in November.
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Green said he still plans to pay his bill, but wouldn't say when that will be. As he told the Courier in a November cover story, "I plan to pay all of my debts off."
In the same story, Green admitted he went bankrupt in 1986, but said he decided not to go bankrupt again over his latest string of debts because it wouldn't be the honourable thing to do.
He said the $9,000 bus tab and the $2,500 he owes for the creation of his website will be included in his campaign disclosure forms, which are due at city hall by March 20. Green said he planned to file his forms today.
He knows the identity of those who donated to his campaign will be of a significant public interest because of the controversy when he garnered more than 4,000 votes in the November election.
Vision Vancouver accused Green of taking votes away from its candidate Jim Green because of voter confusion over the similarity of the names. Vision's Green lost to the NPA's Sam Sullivan by fewer than 4,000 votes.
Sullivan was also questioned for making a phone call on the independent Green's behalf over a campaign office. Some speculated the NPA set up the independent Green to take votes from Vision's Green to ensure Sullivan would win.
Both the independent Green and Sullivan have vehemently denied the accusations. The independent Green said his disclosure forms will make for "boring reading."
"Not much money came in, right," he (James-Not-Jim) said. "I know people are looking forward to discovering something untoward. Let's put it this way, there's none of those ridiculous claims in there that there's money from the NPA or Sam Sullivan."
Green says he received about $2,000 in cash donations, a $2,800 in-kind donation for a newspaper ad and another in-kind donation of $500 to $600 for a campaign office at the Plaza of Nations.
Well, it looks like the amount received was actually a little more than that. We've had a look at Mr. Green's financial disclosure statement that was filed on Mar 20th (warning:pdf) a few days after the story above was published. In the disclosure Green says he pulled in $8,300 in donations, $3,700 of which came from a single 'redacted' corporation. Green's expenditures are listed as $23,000 in total. So, to sum up as it were, James-Not-Jim says he's $15K in the hole on this one.
Now, if somebody who did have an interest, financial or otherwise, in seeing things unfold as they eventually did were to slip Mr. Green a nice tidy wad of green to cover the difference it just might be viewed as a bargain indeed, especially given that Smilin' Sammy says he spent $488,000 of the NPA's $1.9 million all by himself (still no word, however, on where all of Smilin' Sammy's KnoWards green came from the previous fall though).
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Interestingly, James-Not-Jim lists campaign-related 'transportation' expenses as a paltry $120.03. So, where'd he hide the Rock-Star Bus costs?
And something we missed at the time: James-Not-Jim, and/or those who were running him, had the audacity to run a 'Vision' page on his website which, in a testament to the long-lasting nature of successful copulatory exercises of the rodentia kind, is still actually up.
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