Through Sept. 30, the last reporting date before the election, supervisor candidate Steve Kinsey had raised $116,132 and spent $89,753 while opponent Dotty LeMieux had raised $91,584 and spent $73,006.
Together the two candidates will easily outspend candidates LeMieux and Supervisor Gary Giacomini four years ago, who spent just under $200,000 in what was then the most expensive Fourth District supervisor's race ever.
LeMieux has made an issue of Kinsey's contributions, telling voters in a recent mailing that her opponent has taken large amounts of money from developers, contractors, and Realtors.
"A significant amount of his funding comes from development interests," LeMieux said on Wednesday. "The development interests believe this candidate will benefit their financial interests. The Builders Exchange is a major group who is interested in building in this county."
By his own count, about 20 percent of the money Kinsey, a home designer, has raised has come from people in building and real estate trades.
Kinsey got $2,725 from the Marin Builders Exchange, a trade association for contractors, and the group's leaders and lobbyists. He has also accepted $1,125 from state and local boards of Realtors' political action committees and $145 from Honjo USA, a partner in the San Geronimo Valley's controversial French Ranch subdivision.
He has received $250 from Maggiora and Ghilotti, a construction firm that gets many county contracts; $200 from City Sewer Service; $200 from McPhail's propane; $685 from Fairfax Lumber owner Larry McFadden; and $1,300 from people in the garbage industry.
Kinsey has also accepted money from business interests like Lucasfilm lawyer Doug Ferguson ($110), Broderbund Software executive Mickey Mantle ($250), Levi Strauss owner Walter Haas ($750), PG&E ($500), Chapman and Shepard mortgage company ($1,000), and Bechtel Corporation executive Williston Shor ($300).
Kinsey's campaign has responded with disappointment that LeMieux has resorted to 11th-hour slam tactics. "She's creating an extreme view of the county," Kinsey said, "[in which] some people are clean and some people are dirty."
LeMieux's caustic attitude toward people in the building industry has likely given those people no choice but to contribute to her opponent, Kinsey argued.
"Dotty has closed the door in their face...[by] suggesting that people who use tools for a living are from a lesser caste than people who value the environment," he said.
LeMieux said she makes a distinction: Although she has accepted money from individual builders like Jon Langdon of Inverness and Dennis Rodoni of Olema, she doesn't share Kinsey's "pattern" of accepting money from larger construction interests.
Countered Kinsey, "I don't use the logic... that they somehow own my vote."
Kinsey said he's getting tired of LeMieux and her supporters labeling him an enemy of the environment. He noted his efforts to fight against the Valley's French Ranch and Skye Ranch subdivisions.
"It's not like I'm tearing up the countryside," he said. Kinsey noted that of the contributors LeMieux is "demonizing," some are people he has worked with in his small home design company and "in some cases it's my next door neighbor."
Countered LeMieux, "I'm not demonizing contractors. I'm suggesting that people look at the facts and make of their own minds."
Not surprisingly, Kinsey would prefer people to consider the money and support he's gotten from environmentalists. He noted that environmentalists like Joe and Linda Nation, Karin Urquhart, Peter and Sally Behr, and Marty Rosen have helped Kinsey raise thousands of dollars.
Through Sept. 30, Kinsey had received $1,450 from the League of Conservation Voters. (The same group has given LeMieux $875.) He has gotten $550 from former Marin Conservation League director Pamela Lloyd and $1,500 from the Valley's Noble family, whom he calls strong environmentalists.
LeMieux too has gotten financial backing from environmentalists. Among them are the state Sierra Club ($1,000), naturalist Elizabeth Terwilliger ($100), and conservationist Annette Gellert of Tiburon ($1,000).
She has also accepted money from activists who have waged various battles countywide. Eric Shapiro, who fought against the Buck Center, gave LeMieux $600, and Cela O'Connor, a Dogtown activist trying to gain greater public access to Seadrift beach, has chipped in $875.
Three people who have battled filmmaker George Lucas' attempt to expand - Daniel Chaffin ($100), Joy Dahlgren ($195), and Jean Fitzgerald ($100) - have contributed to LeMieux. So have Wiebke Buxbaum ($375) and Teresa Soule ($420), opponents of West Marin Sanitary Landfill, and a group fighting development of St. Vincents/Silveira Ranch ($100).
Here are some more observations:
The election is Tuesday, Nov. 5.