Campaign Finance

Given the Glendale current population estimate is about 13,000, and it is broken into six districts, that's about 2,200 people in the 5th District. One thing I need to indicate when filling out nomination papers, is if wanted to raise or spend more than $2,000 on my campaign; that's about a dollar per person. If so, it would require a whole bunch of campaign committee finance reporting work. The next question is how much should I throw in myself, versus try and raise. Finally, I need to decide how to spend what funding I have for a campaign to best get the word out to those who do not know me, yet.

Well, here's my answers...

Should I raise/spend more than $2,000?
No. For all of my campaigns, I checked the less than $2,000 box.

That's about a dollar per person in the district which I thought should be plenty considering I planned to do most the leg work (literally) myself.
What should I cover myself?
I fund most of my campaigns out of my own pocket. Alderman is not a high paying job, at $8,000 per year, so I consider it mostly a volunteer position. When I did the math, for the time I put in, I do not make more than minimum wage!
I’m not a career politician, and never intend to be.

That said, I would rather spend my time talking to my neighbors than fund-raising and filling out forms! We invested over $50,000 into an addition on our home; my elected service is another investment I make in the community.
I can’t take in more than $100 from any one person, even if someone wanted to give more, since I am not doing all that campaign finance paperwork. No big donors allowed.
How I spend what little funding I have.
I setup my own domain ($12/year), website ($16/month), and Facebook page (free). I do my own design of mailers, flyers, and yard signs. I couldn't print my own yard signs ($6/each), and my home printer isn’t great at turning out hundreds of full color copies, so I turn to professionals for that (at maybe 10 cents/each).

So, like local should be, I keep things small.