City Elections Office Fines Mayor Ted Wheeler’s Campaign for Violations

Wheeler’s campaign manager calls critics’ scrutiny of his activity “borderline harassment.”

By Nigel Jaquiss

The City Elections Office fined Ted Wheeler's campaign $2,000 this week. The campaign failed to include required disclosures about contributors in a May 14 email and accepted more than $500 from an individual contributor, developer Dan Petrusich, after new limits went into place in May.

Wheeler's campaign has now been cited six times by the elections office, which Greg McKelvey, campaign manager for Wheeler's November opponent, Sarah Iannarone, says shows the mayor "believes he is above the law."

Wheeler's campaign manager, Amy Rathfelder, counters that critics' scrutiny of Wheeler's donors is "borderline harassment," and that the mayor is being held to an unfair standard: "The fact that there is neither a grace period or safe harbor allowed under a new, complex set of rules that requires significant time and expertise is without precedent in our city."

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