Things are really heating up here in Missoula’s Ward 4 City Council race.
Wilkins, the incumbent, has raised about $2,000. As far as I know he’s using signs from the last election, and he has a lot of them out.
But he’s not winning.
Jesse Ramos is killing it when it comes to the yard sign war.
I don’t know how many he’s printed up, because it doesn’t list it on his C5 campaign finance report. I do know it must be a lot.
I see his signs all over the place, and he puts 2 or 3 of them in each yard. This week he started putting out the jumbo-sized signs, too.
He used Missoula’s Sign Pro Vision, and spent $526 with them. Well, that’s not quite true…it’s listed as a debt, meaning he hasn’t paid them yet.
In total, Ramos has raised $1,878 for his campaign.
That in no way compares to the $4,415 that Chris Badgley has raised.
Still, for some reason…Badgley hasn’t printed up any signs yet.
And maybe that’s smart. We know that Wilkins and Ramos may have broken the law by putting their signs up 30 days before the election.
If you figure the election starts on October 13 – or whenever it is that absentee ballots go out – then those signs shouldn’t have been put up until this week.
Maybe I’m wrong on that, or maybe that rule no longer applies. It could be 90 days before the election, as well. I do know there is a campaign sign removal deadline.
But we still have the current law-breaking that’s going on. Yep, the right-of-way. Ramos is especially bad with this, putting the signs on the boulevard where they’re not allowed.
I wonder if we’ll see a campaign complaint filed about that.
So far no signs have been stolen, that I know of.
I do find it odd as well that Wilkins and Ramos both have signs outside the Pattee Creek Market. I figured if I put one there, it’d be taken away.
I had one taken away – at a house on Higgins and Bancroft where I’ve put my signs before. I even thought I had the permission of the owner…but I guess not.
Or maybe a tenant just took it down. There are 3 Ramos signs on the house’s boulevard’s, after all.
So that was a big loss. I only have 10 signs – they cost $170 – and about 3 metal frames for them left. I didn’t buy more metal frames because I thought I still had some from last year…but I only had 4.
Oh well.
Wilkins, the incumbent, has raised about $2,000. As far as I know he’s using signs from the last election, and he has a lot of them out.
But he’s not winning.
Jesse Ramos is killing it when it comes to the yard sign war.
I don’t know how many he’s printed up, because it doesn’t list it on his C5 campaign finance report. I do know it must be a lot.
I see his signs all over the place, and he puts 2 or 3 of them in each yard. This week he started putting out the jumbo-sized signs, too.
He used Missoula’s Sign Pro Vision, and spent $526 with them. Well, that’s not quite true…it’s listed as a debt, meaning he hasn’t paid them yet.
In total, Ramos has raised $1,878 for his campaign.
That in no way compares to the $4,415 that Chris Badgley has raised.
Still, for some reason…Badgley hasn’t printed up any signs yet.
And maybe that’s smart. We know that Wilkins and Ramos may have broken the law by putting their signs up 30 days before the election.
If you figure the election starts on October 13 – or whenever it is that absentee ballots go out – then those signs shouldn’t have been put up until this week.
Maybe I’m wrong on that, or maybe that rule no longer applies. It could be 90 days before the election, as well. I do know there is a campaign sign removal deadline.
But we still have the current law-breaking that’s going on. Yep, the right-of-way. Ramos is especially bad with this, putting the signs on the boulevard where they’re not allowed.
I wonder if we’ll see a campaign complaint filed about that.
So far no signs have been stolen, that I know of.
I do find it odd as well that Wilkins and Ramos both have signs outside the Pattee Creek Market. I figured if I put one there, it’d be taken away.
I had one taken away – at a house on Higgins and Bancroft where I’ve put my signs before. I even thought I had the permission of the owner…but I guess not.
Or maybe a tenant just took it down. There are 3 Ramos signs on the house’s boulevard’s, after all.
So that was a big loss. I only have 10 signs – they cost $170 – and about 3 metal frames for them left. I didn’t buy more metal frames because I thought I still had some from last year…but I only had 4.
Oh well.
I have my main sign outside my apartment, right at the bottom of a very busy street. My landlord, however, has an Engen sign in their yard.
Boy, those Engen signs are sprouting up like weeds!
I don’t see as many Triepke signs.
And when it comes to the doors…who knows?
I’m not getting out as much as I should, that’s for sure. For one thing, I’ve been working more in the evenings at actual jobs.
There’s always volunteers. I have none. I’m sure Wilkins must have a few, as he’s got signs up everywhere. Ramos might just be knocking on doors like crazy, and asking everyone to put a sign up.
Badgley seems to be sitting on his hands for the moment. Who knows, maybe we’ll see lots of his signs soon.
For me, it’ll be a few signs, then some candidate forums. We have them on September 26, and October 4 and 5.
The Missoulian will be running candidate Q&A’s soon, and perhaps the TV stations will even do stuff.
Besides that, it’s just finding the time to knock on doors and then doing it.
We’ll see who wins this race. Right now I’m not putting my money on the guy with the most money, and I’m not certain Wilkins can win either.
And my, will the vote be split!
I can see it shaping up as a 32%, 30%, 22%, 16% race.
Or it could be a 38%, 28%, 25%, 9% race.
I doubt it’ll be 25%, 25%, 25%, 25% between the 4 of us.
Who knows?
Anything could happen over the next two months, though in the end only about 20,000 Missoulians will have voted and probably just 1,200 or so in Ward 4.
If you’d like to support my race, that’d be great!
I don’t need money – I need places to put my 8 remaining yard signs.
And then there’s the doors.
Boy, I should really hit those up. The person that does so the most will probably win…if it’s not a 'who-has-the-most-yard-signs' kind of year.
We’ll see.
