A political action committee has raised $47,140 to support candidates running for the Arnold mayoral and City Council seats in the April 8 election.
The PAC, called Building a Better Arnold, formed on Jan. 3 to support the re-election campaigns for Mayor Ron Counts, Ward 1 Councilman Jason Fulbright, Ward 3 Councilman Mark Hood and Ward 4 Councilman Butch Cooley. The committee also lists Tim Seidenstricker, who served as a Ward 2 councilman from 2019 to 2023 and is running again for the seat, as a candidate it supports, according to filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Ward 4 Councilman Gary Plunk is listed as the treasurer for the Building a Better Arnold PAC.
According to the committee’s Feb. 26 financial report, Building a Better Arnold had spent $10,061.59 for the upcoming election. The committee paid $9,760,59 for a campaign consultant and $301.13 to provide food for a fundraising event.
“I think you have people in the community who want people who are going to represent Arnold and make it a better place to live,” Counts said of the PAC. “That has always been my goal. I am hoping that is why they support me.”
It appears that the Building a Better Arnold is the only PAC supporting Arnold candidates in the upcoming election, based on a search of filings on the Missouri Ethics Commission’s website. All but five of the 14 candidates running for Arnold offices have their own registered committees for their campaigns – Counts, Cooley, mayoral candidate Tyler Baechle and Ward 3 council candidates Spencer Rice and Jessica Bess.
Candidates running for a municipal office in cities with populations less than 100,000 are not required to register a committee and submit campaign finance reports if they do not receive more than $325 from a single contributor or spend more than $1,000 of their own money during a campaign, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Mayor
Counts is running against former Ward 1 Councilwoman Doris Borgelt, current Ward 2 Councilman Bill Moritz, Brett Keller and Tyler Baechle in the mayoral race.
Borgelt, Moritz and Keller each have formed election committees, while Baechle does not have one listed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
The top contributor to the Building a Better Arnold PAC is Jones Realty Commercial Properties, which donated $15,000. The property sales, acquisition and management company lists the Arnold Crossroads, Arnold Plaza, Jeffco Plaza, JSZ (which is inside Arnold Crossroads), Rockport Plaza and Tenbrook Plaza retail complexes among its properties.
Alan Bornstein, who is listed as a self-employed developer and consultant who lives in California, made the second largest contribution, at $10,000, and Jeffrey Otto, who is listed as being employed by Bornstein, contributed $1,500. Mark Loyd, who owns Meramec Fireworks, contributed a total of $7,500, according to Building a Better Arnold’s Feb. 26 filing.
Bornstein and Otto are both part of the Arnold Acquisition Company LLC, a private company that was purchasing property for the now-abandoned Arnold Parkway road project.
Counts said the contributions from Jones Realty and Bornstein are not signs that the city will seek to revive the Arnold Parkway project, which sparked controversy when city officials announced in August that it wanted to build a nearly 2-mile, two-lane road to connect Hwy. 141 and Richardson Road.
The road project was abandoned later that month after the public backlash, which included a push for recall elections for every elected official in the city and a lawsuit from a shopping plaza owner to stop the road project, dissolve the Arnold Retail Corridor Transportation Development District and stop collecting a 1-cent sales tax from businesses in three shopping centers in that transportation development district.
The group that started the recall drive dropped the effort in September, but the lawsuit is still ongoing.
City Council members voted in October to affirm the termination of the Arnold Parkway project.
“I can assure people that the Arnold Parkway is dead,” Counts said. “I don’t know what else to say. We have said it a million times, and it hasn’t changed.”
Keller, who also is the treasurer for the Committee to Elect Brett Keller, raised the second highest amount of campaign funds among the five mayoral candidates. According to his Feb. 22 filing report, he had contributed $8,500 for his campaign and had spent $1,973.07. No one else had contributed to Keller’s campaign.
“I think it speaks volumes,” he said of not accepting donations for his campaign. “I’m here to put the community first, and the community’s needs first. I hate to be a cynic, but you have to question what is the PAC’s true motivation for the city and residents. They are funding candidates across the board.”
Moritz’s committee, which has Deb Amato listed as treasurer, collected the third highest amount, $3,372, and had spent $2,375, according to a Feb. 26 filing. However, Moritz loaned his committee $2,722 and anticipates repaying himself as more contributions are collected, according to the report.
“I’m fighting so much money, you got to wonder what is the point?” he said. “We probably should have started six months ago, but I didn’t know I was going to run six months ago.”
Borgelt’s committee, which has Cathy Wooldridge listed as treasurer, received $2,100 in contributions and had spent $60, according to a Feb. 24 filing.
Borgelt received $1,000 in contributions from both Rob Rosenfeld, who owns the Ozark Hills Mobile Park, and Ryan Hotchkiss, CEO of Horizon Land Management, a Maryland-based company that owns the Jeffco Estates Mobile Home Community. Rosenfeld and Hotchkiss’s company have filed lawsuits against Arnold for what they claim are unfair practices against mobile home communities in the city.
“I think (the city) is trying to systematically get rid of mobile home parks,” Borgelt said. “It is not right. They shouldn’t have to sue the city. The city should cooperate with them instead of trying to litigate.”
City Council
In Ward 1, Fulbright, who was first elected to the council in 2013, formed the Committee to Elect Jason Fulbright. The committee filed a limited activity report on Jan. 22, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.
Candidates may file limited activity reports if they have not received contributions of more than $500, spent more than $500 or received more than $300 from a single contributor, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Troy Blacksher, who is trying to unseat Fulbright, formed the Committee to Elect Troy Blacksher, and he contributed $800 of his own money to the campaign. According to a Feb. 26 filing, the committee had not spent any money on the campaign.
In Ward 2, Michael Rother’s Committee to Elect Michael Rother had collected $3,525 and spent $3,155.04, according to a Feb. 27 filing report. Rother’s top contributor was the Boilermakers Local 27, which contributed $1,000.
Seidenstricker, whose committee is Friends of Tim Seidenstricker, filed a limited activity statement on March 4.
In Ward 3, the Committee to Elect Mark Hood filed a report on Jan. 14 showing it forgave a loan from Hood for $479.26, and a Feb. 19 report shows the committee paid Hood $535.29 for a loan. His February filing also showed the committee no longer has funds in its account.
Rice and Bess have not accepted donations or spent more than $1,000 of their money on their campaigns and have not filed reports.
In Ward 4, Mike Rethmeyer formed the Mike Rethmeyer Election Committee on Feb. 25, but no finance reports had been filed as of March 20.
No active committee could be found for Cooley.