Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s Campaign Fund Cratering

– Quincy News from Quincy Quarry News.

Follow the money. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY
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Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s campaign fund account balance is cratering.

In the wake of this week’s announcement by Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance that Quincy Mayor Koch will have to disgorge $15,500 in “contributions” to his campaign fund given that at least that much in such “donations” were found to be illegal straw donations.

In turn, Quincy Quarry then opted to take a look at Mayor Koch’s recent campaign account report filings. 

The Quarry so found that even before paying out the $15,500, Koch’s campaign fund bank account is already down by half from what was in the account at the start of the year.

Koch campaign fund account burn rate
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Granted, some of the decline was care of the slow paying bills from his 2019 reelection campaign and which the total outlays look to be running in the mid-six figure range in a race opposite a protest candidate who did not raise any outside money nor spent any more than the minimum filing fees sorts of expenses.

Additionally, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have all but precluded Mayor Koch from his usual practice of holding fund raising galas to replenish his campaign war chest and thus has been reduced to putting a socially distant bite on mostly the usual suspects for contributions. 

That and scoring an apparent pair of “donations” from at least one local which in combination total up to twice the current annual campaign donation limit.

in any event, how much has the precipitous drop in the balance of the Koch campaign fund already impacted his well-known free spending habits?

No more will his campaign fund be paying for any gelato?
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For starters, in the most recent reporting period Mayor Koch has cut in half his usual number of purportedly working campaign meetings over a campaign fund account paid for meals.

At the same time, Quincy Quarry could not find any sign of a trip to Aruba and as was mentioned by Mayor Koch in response to questioning by the Boston tabloid about his latest campaign funding scandal.

No effort, however, was expended by the Quarry for reasons obvious to discern if the halving of the mayor’s dining out is the result of the cash crash, a crash diet or a combination of both.

An infamous ill-advised trip to the beach image.
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Then again, probably even Mayor Koch is most likely smart enough to know to not pay for a vacay with funds from his campaign account.

Let someone else, however, pick up a lot of the tabs while on a religious retreat or cover at least a fair chunck of the cost of a junket to Ireland with local Chamber of Commerce funds which are in turn significantly funded by various so designated local tax revenue streams …

That and probably also knowing that campaign account funds in Massachusetts can be used to at least help cover campaign and/or elected office legal defense expenses.

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