{"id":15514,"date":"2022-04-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15514"},"modified":"2022-04-14T16:05:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T20:05:47","slug":"fallout-continues-from-brooks-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15514","title":{"rendered":"Fallout Continues from Brooks Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday, at-large County Council Candidate Brandy Brooks announced<\/a> that she is \u201ctaking a period of two weeks to care for myself and reflecting\u201d in the wake of a \u201creport of a hostile workplace environment caused by me.\u201d Brooks says that \u201ca mediated agreement was developed and the terms of that agreement executed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While stating that she seeks \u201cto be as transparent as possible\u201d and decrying \u201cincreasingly inaccurate and malicious reports,\u201d Brooks\u2019s campaign has not disclosed more information about the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaign Manager Michelle Whittaker let me know via email that she disagreed with my post stating that Brooks \u201chas suspended her campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I guess Whittaker can say that taking two weeks off is “taking a brief break” rather than \u201csuspending her campaign.\u201d In Dave<\/em>, a comedy from back in 1993, the White House claimed that the president had \u201csuffered what doctors describe as a minor circulatory problem of the head\u201d after a major stroke. But engaging in self-care and reflecting doesn\u2019t sound like an active campaign. It\u2019s hard to imagine others will be working hard on it when the candidate and campaign manager aren’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about the hostile work environment claim, Whittaker explained that: “I cannot add further comment about that at this time. If you have a question about the campaign operations, I may be able to provide more information.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding Problems<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The campaign has been plagued by rumors regarding its high burn rate\u2014campaign argot for spending money fast\u2014and that it doesn’t have enough left for printing and sending campaign mailers and other forms of voter contact as the primary approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brooks\u2019s most recent campaign finance filing, filed on February 15, reported $55,227.76 in the bank\u2014significantly below what is normally needed for a viable countywide campaign. Nothing in the media, printing or postage sections of either the January or February filings indicate that the Brooks campaign has prepaid for mailers or much other media. She reported spending a total of $1,803.21 on Facebook ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to these two most recent filings, 61% of $47,178.07 in expenditures were on salaries and other compensation. Payments to MCW Creative, Michelle Whittaker\u2019s company accounted for $7,550.00, or 16%, of the total spent on salaries and other compensation. Besides being Brooks\u2019s campaign manager and a communications professional, Whittaker is also her sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the screenshots from the reports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whittaker did not respond last night to questions on the total amount paid to her or the cash-on-hand available to the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, at-large County Council Candidate Brandy Brooks announced that she is \u201ctaking a period of two weeks to care for myself and reflecting\u201d in the wake of a \u201creport of a hostile workplace environment caused by me.\u201d Brooks says that \u201ca mediated agreement was developed and the terms of that agreement executed.\u201d While stating that … Continue reading Fallout Continues from Brooks Campaign<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2498,2431],"tags":[2024,2454],"class_list":["post-15514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-democratic-primary","category-brandy-brooks","tag-brandy-brooks","tag-michelle-whittaker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-42e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15514"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15521,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions\/15521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}