State fines Kent City Councilwoman Fincher for campaign violations

The state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) fined Kent City Councilwoman Brenda Fincher $600 on Tuesday for late reporting of contributions, expenditures and debts during her 2015 council campaign.

Commission Chairwoman Katrina Asay issued the ruling in Olympia. Asay suspended $500 of the fine. The terms of the suspension are that $100 is paid within 30 days and Fincher commits no further violations over the next four years, according to an email from Lori Anderson, PDC spokeswoman. Fincher participated in the hearing by phone.

Fincher defeated challenger Toni Troutner in a close race in November. Kent resident Bailey Stober filed the complaint in November with the PDC against Fincher, who initially was appointed to the council in 2014 to replace Ken Sharp after he resigned.

Fincher declined to comment about the ruling. After Stober filed the complaint, Fincher admitted during an interview with a reporter in November that she filed reports late.

“I thought they had been filed,” she said. “They are getting in there now. Someone else was doing that, but it is my campaign.”

Fincher filed reports in December that should have been filed anywhere from 30 days to 153 days earlier, according to commission reports. The state can fine candidates for the violations of failing to file reports in a timely and accurate manner as high as $10,000 but also as low as $100.

The commission investigation found that Fincher failed to timely file a monetary contribution report (C-3 report); timely disclose expenditures, in-kind contributions and orders-placed and failed to timely deposit campaign contributions on a C-3 report dating back to Sept. 1, 2015.

Stober has personal experience as far as campaign violations. The PDC fined Stober $2,000 in July for campaign violations in 2011 and 2013 when he lost council races to Deborah Ranniger and Sharp. Stober failed to file contribution and expenditure reports in a timely manner and committed other violations.

Stober issued the following response when asked his reaction by a reporter to the PDC finding:

“I filed my complaint because I was concerned that Ms. Fincher was intentionally skirting the law,” Stober said in an email. “While I do acknowledge through my own mistakes and faults that errors do happen, Ms. Fincher was paying her daughter and a professional treasurer thousands upon thousands of dollars to ensure these errors did not occur.

“Folks donated their hard earned money to invest in a candidate they believed in and those dollars largely went unaccounted for or were paid for professional services that clearly did not occur. I hope in the future Ms. Fincher doesn’t spend thousands of dollars worth of donations on professional services, including her family members, that don’t deliver professional results.

“I hope Ms. Fincher takes the time to correct these errors so she can instead spend her time focusing on the people of Kent and their needs.”