Complaint Filed Against Newport School Bond Group

RI Board of Elections director Richard Thornton acknowledged on Tuesday receipt of a complaint filed by the local group "Vote No on the White Elephant." The group has been running print and social media advertisements asking voters to reject the $106 million Newport school bond question on the November ballot.

The complaint asserts that a pro-bond group, "Building Newport’s Future," has been raising and spending money as a “Ballot Question Advocate” since May 2020, but has not filed any campaign finance disclosures.

“Vote No” group leader Mike Cullen, also a candidate for Newport School Committee, provided the following statement: “I am disappointed at how fast and loose the team behind the ‘Yes on Newport Question 2’ has been playing since their expensive May 2020 postcard mailing just ahead of a critical city council vote. In light of last week’s campaign mailer and money-laundering trial involving RI House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, one would think that this local group would scrupulously follow the reporting law, if not the spirit. Their apparent cavalier attitude toward campaign finance transparency is inexplicable unless they feel that powerful state-level political interests ’have their backs.”

In the group’s complaint, Cullen cites the May postcard mailing linked to political marketing firm Checkmate Consulting, the use of an address tied to school committee member Aida Neary, a June incorporation filing (citing directors Aida Neary, Amy Machado, Kendra Muenter), an active web site soliciting contributions via the national ActBlue political fundraising site, a Facebook page, references to the group’s website on local print advertising, and “click-thru” hyperlinks to the same website on various social media advertisements.

The “Vote No” group’s filed complaint can be viewed via https://bit.ly/3jXSzHn