It’s election season in Sacramento — do you know how to follow the money in the 2010 City Council campaigns? You can get the scoop on campaign contributions through the city of Sacramento’s Online Campaign Statement System. 

The system, which is free and open to the public, provides information on contributions to City Council candidates.

Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno gave tips Thursday on navigating the online system.  

In the past, Mizuno said, the public would have to appear in person to request campaign information. “In this case, you can do it at home, at your computer.”

There is a link to the online system at the city clerk’s website under the heading “Elections & Campaigns.” Click on the link titled “Online Campaign Statement System.” 

That goes to a page with the following heading: “Welcome to the City of Sacramento Electronic Filing System.” Here, is the “Public Access Portal.”

Click on the “Get Started Now” link at the Public Access Portal.

This will take you to a page with a heading that reads: “Welcome to the City of Sacramento Public Portal for Campaign Finance Disclosure.”At the bottom of this page is a heading titled “Browse Candidates & Measures by Election.”

To learn about campaign contributions for the June 8, 2010 election, click on the plus sign for the heading titled “06/08/2010 Primary Election.” Then, click on the plus sign next to the heading titled “Candidates.” You can now click on plus signs for the four City Council districts. 

You’ll see the following candidates for City Council District 1: Angelique Ashby, Lisa Kaplan and Ray Tretheway. The candidates under the “City Council D3” heading are Steve Cohn and Shawn Eldredge.

City Council District District 5 shows seven candidates: Kasey Cotulla, Lauren Hammond, Henry Harry, Terrence Johnson, Patrick Kennedy, Jameel Pugh and Jay Schenirer.

The four candidates listed under the heading for City Council District 7 are Ryan Chin, Darrell Fong, John Puente and Robbie Waters.

You can click on the names of each candidate to learn about their campaign contributions.

For example, if you click on "Angelique Ashby," you’ll arrive at a page that shows the forms Ashby has filed. Ashby is a partner in a consulting firm that contracts with government agencies and businesses. 

Click on the word “View” for Ashby’s Form 460. You’ll be taken to a 10-page PDF document that lists her contributors and the amounts they gave. For example, you can read that retired Davis resident Patricia Grafton contributed $1,500 to Ashby’s campaign. 

The 460 forms “are the ones you want to watch for,” Mizuno said. “Those are the ones that have detail in them.”

Other critical information on Form 460 includes the candidate’s contributions, expenditures, current cash statement, cash equivalents and debts. For example, Ashby received $10,274 in contributions from Jan. 1 to June 30. Her ending cash balance for that period was $9,220.26.

Five of the candidates don’t have 460 forms in the online system. Mizuno explained that those candidates opened their campaign committee after July 1, which means their deadline for the 460 forms is Jan. 31. Look for 460 forms in January from Darrell Fong, Jameel Pugh, Steve Cohn, Shawn Eldredge and Henry Harry.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.