Denton City Council candidates submitted their final campaign reports for the 2024 municipal election last week revealing thousands in developer donations, contributions to support each other and a push to put more development-friendly candidates on the council.
Two candidates — Jill Jester and Brandon Chase McGee, both of whom won their elections — were late filing their July 26 reports. Two other candidates ignored filing altogether. The state requires candidates to file finance reports periodically throughout their campaign in January if they’re in office, then 30 days and eight days before the May election, and then in July.
“I hate that I missed this and it was definitely unintentional!” Jester wrote in a July 30 email to the Denton Record-Chronicle.
Besides showing a need for filling out the “principal occupation/job title” and “employer” sections for their contributors , the campaign reports also highlight just how much money goes into supporting municipal races.
Denton doesn’t have an ordinance limiting campaign contributions — as Austin has had for nearly 30 years now.
In Austin, no candidate for mayor or City Council — as well as their campaign committee — can accept campaign contributions of more than $300 per contributor per election from any person, except the candidate themselves and small-donor political committees. It caps contributions at $30,000 per election and $20,000 in a runoff from sources other than the persons eligible to vote in a postal ZIP code completely or partially within Austin city limits.
A majority of Austin voters (72%) approved a charter amendment in 1997 to cap individual and political action committee contributions to $100 while limiting non-Austin contributions to candidates at $15,000 each “to show developers and other special interests that the city is not for sale,” according to the Austin Chronicle.
In 2006, Austin voters approved a rule update to adjust those rules to account for inflation. They’ve made a number of updates since then, Austin city spokesperson David Ochsner said Thursday.
“The strongest reason why voters should support it, I think, is that this is the greatest opportunity, maybe their last for a couple of years, to do something fairly dramatic about campaign finance — the big money in politics,” Linda Curtis, a member of Austinites for a Little Less Corruption, told the Chronicle in 1997.
Here’s a breakdown of Denton’s 2024 municipal election campaign reports and the individuals and PACs that contributed to the races:
Mayor
For the 2024 campaign, Hudspeth reported a total of $67,890 in political contributions and $30,313 in political expenditures.
Hudspeth received $14,750 from several political action committees, including the Texas Realtors PAC, the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas and the HOMEPAC from the Dallas Builders Association.
As previously reported, Hudspeth received $4,000 from several executives at Hillwood, a Dallas development company planning a 6,000-home project in an area where two master-planned communities could bring 15,000 homes. Expected to bring $860 million to the city over the life of the project, Hillwood’s development was approved as a taxing district in April 2020 by a council majority that included Hudspeth, a council member at the time.
In this election cycle, Hudspeth’s largest contributions — those more than $1,500 — were $2,500 from Kent Key of Key Custom Homes; $2,000 from Dallas developer Henry Billingsley; and $3,000 from Kirk Wilson of T. Wilson Associates, a consulting service for developers, builders and landowners.
Recently, Wilson was working on a multifamily zoning change for a rural residential-zoned project off Corbin Road. It was postponed indefinitely last week, according to a Friday email from city staff.
“When it comes to Hillwood, it is a large corporation, and I would ask you NOT to assume and arbitrarily link an individual donor with a corporation just to fit a narrative (they are NOT a union or organized organization),” Hudspeth told the Record-Chronicle last week.
“Individuals are just that and can support who they want without it being made something it is not.”
The Denton County Republican Lincoln Cabinet donated $500 to Hudspeth’s campaign, according to finance reports.
In his final campaign report, Hudspeth reported $39,035 in total political contributions maintained as of the last day of the reporting period.
Hudspeth’s opponent Stephen Dillenberg didn’t file any campaign reports for the 2024 municipal election.
A third mayoral candidate, Lucas Wedgeworth, filed only the reports for 30 days and eight days before the election, showing no contributions or expenditures.
Place 6
With council member Chris Watts stepping down, the race for the Place 6 seat saw two newcomers in Jester, a real estate attorney, and Lilyan Prado Carrillo, a professional speaker and facilitator and a former bilingual specialist at Denton ISD.
Jester showed a total of $52,366 in political contributions and $95,193 in political expenditures. She secured $84,000 in loans to help fund her campaign, according to finance reports.
“The amount spent was a lot but close to what I had been told to prepare for an at-large race in Denton,” Jester said in an email Thursday. “My first race, I relied on advice and input from others on how to run a successful campaign.”
In her last report, Jester didn’t show any political contributions maintained.
This election season, some of the larger contributions Jester received included $2,500 from Scott Brown of Scott Brown Properties and $2,000 from One-Way Street Investments.
The largest donation from an individual was $10,000. It was her mother, who has lived in Denton since the 1960s, Jester said.
Similar to Garland and Hudspeth, Jester also received $1,500 from the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas PAC, as well as $2,500 from the Greater Denton/Wise County Association of Realtors’ PAC.
“I had a Zoom call with AAGCD members and answered each question honestly, including that apartments are an important part of Denton’s housing inventory along with other types of properties so long as they are in the appropriate spaces for apartments,” Jester wrote in the email.
“I will return any donation before allowing a person or group to attempt to pressure me on a council vote.”
Prado Carrillo reported $23,655 in total political contributions and $26,331 in expenditures.
No political contributions were shown maintained in her last report.
For the 2024 campaign season, Prado Carrillo didn’t take nonlocal developer money but did take $7,000 from a New York-based PAC called Leadership for Educational Equity, a network of more than 5,000 educators dedicated to ending educational inequity.
Place 5
In the most heated race of the 2024 municipal race, incumbent Brandon Chase McGee, who won by fewer than 100 votes, faced Erica Garland, who was determined to unseat him with the help of two council members.
Then-council member Watts and Hudspeth spent $4,564 and $9,514, respectively, on Garland’s campaign, according to finance reports.
The Denton County Republican Party’s Lincoln Cabinet contributed $6,000.
For the 2024 campaign season, Garland reported $78,476 in total political contributions and $56,510 in expenditures. Total political contributions maintained in her late July report was $6,926, leaving $15,040 in contributions unaccounted for.
In a Thursday afternoon email, Garland told the Record-Chronicle there was a dating error in her final campaign report. She plans to file a correction, as other council candidates have done this election season, including her opponent. She said she had figured she’d only raised about $30,000 or $40,000.
Garland reported she received $45,021 for the reporting period from April 3 to May 4, according to the July 23 report.
“The reporting period is not correct and should only reflect the contributions and expenditures within that reporting period, not the totals from all campaign reporting periods as indicated on the final report,” Garland wrote in the email.
As for large contributions this campaign season, Garland reported $5,000 from Kent Key of Key Custom Homes, $2,000 from Eric Schmitz from Schmitz Realty Group, $2,350 from Brad Andrus of Axis Realty Group, and $4,000 total from Greg Johnson, a former council member and founder of SVN Verus Commercial, and his spouse.
Nonlocal developers included Paul Evans from the Dallas Builders Association and Henry Billinglsey from the Billinglsey Co., each contributing $2,000.
Both the Texas Realtors PAC and the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas donated $8,000 total.
McGee didn’t report taking money from PACs but did show contributions from his colleagues — council members Brian Beck ($297), Paul Meltzer ($495) and Vicki Byrd ($99).
This campaign season, McGee said he accepted developer money because local campaigns are expensive. Outside of council duties, he is a truck driver, a blue-collar career that pays well but not enough to fund a campaign, he said.
McGee’s largest contributions were from nonlocal developers, including $5,000 from Old Prosper Partners LLC; $5,000 total from Terrance and Jon Jobe from Alluvium Development; and $4,860 from those associated with T. Wilson Associates, according to the Jan. 16 finance report.
In total, McGee raised $35,816 in campaign contributions and spent $32,523. According to the July 30 finance report, McGee was maintaining $662, showing $2,631 that was unaccounted for.
In an email Saturday, McGee offered to share his bank statements and wrote, “I’m assuming this could be an accounting error. I’m going to have my accountant take a look.”