Marymount spent $543,000 to get expansion initiative on ballot
Alannah Coupp on August 4, 2010 in College Online No Comments »For a tiny private school in a fairly small suburban town, Marymount College has spent a surprisingly large amount of money to place its campus expansion plans before voters this fall.
The Rancho Palos Verdes college paid political consultants, lawyers, production companies and mail houses nearly $543,000 in its bid to gather signatures for a controversial initiative.
That’s about $132 for each of the 4,094 signatures that earned the measure a spot on the Nov. 2 ballot.
“It’s a huge investment,” college President Michael Brophy said. “We’re sorry to have to make it but we really had no choice.”
Campaign finance records released this week show Marymount’s expenditures from the beginning of the year through June 30, a period when the school launched a signature-gathering campaign, placed advertisements in local papers and on cable television, and sent several well-produced mailers and a DVD to city residents.
