I finally caught up with John Branam, to get his reaction to the auditor’s Friday ruling stipulating that he could not pay campaign manager Phil Busse another dime out of his public campaign funds. Busse had already picked up $20,000 of his $25,000 contract for 90 days of campaign management services—well over the roughly $3500 per month that managers of other publicly funded campaigns are being paid. (If Branam does pay Busse another dime, he faces double-the-amount fines.)

“I really appreciate the auditor’s thoroughness, and obviously they’re doing their job and doing it well,” Branam says. “Obviously I’ve long believed that Phil was worth thepay. He’s worked hard and he’s continuing to work hard and we’re going to continue to focus on the issues that matter to Portlanders.”

I also asked him about a $1,000 payment to Busse that popped up on ORESTAR on Friday—which put Busse’s total pay at $21,000. The timing was odd, given that the auditor’s ruling came out just after 5 pm on Friday—it was unclear if the payment or the ruling came first.

“We had actually written the check on Thursday and it was logged Friday morning,” Branam explains. “It was never cashed, and it was voided, and we backed it out of ORESTAR on Saturday morning.” Indeed, the transaction shows up in a search that includes deleted transactions. He says they cleared it with the auditor’s office this morning, and all is well. I’ve got a call in to the auditor’s office to confirm. City Elections Officer Andrew Carlstrom says the auditor considers Branam’s written explanation of the final $1,000 transaction “sufficient.” It’s after the cut.

Amy, I received your voice mail message. Late this morning, John Branam stopped by for a brief meeting. I asked him to send me a statement regarding ORESTAR Tran ID 287933. The Auditor will consider the explanation below sufficient for this transaction. Andrew -----Original Message----- From: John Branam [mailto:jsbranam@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 1:56 PM To: Carlstrom, Andrew Subject: Check to Phil Busse Andrew, Just wanted to follow up in writing, as promised, regarding the last check to Phil Busse, my campaign manager. The $1000 check to Phil was written on Thursday. Dan, our treasurer, entered it into ORESTAR on Friday at about noon. He removed it from ORESTAR first thing Saturday morning, but for some reason ORESTAR still shows it. We'll continue to work to make sure it shows that it was removed. The check was never cashed and was voided Friday evening. Thanks, John