Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Teen School Board candidate lists unusual expenses, mystery consultant
A 19-year-old college student running for the Broward County School Board has spent thousands of campaign dollars for restaurants, grocery stores and Uber rides, as well as a $2,000 consulting fee to a person with a fictitious name.
Elijah Manley, who graduated from Fort Lauderdale High in 2017, is running to unseat incumbent Donna Korn for a countywide School Board seat. The race has attracted national attention since one of the candidates is Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed in
the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. Manley has been in the spotlight as well, because of his youth and ability to raise thousands of dollars through Crowdpac, a crowdsourcing website similar to GoFundMe. The election is scheduled for Tuesday, with a runoff planned for Nov. 6 if no candidate receives more than half the vote.
Campaign finance reports show that Manley has raised a total of $18,000, a large sum of money for someone many consider to be a fringe candidate. Petty has raised about $60,000 and Korn $37,000.
Manley lists unusual expenses on his reports, including:
More than $1,000 for food and drinks at restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores. This includes $201 at Betty’s Soul Food restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, $74 at Dunkin Donuts, $23 at McDonald’s and $37 at vending machines. Manley said much of this food was for high school students who volunteered on his campaign. About $82 was identified as food for the homeless.
More than $400 for campaign travel, including $246 for Spirit Airlines flights to Washington, D.C., where he said he attended a national education march.
More than $2,100 on Uber rides. Manley said this was because he and many of his campaign workers don’t drive.
$4,500 on political consultants — including $2,000 to a person with a fake name. The rest went to Diaz Consulting, an established firm in Coral Gables.
Petty declined to comment about Manley, but Korn said at least seven people have asked her about Manley’s finances.
“It’s definitely raised red flags,” Korn said. “It’s hard to understand how these resources would be available to him, but I haven’t taken the time to investigate any further. After the election, is it something I may look at? I don’t know.”
Amy Toman, executive director of the Florida Elections Commission, would not confirm Thursday whether there had been any complaints filed against Manley. She said any complaints only become public after the commission determines whether there is a probable
Manley said Snyder and Marcott are the same person. He called back to say Snyder’s an undocumented immigrant.
cause. Those who break election laws can face fines of up to $1,000 per violation.
The expense on Manley’s report raising the most questions is a $2,000 payment listed to “Erin Marcott” of Washington, D.C., for “targeted communications.” No such person could be found in public record searches.
On Tuesday, Manley identified Marcott as a friend he paid to manage his communications and website, and he provided a contact phone number to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The Sun Sentinel received a returned call Wednesday from a man purporting to be Erin Marcott, although the caller ID listed the phone number as belonging to Aaron Snyder. The man claimed to have been paid to do work on Manley’s website and to do phone banking, and he attempted to explain why no public record of Marcott existed.
“I just like to keep a low profile of myself. I’m not a very publicly oriented person where everything from my social life is online,” the man said. “I like to focus on progressive politics, and I was truly inspired by Elijah’s campaign, and I wanted to work for him, and it is my pleasure to do so.”
The caller said he was using Aaron Snyder’s cell phone but said he was not Snyder himself. Snyder is a George Washington University student who has been featured in a number of news stories, including one in The Washington Post, because of his political activism on behalf of the homeless and other groups. Snyder is tagged with Manley on several social media posts and donated $30 to his campaign in September 2017, according to records.
After being pressed by the Sun Sentinel, Manley said that Snyder and Erin Marcott are the same person. Manley first said it’s not uncommon for someone to use a pseudonym for business purposes but then called back and claimed Snyder is an undocumented immigrant.
“He probably doesn’t want to go through immigration trouble again,” Manley said. “I’m not sure if it violates the law to pay someone who is undocumented.”
Snyder would not confirm Manley’s claim, saying, “I would not like to disclose anything about myself.”
Manley said he has prepared his own campaign finance reports.
“I’m not an expert on campaign finance law, so I’m really learning on the job,” he said. “I know I’ve sometimes put some items in the wrong categories on reports and the supervisor of elections’ office would guide me how to do it the correct way.”
About $8,000 of Manley’s money are gifts or loans to himself, records show. That comes despite stating on a financial disclosure form that he had no income. The form is intended to measure income as of Dec. 31, 2017, but Manley wrote that as of June 5 he also has no income, no assets and $1,550 in liabilities for his T-Mobile and Comcast Xfinity accounts. Manley, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, said he’s a “poor college student” attending Broward College. He said he started selling life insurance with Primerica Financial Services in January. State records show he has been licensed to sell insurance since April 19.
He also was paid $518 in January to work for the campaign of Dean Trantalis, who was elected as Fort Lauderdale’s mayor in March.
“I didn’t start making money until January, and I’ve spent a lot of my money and invested it into the campaign, which left me personally broke,” Manley said.
Judy Stern, a political consultant and lobbyist who supports Korn, said she found a number of problems with Manley’s campaign reports, including ones with negative balances.
“It’s very commendable for any young person to want to be involved,” she said. “But his campaign reports show he doesn’t have the business acumen to be making decisions.”