Elections Board Asks Gajewski to Clear Up '$700 Problem'

Rockville’s elections board is asking Piotr Gajewski to account for $700 in campaign contributions related to a building that the former mayoral candidate used for his campaign headquarters.

The board voted unanimously on Thursday to ask Gajewski for documentation detailing the nature of the contributions, which were used to rent the building under a licensing agreement. Gajewski will have three weeks from the date of the letter to provide the documentation.

The documentation does not exist, Gajewski said in a telephone interview on Friday.

“There are no documents that exist presently that I could offer,” said Gajewski, who was reached while on business in Buffalo, N.Y. late Friday. He said he would need to find out more about “specifically what they need and what kind of backup material they would require,” before he could say whether he will be able to comply with the request.

Gajewski’s Sept. 30 campaign fund report lists two $600 in-kind contribution related to the agreement. One is from MS Pike LLC, which owns the building at the site of a former auto dealership at 718 Rockville Pike. The other is from Neil Marcus, whose address listed in the campaign fund report is identical to that of MS Pike LLC.

The licensing agreement is for $1,200 in total rent for August through November. But the agreement was signed July 20 and the actual value of the rent, including the last third of July, should be $1,300, the board said.

If Gajewski were to submit documentation showing that MS Pike LLC contributed $600 toward the rent, that would leave “a $700 problem,” said David Celeste, chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Elections.

“Whatever the rest of it [that] is remaining of that $1,300 dollars, his campaign needs to write a check to account for it," Celeste said during Thursday's meeting.

Gajewski also would need to resubmit an amended campaign fund report, Celeste said.

The in-kind contributions were the subject of by Rockville resident Drew Powell and eight others.

Since then, Gajewski has engaged in a volley of emails with Celeste. In portions of those emails, Gajewski describes unsuccessful attempts to reach Marcus, who Gajewski said was his point of contact for the company that owns the office building.

On Nov. 1, —that the rent was below fair market value—but asked Gajewski to clarify the nature of the licensing agreement.

Nov. 9—a day after Gajewski .

In a Nov. 7 email to Celeste, Gajewski requested a 30-day extension. He also suggested that he be allowed to amend his October campaign fund report to include a $1,000 in-kind contribution from MS Pike LLC—the maximum an individual entity can contribute to a single candidate under city code—and that he write a check for $200 to MS Pike LLC.

By adding another $100 in pro-rated rent the board “is really just splitting hairs,” Gajewski said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Board members on Thursday said their patience with Gajewski is waning.

“I just feel like he’s not taking it seriously,” said board member Beryl Feinberg.

“He should be able to back it up,” Celeste said. “He should have the records to back it up.”

After the election, Gajewski . On Friday, he denied that he was not taking the matter seriously.

“I take it very seriously,” he said.

“In my initial [email] response I suggested an option to arrive at a conclusion that they arrived at presently," he said, referring to the suggestion that he write a check for $200 to MS Pike LLC and amend his campaign fund report to show a $1,000 in-kind contribution.

Gajewski said the rent issue is “a small amount” that can be resolved and that he understands that it is in the public interest to resolve the matter quickly. He filed the campaign fund report “in good faith,” he said.

The larger issue, he said, is that there are a number of questions about campaign finance for the elections board to address before the 2013 city election.

For example, after the violation complaint against Gajewski, the board discovered that the city code did not define in-kind contributions, leading the board to adopt a definition used by the state.

“So to an extent they’re making it up as they go,” Gajewski said. “But I don’t blame them. They’re just doing their best to make lemonade out of the lemons they’re given.”

Celeste said that issues raised by Gajewski’s case would be part of a post-election follow-up meeting with the board, candidates and campaign officials. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. on Jan. 28.

The elections board’s next meeting is tentatively schedule for 5 p.m. on Jan. 5 at .