Burkman's response to Vancouver Vitality's attack ad

Vancouver City Councilor Jack Burkman responded last week to the television ad that was paid for by Vancouver Vitality, the conservative group that is pushing a slate of candidates.

On his website, there’s a message headlined “Stop the Negative Campaigning!” that says Burkman does not sit on the C-Tran Board of Directors (currently those seats are occupied by Mayor Tim Leavitt and councilors Bart Hansen and Larry Smith) and that he did not campaign against tolls in 2009.

Here’s the TV ad:

Vancouver Vitality, as previously reported, is getting its money primarily from Kanati Falls Ranch, a timber-management company that has given the company $60,000 in loans. That gives the group the distinction of carrying the second-highest debt load among state political committees.

One aspect of Vancouver Vitality’s ad buy that has created buzz (among those three dozen people who care very, very deeply about local politics) has been this Comcast form:

According to the ad order, Vancouver Vitality bought $40,154 worth of air time. State Sen. Rivers said today that she didn’t receive any money from Vancouver Vitality – she just filled out a contact sheet with an ad representative when she was showing Mark Engleman (listed above) how to buy ad without using an agent.