Finance
Campaign finance offender lost seven bids for office but wins mercy from elections panel • Rhode Island Current
A perennial candidate for state and local office will be the first offender of state campaign finance requirements to have his fines reduced.
The Rhode Island Board of Elections on Tuesday voted 3-0 to slash financial penalties owed by former candidate Daniel Grzych by nearly 90%. Grzych, a Providence resident, ran unsuccessfully as an independent for seven state and local races spanning 2002 to 2014. He previously owed more than $71,000 in fines to the state elections board for submitting late the regular financial reports required during his time as a candidate.
Now, he’ll owe just $6,600 — three times the amount he spent over the five campaigns during which he missed reporting deadlines. The board’s decision Tuesday marks the first time using newly enacted regulation change giving the appointed elections panel more leeway to reduce fines for offenders. The rule change adopted in 2023 relies on a formula based on the number of violations to cap fines at a lower amount while letting the elections board close campaign finance accounts so fees don’t keep accruing.
Under the formula included in the updated state rules, Grzych could have had his fine reduced to about $28,000, said Ric Thornton, the board’s campaign finance director.
However, given Grzych’s actual spending during his span of failed candidacies — amounting to $2,200, all of which was self-funded — Ray Marcaccio, the board’s attorney suggested an even lower fine.
“The purpose for the regulation is to make sure whatever we do by way of fine and penalty is proportional to the offense that occurred,” Marcaccio said. “The way the statute was written, a lot of these daily amounts continue to accrue almost exponentially.”
Indeed, 93% of the $6.1 million in unpaid financial penalties for late or missing campaign reports as of September come from just 15% of the offenders, with many of the top violators unable to pay, or unreachable, according to data provided by Thornton. Grzych once held the dubious distinction of a spot in the top 10 list of violators with the largest outstanding fines, according to an Associated Press story in 2015. As of September 2023, Grzych dropped to the 25th ranking, though the amount of overdue penalties was unchanged.
In an only-in-Rhode Island moment, former Rep. John DeSimone, who defeated Grzych in the 2012 Democratic primary for the House District 5 seat, is now the attorney for his former political opponent. The pair appeared together before the Board of Elections to explain the circumstances that led to Grzych’s late filings and subsequent lack of response to notices about his overdue payments.
“He never had a sophisticated campaign,” DeSimone said. “As I recall, he had a dump truck that he put signs on and drove it around. That was the extent of his campaign.”
Grzych also explained how personal health issues as well as responsibilities caring for ailing family members swallowed his attention over the ensuing 20 years, making him unaware of the overdue fines for late campaign finance reports, despite the many certified mail notices he was sent.
“I don’t want to say I was dumb, but I didn’t know all the facts,” Grzych, 71 said. “ I lost track of a lot of things over the last 20-something years.”
He never had a sophisticated campaign. As I recall, he had a dump truck that he put signs on and drove it around. That was the extent of his campaign.
– Former Rep. John DeSimone, attorney representing Daniel Grzych
He is also facing foreclosure for the Providence home he owns with two other people, after they stopped making payments on their $170,000 mortgage loan beginning in 2020, according to the complaint filed by HSBC Bank in June 2023 in Providence County Superior Court. As of Tuesday, $230,000 remains on the mortgage payment, though a pending agreement selling the property for $320,000 is expected to close soon, John DeSimone said.
The Rhode Island Board of Elections, which is named as a party of interest in the case because it has a lien on the property stemming from Grzych’s outstanding fines, has spent more than $1,000 on court and legal fees as well as certified mail notifying Grzych of his outstanding fines, Thornton said.
Board member Louis DeSimone abstained from the vote due to the appearance of conflict of interest; he is John DeSimone’s first cousin, though he said they have no economic ties. Board members Diane Mederos, Randall Jackvony and Michael Connors were absent from the meeting.
Prior to the vote, the board also met behind closed doors for 45 minutes to discuss the foreclosure case, but did not take any votes shared during the public session.
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DULUTH — The Duluth Homegrown Music Festival is seeking both new operational leadership and a solution to financial filing issues that caused the organization to lose its federal tax-exempt status, which it has not held since 2022.
The organization is currently operating as a taxable nonprofit, confirmed Don Ness, the former Duluth mayor who serves as president of Homegrown’s
board of directors.
Ness and the board are working to discern whether there might be any outstanding tax liabilities in the wake of an apparent filing lapse.
“It’s a serious matter that requires diligence to do things right, and to correct past oversight, and to make sure that we are in full compliance with all tax and regulatory requirements,” Ness said. “The board is 100% committed to that course of action.”
As the Duluth Monitor first reported, Homegrown had its federal tax-exempt status revoked in 2022 after failing to make required financial reports for three years. The Monitor also reported that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has notified the organization it may be in violation of state law requiring the proper registration of soliciting charities.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“All but one of us have been on for less than a year,” Ness said of the current board members. “We’ve been committed to saying, ‘hey, we need to improve the points of accountability.’”
The organization will also require new operational leadership. Co-directors Cory Jezierski and Dereck Murphy-Williams resigned earlier this month, after leading Homegrown through four successful festivals.
“My contract ended at the end of May, and I knew a few days later that I did not want to continue in that position,” Jezierski said. “Simply put, it was the best thing for my mental health. It’s a job that requires many, many hours and a lot of work, and it can be very stressful as well.”
Amy Arntson / Duluth Media Group file photo
Murphy-Williams did not respond to an interview request for this article, nor did preceding Homegrown director Melissa LaTour. According to LaTour’s
LinkedIn profile,
she was Homegrown director from 2016 to 2022.
Jason Beckman, a recent president who is no longer serving on the board, responded to a News Tribune email but did not provide an interview availability before this article went to press.
Ness does not believe the reporting lapses were due to any ill intent. He praised Jezierski and Murphy-Williams for their success managing festival operations. “They cared deeply about the festival,” he said. “It’s amazing to see that our community continues to support this really unique and special festival.”
“Those guys run a hell of a festival,” said Scott Lunt, festival founder and a current board member. “I think they needed help with bookkeeping.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
By Jezierski’s account, issues with the festival’s tax status became apparent shortly after he became co-director. “We went to file taxes, they were rejected,” Jezierski said. “At that time we, of course, didn’t know why right away, but once we started pulling on that thread, we unraveled a whole lot of the problems that were going on.”
Jezierski said “it took a long time to try to get any sort of help” from the board, but said that by the time he and Murphy-Williams left the organization, “everything had been turned over to be reconciled” with a financial professional.
Ness, like Lunt, was deeply involved with Homegrown in its first decade but had not had an official role with the festival since then. After launching the festival in 1999 and running it on his own for several years, Lunt was “burnt out,” Ness remembered.
Derek Montgomery / Duluth Media Group file photo
After a transition period during which the festival was run in partnership with the Ripsaw newspaper, Homegrown established a nonprofit organization in 2006 with Ness as festival director. Ness subsequently stepped down when he was elected mayor in 2007.
By 2025, Ness was in his current position as executive director of the Ordean Foundation.
“I was approached by a couple of longtime music scenesters,” Ness recalled. “They said, ‘There are questions about (Homegrown’s) nonprofit status. There are questions about some governance issues. We’re concerned.’”
Ness agreed to join the board, and became president. The 2026 festival ran smoothly from an operational standpoint, but Ness found the financial reporting to be lacking.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“The last board meeting that we had prior to the (co-directors’) resignations was intended to be an overview of the festival that was a month before,” Ness said. “I certainly felt very uncomfortable with how little financial information we were receiving.”
Lunt also joined the board in 2025, marking his first time serving in that capacity. He said the new board has been spending significant time addressing the accounting and reporting issues.
“Every year at Homegrown time I’m like, ‘I should get more involved,’ and then I don’t,” Lunt said. “Then this board thing came up, and it was kind of sold to me as, like, four meetings a year. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s perfect.’ And now we’re meeting weekly.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
Although it’s unclear how the organization’s finances will look when the accounting and reporting issues have been fully addressed, along with any outstanding tax liabilities, both Ness and Lunt said they are confident the annual festival will continue without interruption.
“The organization will continue,” Ness said. “The festival will continue. Homegrown is in no danger in terms of its viability.” The financial documentation Ness initially received indicated budgeted revenues of about $140,000, against about $130,000 in expenses.
“Financially, I think we’re in a great spot. We have the money to hire the (financial) professionals, and we have (done so),” Lunt said. “We were hoping that we could get all this sorted out before it had to become more public.”
“We poured countless hours into this festival, and this is how it ends, with everyone talking about this,” Jezierski said. “It’s rough.”
“There’s a DIY ethos that is really at the core of Homegrown,” reflected Ness. “We’re throwing a music festival that isn’t waiting for some famous band from the East Coast to bless us with their presence. We are doing this on our own.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
That DIY spirit also means “you’re kind of passing wisdom down from person to person, and sometimes that’s imperfect.” Ness continued. “The ways that we do things evolve over time, because it’s not a buttoned-down corporate sort of thing. That can create its own set of challenges.”
“It’s self-supporting,” said Lunt about the festival. “It’s widely volunteer-run. You do need to pay a couple people, obviously, to keep track of some things, but it’s going to be strong into the future. It’s gone through its bumps before.”
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Consumer confidence has plunged among traditionally optimistic younger adults amid fears for their personal finances and the wider economy, figures show.
GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index remained unchanged at an overall score of minus 23 in June.
However, the analyst said this was was “misleading as, beneath the surface, there are new signs that confidence is weakening”.
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “The biggest fall this month is among those aged 16 to 29, traditionally one of the most optimistic groups.
“Here confidence has dropped 11 points over the past month to minus two, the lowest level seen for two years, driven by large falls in views on both their own personal finances and the wider economy.
“More broadly, there are now no demographic groups with a positive confidence score, including higher-income households earning £50,000 or more, who have slipped back into negative territory as of June.
“Confidence remains subdued and vulnerable to further economic or political uncertainty.”
Overall, confidence in personal finances over the coming year remained flat at minus two, four points lower than this time last year.
The measures of both personal finances and the economy over the previous 12 months were both slightly down, by two points and three points respectively, “reflecting the sense that things have been extremely tough over the last year for so many”, GfK said.
The only measure to increase was expectations for the wider economy over the next 12 months, up two points to minus 36 but still eight points below this time last year.
The major purchase index, an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items, remained at minus 20, four points lower than June last year.
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