The financial powerhouse behind the successful multi-million-dollar push to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price remained mired in nearly $700,000 of debt nearly two months after the election, newly released campaign finance filings show.
The political fundraising group Supporters of Recall Pamela Price continued to owe money at the end of 2024 to a host of political consultants and a prominent petition-gathering firm, according to the filings that were made public Friday. Many of the unpaid bills stretched back to late 2023 when Price’s opponents were still gathering signatures to get the recall issue on the November ballot.
In all, Supporters of Recall Pamela Price reported about $697,000 of debt as of Dec. 31, down slightly from the nearly $779,000 it owed in mid-October, the filings show.
Of that total, $310,000 was owed to Farallon Capital Management partner Philip Dreyfuss, one of the group’s original founders. He lent the money in late 2023 and early 2024, and went on to become the single-largest known donor to local recall efforts during the November election. By Election Day, he had funneled more than $1.9 million in donations and loans to recall efforts targeting Price and former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who also was recalled.
The fundraising group’s remaining $387,000 in debt was owed to a handful of companies based in California, Delaware, Ohio and Arizona, campaign finance filings show. Of that total, nearly $206,000 was owed to the Calabasas-based firm PCI Consultants, which helps circulate petitions; another $24,000 was owed to the Columbus, Ohio-based company EMC Research, which was hired by the group for “telephone/online interviews,” according to the filings.
Oakland political consultant Annie Eagan said the outstanding bill owed to her firm has become a source of growing unease. She has continually been listed on the group’s debt ledger since the end of 2023, when the group owed her nearly $30,000. By Dec. 31, 2024, her unpaid invoices had ballooned to slightly more than $106,000.
“Yes it’s a concern, yes. It’s unusual and atypical,” said Eagan, who owns Annie Eagan Consulting. She declined to comment further. Attempts to reach PCI Consultants and EMC Research were unsuccessful.
Attempts to reach the leaders of Supporters of Recall Pamela Price — including its principal officer, Isaac Abid — also were not successful. Emails to Abid’s Oakland-based real estate company, Lakeside Group, were returned as undeliverable Monday afternoon.
Messages left with the Oakland-based firm S.E. Owens & Company — whose leaders are listed as the group’s treasurers — were not returned. The firm appears to be the only indebted company made completely whole during the last financial reporting period, after the group paid its entire $1,925 outstanding bill sometime between late October and the end of December, the filings show.
Political observers and campaign finance experts were mixed on the significance of the lingering debt ledger, with some suggesting it was uncommon for local recall elections.
The amount owed for signature-gathering services came as a particular surprise to Jim Ross, an East Bay political consultant who worked on the unsuccessful 2022 campaign to keep San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in office. In his three decades of political work across the Bay Area, he says firms are exceedingly reluctant to wait so long to be paid, given how such signature-gathering companies typically operate on a largely cash-forward basis.
“It’s tough — a lot of them have to make payroll, they have to pay taxes, all of that stuff,” Ross said. “This is not something that these firms can carry indefinitely.”
Yet David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, said such firms likely wouldn’t agree to work with the recall campaign if it didn’t have the capital to cover its expenses from the start. He noted that unpaid bills can often drag on long after an election. The fact that so much remains owed to Dreyfuss “sends a strong legitimacy signal to others that they’re good for the money, and therefore the consultants will be paid and there’s more to come,” said McCuan.
“There’s lots of ways to funnel money back to cover a lot of that debt,” McCuan added.
Supporters of Recall Pamela Price was formed in September 2023 and quickly became the financial driver behind the official recall campaign targeting Price. That campaign, called Save Alameda for Everyone, received more than $1.2 million from the group, making it the campaign’s single largest benefactor.
In all, Supporters received more than $2.4 million in loans and contributions in 2023 and 2024, campaign finance filings show. It was the most powerful political group to target the first-term district attorney, whom voters sided against by a roughly 2-to-1 margin during the November election.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.