As billionaire Bill Gates is backing off climate alarmism — stating recently that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” — other groups are seeking to influence local elections.
Take, for instance, the upcoming city council elections in Prairie Village. A political action committee — or PAC — called “Amberwave” has put out at least one mailer, such as the one below, promoting local candidates.
So far, so good. Mailers such as this by PACs are completely legal. However, the issue then becomes where Amberwave gets its money. What the Sentinel has found is that Amberwave has received most of its money from groups outside the state of Kansas.
A report by Earl Glynn of Watchdoglab shows that in October of 2024, Amberwave — which was launched that year by Johnson County Board of County Commissioners Chairman Mike Kelly — took in the bulk of its funding, some $85,000 from a dark money outfit called the “Local Jobs and Economic Development Fund.” Another $65,000 was donated by labor unions, mostly from out of state.
But what about this “Local Jobs and Economic Development Fund, or LJEDF?”
Well, according to Glynn, it takes a little digging to figure out where the money comes from.,
“While LJEDF does not report its donors on its IRS 990, an exhaustive search of all available IRS 990s can reveal many of its nonprofit donors from their tax filings,” Glynn wrote.
Glynn found LJEDF took in millions of dollars from leftist groups, many of them climate-related and often at second or third hand, such as the Gates Foundation, the Tides Foundation, or the Energy Action fund.
“The Tides Foundation was the largest recent donor to LJEDF, giving over $2 million, with a relatively unknown organization, Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, the second largest, giving about a half-million,” Glynn reported. “Global Impact Social Welfare Fund is also a donor to Kansas Values Institute, which spent $23 million in 2022 to help re-elect Gov. Laura Kelly.
Global Impact Social Welfare Fund’s parent organization, nonprofit Global Impact, grew its assets by over $60 million in the most recent reporting year, so its $8.9 million contribution to the Welfare Fund was almost pocket change.”
Glynn found that three Arabella Advisors’ “dark money” funds gave large donations to the Welfare Fund, which then donated a half-million dollars to LJEDF and to Tides Advocacy, which then funneled an additional $100,000 to LJEDF.
According to Influence Watch, a website that tracks such organizations, LJEDF is a left-of-center environmental policy advocacy group. The Delaware-based policy and lobbying organization funded out-of-state local elections in locations including Illinois and Florida — and now apparently in Kansas.
But who runs LJEDF?
Well, that’s another group — this time out of California.
LJEDF is “managed” by Down Ballot Climate Partners LLC, again described as ” a left-of-center consulting firm and for-profit political advocacy organization that directs funding from left-of-center organizations and funders to candidates in local elections to advance left-of-center environmental policies. The group was founded in 2021 in California by Matt Ewing and Eric Heitz, who have both held various roles at left-of-center advocacy groups, and appeared to begin working on directing funds to local elections ahead of the 2022 elections.”
The company has the stated goal of “electing ‘climate champions’ at the local level.
City council elections are theoretically non-partisan
Local government elections in Kansas are supposed to be non-partisan. Still, Prairie Village is part of Democrat Rep. Sharice Davids’ Congressional district, which may explain why these outside groups and the Johnson County Democratic Party have taken such an interest in the race.
Indeed, earlier this week — as the image below shows — the JoCo Democrats hosted a “candidate spotlight” for all the party candidates running for Prairie Village city council seats.
Prairie Village politics have been contentious for some time
This is not the first time there has been controversy in the small landlocked community of about 22,000 souls. Recently, Prairie Village Mayor Mike Mikkelson used his column in the community newsletter to disparage his opponents.
“So I have to admit, it bewilders and saddens me that a vocal few, while living in the same city, choose instead to spend their time, talent and money chronically complaining, suing, lying, disparaging, obstructing, riling and abusing the neighbors, volunteers, officials and staff who provide our exceptional quality of civic life,” Mikkleson wrote.
But this was hardly the only issue within Prairie Village; tensions have run high in recent council meetings in the Johnson County city over issues such as the proposed municipal complex, city payroll, residential rezoning, council vacancy appointments, and providing drones to Ukrainians.
