The agreement is a revised version of the proposal the commission rejected in November. It dismisses a claim that Treadwell received discounted ad services during his 2010 run for office.
The allegation of discounted services was a major part of the complaint. The commission, in its initial rejection, remanded the issue to staff for further investigation, after an attorney for commission staff, Martha Tansik, said there was no way to definitively answer whether the rates charged were reasonable.
Tansik, in a December memo, said staff, as part of the second look, reviewed billing practices of Burkewood Creative with three media consultants.
Staff members found that, "despite some oddities in billing practices," Burkewood Creative did not violate campaign finance law in the case, and the transactions were commercially reasonable, Tansik said in the memo. She repeated this position during a hearing Thursday.
Treadwell denied receiving any discounts from Burkewood Creative. His campaign will still have to pay $6,704 in penalties and staff costs for reporting violations.
The campaign reported more expenditures to Burkewood Creative than were truly owed, Treadwell attorney Erin Marston said in a filing with the commission.
"Hence, while the reports were not exact, the imperfection did not harm the public since no dollar amount was missing from the disclosure," he wrote.
Marston also said the campaign reported all Burkewood invoices when it became aware of them and has worked with commission staff and amended its reports.
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