When it comes to Lawrence City Commission candidates, we’re at 14 and counting. Greg Robinson, a Lawrence attorney who was a vocal opponent of the police headquarters sales tax proposal, has filed for a seat on the commission. I’ll catch up with him later and provide a fuller report.

If the thought of 14 people campaigning for three seats makes you want to put a bumper sticker over your eyes and stuff your ears full of hanging chads (remember those), I’ve got good news for you: Today is the day we stop counting The filing deadline for the City Commission is at noon today. UPDATE: The filing deadline has now passed. 14 is the final number.

But don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of other things to count: The number of yard signs in a block, the number of times a candidate mentions the word ‘jobs’ in his or her campaign speech, and, of course, the number of people who pass out from a lack of oxygen at a candidate forum that involves at least 14 candidates making opening and closing statements. (My suggestion to forum organizers: Hire Genghis Khan as time keeper.)

One item we’ll particularly count, though, is money. Lawrence City Commission candidates often spend more than $15,000 — sometimes a lot more — to get elected these days. That means fundraising. The first batch of campaign finance reports are in for those candidates who got an early start and began raising funds in 2014. All totals are as of Dec. 31. Here’s a look at those totals.

• Stan Rasmussen, an attorney for the U.S. Army, has the early lead in raising funds. He has $8,815 from 36 donors, including a $500 contribution from himself.

• Kristie Adair — a Lawrence school board member, co-owner of Wicked Broadband, and leader of a new entrepreneurship center — has raised $5,050 from 15 donors, including a $500 donation from herself, a $500 donation from her husband, Joshua Montgomery, and a $500 donation from Wicked’s parent company, Community Wireless.

• Matthew Herbert, a Lawrence High civics and government teacher, raised $3,030 from nine donors, including $1,380 from himself.

• Leslie Soden, the owner of a pet care business, raised $2,075 from 11 donors.

• Stuart Boley, a retired auditor for the IRS, raised $1,600 from four contributors, including a $100 donation from himself.

• City Commissioner Bob Schumm filed for re-election and had a campaign finance account in 2014, but he did not raise any money during the last year. The account had about $278 at the end of 2014.

City Commissioner Terry Riordan also has filed for re-election, but he did not have a campaign finance account in 2014. He has filed the paperwork to start a new one in 2015. That’s the situation all the other candidates are in as well. They started campaign finance accounts in 2015, and thus weren’t required to file a report for 2014. We will get campaign finance reports, however, before the March 3 primary. That batch will look a lot different from these, as everyone will be in full campaign mode by that time. You can see the individual reports at the county clerk’s website. Those reports provide a full listing of people who have made contributions thus far, and if the contribution is above $150, it should list the business or industry of the donor.

In other news and notes from around town:

• There is one candidate in the race who already has experienced a financial setback. Mike Anderson is the host of the local comedy program “The Not So Late Show,” which airs on the local cable network WOW. But Anderson has told me he is being forced to put the show on hiatus — and thus his paycheck too — during the campaign. Anderson said his understanding is that federal regulators would require WOW to provide equal air time to any candidate who wanted it. In other words, if Anderson was on TV for 30 minutes as part of his show, other candidates would get the chance to be on WOW for 30 minutes as well.

“Even if I just talked about dung beetles for 30 minutes, that would still trigger it,” Anderson said. (I’m now officially counting the number of times candidates mention the phrase dung beetle.)

Anderson said regulators — honestly, I’m not sure if it is the FCC or the FEC — would allow him to continue with his show minus the equal time provision, if all other candidates in the race would sign a waiver saying they don’t object. Anderson said he approached many candidates with a promise that he would not talk about his campaign or City Commission topics during his show. He said a majority of the candidates at that time were agreeable, but a couple were not. He said the unexpected hiatus of the show has not caused him to consider dropping out of the race.

“No, running for this seat is something I’ve wanted to do for quite awhile,” Anderson said. “This will just mean a few more peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.”

• There has been some talk this week about vote totals in City Commission races. Some of you have asked how many votes are cast during a City Commission primary election. So, I looked up the article from the last City Commission primary two years ago. In that race, we had 11 candidates. The top six vote winners move onto the general election.

In that primary, the top vote winner — it happened to be Mike Amyx that year — won 2,989 votes. To finish in the top six, you had to get above 1,531 votes. The seventh-place finisher received 1,296 votes, and was left out of the general election. Just seven of the 11 candidates received more than 1,000 votes. Candidates eight through 11 received anywhere from 39 votes to 351 votes.

Now, when the field gets cut to six, the vote totals change quite a bit. In the general election two years ago, top finisher Mike Amyx won 6,999 votes, second-place finisher Jeremy Farmer 5,256 votes and Terry Riordan 4,816. Fourth-place finisher Leslie Soden just missed out with 4,719 votes. (All these were the unofficial totals we reported on election night. They change a bit after the election canvass, but you get the idea.)

The big question with this election will be whether voter turnout is significantly different than it has been in the past. Will Rock Chalk Park and the police headquarters issue get more people out to vote than normal? Will Joshua Montgomery at Wicked Broadband have success in getting KU students and other technology-oriented voters to the polls to support enhanced broadband services? What other issue may emerge that could alter voter turnout? It is tough to predict, but what is clear is that with 14 candidates, the interest level is high thus far.