Reports Provide a Quick Glimpse into the Future of the Mayor’s Race

By Seth Daniel

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Campaign finance reports became available late last week, giving a glimpse into the early workings of several potential candidates for mayor in this year’s City Election.

The reports cover the entirety of campaign finance activity in 2010, including expenditures and monies collected. This year, an election year, will require reports to be submitted in September, and then at the end of the year as well.

Councillor George Rotondo seemed to have the most activity in his campaign during the last couple months of 2010.

However, analysis could not be complete as Councillor Dan Rizzo failed to meet a finance reporting deadline, and hadn’t turned in his report by press time on Tuesday.

Rotondo, to date, has $27,292 in the bank for his already-announced run for mayor.

He has raised quite a bit of money over the last year from those inside and outside of Revere.

A good portion of that money, however, came through a personal influx of his own cash. On December 14, Rotondo loaned his campaign $16,100 and appeared to be spending it on mailings and office equipment.

Rotondo acknowledged that he had given his campaign the loan and said that he needed an influx of money because he had just started and needed some capital.

He said he is in the process of setting up a campaign headquarters.

“Money will not be a problem for this campaign,” he said. “It just won’t. I will end up having more people giving $25 and $35 donations – average Revere homeowners – than I think anyone else at this time.”

Rotondo indicated that he will be having a fund-raiser this week, on Thursday.

Meanwhile, School Committeewoman Carol Tye – who has been mentioned as a possible mayoral candidate many times – has had little activity and also has very little money.

Tye, at the moment, has but $104 in her campaign account.

However, Tye has never been a heavy spender and has always won on her remarkable popularity. She has also always been able to finance her campaigns as she went with her own money.

Another enigma in the mayoral race has been Councillor Bob Haas.

Haas has indicated that he might be interested, but most agree he will not run. Still, he has not ruled anything out just yet.

Haas is sitting comfortably at the moment with $13,467 in his account – enough for a typical City Council election, but also enough for the beginnings of a quick-hitting mayoral campaign.

None of Haas’s expenses seemed to indicate he was gearing up for any kind of run, as most of them were simply donations to local organizations.

Among City Councillors, Council President John Powers has quite a campaign chest at his disposal.

Powers has $25,200 in his account, ready for another run for Ward 5, and probably the most of any of the Council candidates at the moment.

At-large challenger Steve Morabito showed a decent starting balance with $1,887 in his account, after having done some pretty good spending at the end of 2010.

Morabito spent most of his money on functions, voter lists and website design.

Of course the biggest fish in the campaign finance pond – by far – is Mayor Tom Ambrosino, who finished with $199,570 in 2010. Obviously, that is money that the mayor won’t be able to spend anytime soon as he isn’t running for anything this year.

Ambrosino said that he would keep the account open after he is mayor, using it for donations and maybe even future political endeavors.

“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe I’ll be running for office again sometime in the future.”

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