At $65k only the mayor has more cash on hand
By JOSH RESNEK
Councilor at Large Gerly Adrien’s recently filed political campaign fund revealed she has about $65,000 in the bank and ready to go with about $4,000 owed to vendors as the New Year begins.
This compares with the mayor holding about $125,000 in his campaign account.
Also, the mayor is continuing to pay large monthly stipends to a well-known criminal attorney and his worldwide law firm.
What those payments are for remains an unanswered question for the mayor and most voters.
Adrien collected the campaign funds from 1,000 donors, some contributing as little as $2.00 in what is believed to be the biggest surprise to the political community in Everett.
The contributions come from local women and men and organizations wanting to show their grassroots support for Adrien, the first and only Black woman to serve on the Everett City Council.
Adrien topped the ticket in the last election, indicating that Everett has accepted the arrival of minority candidates. Also elected with Adrien are a Vietnamese real estate man Jimmy Tri Le and a Brazilian woman, Stephanie Martins.
The election of Adrien, Le, and Martins is considered a revolutionary moment in the changing political landscape here.
The mayor has already launched a taxpayer paid for candidacy for re-election with a taxpayer-funded newsletter and taxpayer-funded full-page advertisements touting his accomplishments in two of the three Everett newspapers. The mayor is also using ECTV to tout his accomplishments and to give himself free facetime on the city’s website.
The mayor is using the services of a Boston public relations firm to advance his agenda. The city has so far spent $330,000 for initiatives ordered up by the mayor and public relations staff.
ECTV is by its charter supposed to be available to all residents and candidates. The mayor is using ECTV as his own.
Adrien’s substantial war chest coming out of the blue is a big surprise and a major cause for the mayor to re-think his re-election bid and what kind of road he will be going down in the race to November.
Very likely, the race will be determined in part with a September primary.
Adrien’s war chest has set off a flurry of thinking about what comes next for the first term councilor at large.