The un-campaign

Part 4

by Yvonne Abraham

Not everyone who gave to Menino's school committee campaign was so altruistic, however. One donor, when asked about the company's motivation, didn't even know what the referendum was about.

Sometimes people contribute to campaigns for their own reasons. Friends of Menino, like Robert Walsh (see "Tom and Bob") and developer Joe Corcoran -- whose company, Corcoran/Jennison, gave $10,000 to help retain the appointed school committee -- probably contribute because of their personal relationships with the mayor.

Ditto Mark Maloney, another real estate man and Friend of Menino, who together with his employees has given approximately $3000 to Menino's reelection campaign since January 1996. Maloney is the former employer of Menino's Boston Housing Authority (BHA) chief Sandy Henriquez, and he serves on the mayor's task force on the city's elderly housing. He was also one of seven private property managers chosen in 1995 to run that housing.

Menino is often criticized for relying too much on friends like Maloney for advice, and for rewarding those friends when it comes time to hand out contracts. The mayor counters that he chooses the best possible people for every job and that the press merely picks on his friends because there's little else to criticize. "The problem is, we've got the city moving," he says. "And they have to figure out something to criticize, and they don't like my friends. Too bad."

Most corporate contributors, such as Old Town Trolley Tours vice president Shawn Ford, say they donate because they admire Menino as a leader. "He's one of the greatest mayors we've ever had," says Ford, who made his donation at a small fundraiser at the home of socialite and convention marketer Dusty Rhodes. "He believes in tourism." Company president Christopher Belland, who sent his $500 check along with Ford (Belland lives in Florida), says he gives to Menino because his administration "tries to do the best they can to accommodate us with traffic and parking and cultural affairs."

John Cannon, New York-based president of Cannon Design, gave Menino $500 seven weeks ago because "our people in Boston tell me he's doing a very good job for the city." (Other Cannon donors did not return phone calls.)

Does a hefty campaign contribution make the city more likely to treat a contractor or a tour bus operator well, or hand them work contracts? Menino, of course, says no: "Most of the time, it's a bidding system, where the lowest bid gets the contract. It's all governed by state laws."

But that doesn't mean campaign donors get nothing. Giving money, though it might not yield concrete returns, can put a person or company on the mayor's radar screen. At the very least, campaign contributions place donors in the same room with the mayor at fundraising events.

Every year, Menino holds three two-hour fundraising brunches: one for Jamaica Plain, one for Charlestown and East Boston, and another for Dorchester and Southie. Tickets are $15, and about 400 people attend. He also hosts eight to twelve breakfast or afternoon receptions downtown, at the Meridien or the Park Plaza. They're more intimate affairs, attended by about 20 professionals -- lawyers, real estate people, and their ilk.

"The fundraisers give the candidate an opportunity to meet and greet and stay in touch, and to get a sense of what's going on in the neighborhoods and the downtown business community," says Maher. "At a lot of these events, we do get people from the community to come in to exchange views with the candidate. The fundraising is secondary."

Both kinds of fundraisers give folks a chance to talk to the mayor, however briefly, but of Menino's 15,000 donors, the professionals who attend the smaller, bigger-ticket events clearly have more quality time with him.

Menino concedes that some of those donors' motives may be less than pure. "You always have to be aware of the self-interested donors," he says. "They contribute, and they think they're going to have access." But that's as far as he goes: "They have no more access than anybody else," he says.

Maher says the Menino Committee goes to great lengths to avoid the appearance of unfair access, too. Prior to fundraising events, a committee screens the invitation list for people who might have business coming up before City Hall, and Maher tells the host, "delicately and politely, that it would not be appropriate to invite them." Menino's team scrutinizes donations the same way, returning checks to those whose contributions might raise the appearance of impropriety.

"We have always been very careful," Maher says.

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Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham[a]phx.com.

Kate Cunningham provided research assistance on this article.