Who’s spending on Northampton City Council races?

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Correction: This article has been updated to correct the fact that the Support Our Schools PAC has recently spent money on both mayoral and City Council races. The PAC has spent $1,355 supporting Jullian Duclos for mayor and $3,097 on its slate of City Council endorsees: Deb Henson, Meg Robbins, Michele Ronco, and Vincent “Luke” Rotello.

With just four days left until a preliminary election in Northampton, newly published campaign finance reports offer a peek at the donors spending to elect candidates in the city.

In Massachusetts, the state does not require all candidates in cities with populations of under 75,000 to continuously report who is funding their political campaigns. Among Northampton’s candidates who will be appearing on Tuesday’s preliminary election ballot, only the mayoral candidates are required to do this.

City Council candidates, on the other hand, must file paper records of campaign donations and expenses with the City Clerk’s Office eight days before the preliminary election, again eight days before the general election, and 30 days after the general.

Following our profiles of each City Council and mayoral candidate on Tuesday’s ballot, The Shoestring reviewed campaign finance data the city made available on its website this week. The records detail who is financially supporting each candidate.

The Support Our Schools Political Action Committee, which emerged from the grassroots movement to allocate more funding to the city’s schools, also figures to be an influential presence in the preliminary and general elections. In total, the PAC raised more than $29,000 and has spent $1,355 supporting Jullian Duclos for mayor and $3,097 on its slate of City Council endorsees: Deb Henson, Meg Robbins, Michele Ronco, and Vincent “Luke” Rotello.

At-Large

Yakov Kronrod has seen the most money flow through his campaign account for the six-way at-large race. He has raised $6,339, but over $3,000 of that came from his own pocket. He has spent most of that money in the leadup to the preliminary election, with $1,692 going to Maggie Goff for administrative support, almost $2,000 to Collective Copies for flyer and yard sign printing, and $500 to MassDems for access to the software Votebuilder. His largest donors include Corey Caplette and Timothy Fisher, both from the Boston area, at $250 each.

Benjamin Spencer raised the next highest amount: $5,960, all of which he raised from others. He has spent less than half that amount, with his largest expense being yard signs from CopyCat, which cost $1,376. His largest donors include longtime former Ward 1 councilor Mareen Carney and Beverly Bates, with other notable contributions coming from Ward 3 City Council candidate Laurie Loisel and former Ward 4 councilor John Thorpe.

Meg Robbins has raised $3,628 and has spent $1,901 of it, her largest expense being $628 to Just Yard Signs. Her biggest donors include Adam Cohen and pediatrician Melissa Maciborski of Northampton, as well as Katie Szopa of Santa Barbara, California, who each gave $500. Robbins has also been endorsed by the Support Our Schools PAC.

William O’Dwyer, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, raised just over $3,000 and spent $2,260 of it. His largest expenses have been for “rack cards,” at almost $1,000, and $700 for Votebuilder software. His largest contributors are Anthony Rose of New Jersey, William Prince of Los Angeles, and Niko Letendre-Cahillane, the fellow DSA member who is running for Ward 1’s seat on the council. 

O’Dwyer had the highest number of donations listed on his filing, at 45, though Spencer trailed him closely at 42 and did not enumerate his small-dollar donations as O’Dwyer did.

Deb Henson, the other endorsee of Support Our Schools, raised $2,755 and spent $3,400, ending in the red with $1,800 in loans from herself. The campaign paid $900 to Brian Abbott of New Orleans for Henson’s website and $1,118 to CopyCat, primarily for design services. Her biggest donors include Adam Cohen and Melissa Maciborski, who each gave $500, as well as mayoral hopeful Dan Breindel, who gave $25, and fellow Support Our Schools PAC endorsees Meg Robbins and Ward 5 candidate Luke Rotello, who also gave $25 each.

Garrick Perry, the incumbent in the race, raised the least this cycle, with only $1,260 coming in on top of a previous balance of $183. According to his filing, he spent none of it. His biggest donors were Michael Aleo, an attorney who is a major donor to Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra and other city politicians, and Owen Freeman-Daniels of Williamsburg.

Ward 1

Democratic Socialists of America member Niko Letendre-Cahillane has raised the most money in Ward 1, at $3,120, and has spent just over half of that. He contributed $500 of his own money to the campaign, but also had the most individual donations in the race, at 36. His other major donors include Catherine Weiss of Northampton, at $500, as well as Martin Weiss of Maine, who donated $250, and Richard Cahillane of Leverett. His largest expense has been $647 to Millennium Press in Agawam for “campaign literature.”

Gwen Nabad, who current Ward 1 Councilor Stanley Moulton has endorsed, has raised $1,437 from 26 donors, and spent $1,167 of that. Her largest donor was School Committee member and former Jackson Street Elementary School principal Gwen Agna, who gave $200. Other notable donors include current at-large Councilor Marissa Elkins and current Ward 2 Councilor Deborah Pastrich Klemer. Almost all of her campaign expenses have been for materials.

Michele Ronco, the Support Our Schools endorsee for this race, raised the least: $1,210 from 14 donors. The campaign spent only $462 of it, mostly for yard signs. His campaign received $500 from Melissa Maciborski, with no other donations over $100.

Ward 3

Ward 3 is home to the candidate who appears to have raised the most money of any City Council candidate ahead of Tuesday’s preliminary election: Laurie Loisel.

In total, Loisel has raised $9,085 so far this campaign cycle and spent a little more than a third of that. According to data posted to the city’s website, that’s more than any candidate raised in the previous two preliminary City Council elections the city has held: in Ward 7 in 2019 and in the at-large race in 2021.

Among her top donors are Michael Aleo, former city councilors Dennis Bidwell and Maureen Carney, retired Northampton District Court judge W. Michael Goggins, Wright Builders founder Jonathan Wright, and Elizabeth Silver, who has served in leadership roles in the Northampton Democratic City Committee. Other larger donors include city residents Thomas Arnold, Jennifer Dieringer, Nicholas Horton, Seth Mias, and Robbie Sullivan.

All but three of the 46 donations to Loisel’s campaign — the most in the race — come from Northampton residents. And of those three donations from outside Northampton, two of them live elsewhere in western Massachusetts. 

Loisel has spent $3,731 ahead of the preliminary election. Among her biggest expenses were $830 in yard signs from a Minnesota-based company, $784 for a kick-off party, $404 for palm cards and doorhangers, and $235 for a website.

Ace Tayloe raised $3,803, meanwhile, nearly all of which came out of their own pockets in the form of a loan. They’ve spent $879 on postcards and lawn signs from Paradise Copies, more than $400 for a campaign event, and $100 on a Northampton photographer for pictures on their website.

Quaverly Rothenberg’s campaign finance report did not appear on the city clerk’s website Friday afternoon; Rothenberg said she submitted it on Thursday, four days late. In a copy of the report Rothenberg sent to The Shoestring, she reported raising $4,461 ahead of the preliminary and spending just under half of that.

Rothenberg reported $500 donations from city residents Leann Wilson and Arnold Levinson, pediatrician Melissa Maciborski, and Adam Cohen. Other top donors include $300 from Brian Wilby, $250 from Jeffrey Dwyer, and $100 from Marsha Morris.

With the exception of $572 for printing literature at CopyCat in Northampton, nearly all of Rothenberg’s expenses are reimbursements to herself for “graphics.” Rothenberg explained Friday that she paid a local graphic design firm, Amiga Negra, $5,000 out of her own pocket for graphic design work in 2023. The reimbursements are for that loan to her campaign, she said.

Her filing lists a total of $6,509 in liabilities from loans she made to her campaign account last election cycle for graphic design, lawn signs, Votebuilder software, mailers, and postage.

Ward 5

Luke Rotello, the Support Our Schools endorsee, has raised the most in the Ward 5 race, at $2,250. The campaign spent $1,872, with a little under half of that going to Collective Copies for yard signs, and another $630 going to JJ’s Tavern for a campaign event. Amber Clooney, a librarian, and Elisabeth Armstrong, a Smith College professor, each donated $500 to Rotello’s campaign, and Rotello himself contributed $100. Including himself, he had 11 named donors, with an additional $75 in contributions under $50, which do not need to be itemized.

Aline Davis raised $1,321, with another $220 rolling over from her previous campaign for her School Committee seat. The campaign has spent $684, for an independent designer and for printing at Collective Copies, with another outstanding $1,050 in unpaid expenses to Sign Rocket and Standard Modern for campaign materials and to Weebly, a website platform. Her largest donors are Catherine and Donald Jackson and Cathy Kay, Florence residents who gave $250 and $200, respectively. Gwen Agna and Ward 2 Councilor Deborah Pastrich-Klemer also each donated smaller amounts. The campaign had 15 individual donors.

Davis has received the endorsement of current Ward 5 Councilor Alex Jarrett.

David Murphy is the sole contributor to his own campaign, to the tune of $1,260, with almost all of it going to Hadley’s Sunraise Printing for signs.

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