St. Pete City Council member Steve Kornell has raised $26,730 for his re-election campaign. Those numbers are in the first campaign finance report representing contributions from January through March.
More than 150 donors wrote checks to Kornell’s District 5 campaign fund. That includes five maximum $1,000 contributions from former mayoral candidate Scott Wagman, St. Petersburg Free Clinic CEO Beth Houghton, the Pinellas Police Benevolent Association PAC, Rand Snell and a Fort Lauderdale restaurant owner, Ron Gofrank.
Kornell also brought in an impressive 40 $100 contributions, including one from his colleague on council, Amy Foster, and Pinellas County School Board member Linda Lerner.
Kornell raked in 18 $250 contributions including two from former gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink and longtime Tampa Bay area politician Betty Castor. Jean Totti, an architect with the city, also donated $250.
Fifteen donors kicked in $500 a piece. That includes O’Neil’s Marina located in Kornell’s South St. Pete district. The Flamingo, a popular gay bar also in his district, also contributed $500. Kornell is one of three openly gay council members on St. Pete City Council.
“I am honored and appreciative of each and every donation,” Kornell said. “Receiving such a large number of donations shows strong community support for the agenda I have put forward for the past five years.”
During the same reporting period Kornell spent just over $7,000. The majority of that was spent on campaign management by Blue Ticket Consulting run by Tom Alte. Alte also contributed to Kornell’s campaign.
Kornell also spent about $500 on web design by BussFish Marketing, a firm based in Tampa. He spent nearly $136 to GoDaddy for his website domain.
Kornell has not drawn any opposition in his race yet. If re-elected, that would be the five-year council veteran’s final term.
Kornell has served an extra year on council because he was elected to finish out the final year of previous City Council member Jamie Bennett’s term. Bennett left office to unsuccessfully run for mayor against Bill Foster.
