Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
ANNE LINDBERGFire Commissioner Bill Adams has no campaign account, so he's not allowed to spend money on his re-election bid.
LEALMAN - Fire Commissioner Bill Adams will be unable to spend any money to run for re-election because he waited so long to sign up for the race.
Two other candidates for the Lealman Fire Commission also are running without campaign war chests. But they did so by choice. One is fire board chairman Mike Brophy, who is facing first-time candidate Julie A. Adams, no relation to Bill Adams.
The other candidate foregoing a bank account is political newcomer Vivian Diane Campbell, who is opposing Bill Adams for Seat 5. That race also includes first-timer Marion Boyle.
The election is Nov. 2.
Bill Adams "came in at the last minute. Right before high noon. He had no campaign account. He had no campaign checks," said Deborah Clark, Pinellas County supervisor of elections.
Most candidates, Clark said, are required to pay the filing fee with a check from a campaign account. But when Bill Adams came in at 11:58 a.m. July 16 - two minutes before the filing deadline - he had neither a campaign account nor a check. At that point, it was too late for him to run to a bank to open an account.
Normally, Bill Adams would be prevented from running, but he was "kind of lucky," Clark said. The Legislature passed a law this past session that allows candidates for fire boards to run without a campaign account.
The downside is those candidates are allowed to pay only for the filing fee, $25 in Adams' case. They cannot accept donations or spend their own money for their campaign.
"This whole thing was put in place for people who were not going to campaign," Clark said.
Bill Adams, Brophy and Campbell must run their campaigns by word of mouth and expenditure of shoe leather.
"I really think I can run on recognition," said Campbell, who has been active in the revitalization efforts in east Lealman and has walked that portion of the Fire District several times asking people to sign petitions.
Campbell said she thought she would be able to spend her own money during the campaign, but if Clark ruled otherwise, she would rely on door-to-door and word of mouth.
"There's nothing that says I can't knock on doors," Campbell said.
Brophy also is relying on voters' familiarity with an incumbent.
"I didn't find a need for it," said Brophy, who has served on the board since 1998. "I'm not looking for contributions. The last time I ran, I guess the last two times, I opened an account for no purpose at all. I felt there just wasn't any need for it."
Brophy said he felt his name and experience would win out as he talked to prospective voters.
"You can accomplish just as much walking around talking to people," Brophy said. "If somebody wants to make a sign and put it up on a wall, that's just fine."
Bill Adams conceded he had waited until the very last minute.
"I'm stamped in at 11:58 (a.m.) and at 11:59 (a.m.) on my paperwork," Bill Adams said Monday.
He said he pleaded ignorance and the fact he had been out of town, although he had talked with a reporter the day before about his intentions.
"I didn't know it was noon. I didn't have the (election information) packet," Bill Adams said. "I didn't pay any attention. That's something you do every four years."
Adams said he was not sure the information packet from Clark's office indicated the filing fee should be paid by a campaign check. But it could have, he conceded; because he read the information so quickly, he could have missed it.
Clark said the packet clearly stated the fee must be paid by campaign check. "One would assume" the candidate would realize that meant an account had to be set up in advance, she said.
"He is the incumbent. I would have thought he would file his documents a little earlier," she said.
Bill Adams said he has not had a chance to read all the laws applying to his situation, but said he wonders if he really is barred from spending his own money on his campaign.
"Without seeing those (statutes), I couldn't make a judgment one way or another about whether I could open up a campaign account after the fact," he said.
Bill Adams added, "I was intending to open an account but it doesn't make any difference now. Let it be. Que sera, sera.''
Adams said he was not sure if his re-election campaign would be hurt by a lack of funding.
"Who knows? Who knows? If the people want me, they'll vote me in. If they don't, they won't," he said.
Bill Adams was appointed to the Lealman Fire Commission in July 2000. He first ran for election in 2000.
Lealman Fire Commission members are paid $500 a month and serve four-year terms.
The Lealman Fire District is between Pinellas Park and St. Petersburg and stretches on both sides of Kenneth City from just east of I-275 to Park Street.