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Bernero is back!

January 30, 2021

I received a letter from Virg Bernero today saying he is running for mayor. A story in the City Pulse in December said he was giving it serious consideration. Now, apparently, it's official.

He wants me to donate to his campaign. According to the last campaign finance report he submitted - for the period 7/21/2020-10/20/2020 - he has a balance of $24,317. And if my calculations are right, he still has $47,000 in his 527 account, which had the name City Administrative Account. The last report he submitted for it was for the third quarter of 2018.

Virg served three terms as Lansing's mayor, from 2006 through 2017. I compiled records of contributions to his mayoral campaign finance committee - Virg Bernero for Lansing - for the years 2010-2017. You can see them here:

Year	Ending Balance
2010	$7,305.08
2011	$8,434.67
2012	$28,692.22
2013	$41,652.18
2014	$45,201.06
2015	$65,555.33
2016	$141,602.55
2017	$108,931.83	as of July 20

I also compiled contribution and expenditure information for his City Administrative Account:

Contributions Sorted by Date

Contributions Sorted by Employer

Contributions Sorted by Employer Total

Expenditures Sorted by Date

Expenditures Sorted by Recipient

Expenditures Sorted by Purpose

And I thought it would be interesting to see together the contributions to the 527 account and the mayoral campaign, so I combined the contribution records for the two funds for the years 2010 through 2017 and then sorted them by employer so you could see which firms/employers were the big overall contributors. Here is the whole list. And below are totals compiled from that list, providing the number of individual contributions and the contribution total for those employers whose total was $5000 or more.

Employer	Number	Amount
Christman Company	46	49,200
BCBS	15	28,425
Miller Canfield	57	21,600
Board of Water & Light	84	20,000
City of Lansing	86	16,650
E. T. Mackenzie Company	12	16,375
Jones Development Company	5	14,000
UAW	3	11,600
Demmer Corporation	11	11,250
DLZ Michigan	10	11,200
Eyde Company	15	10,600
AT&T	5	10,400
Loomis Ewert Parsley Davis & Gotting	17	10,325
Foster, Swift, Collins & Smith	21	9,600
Boji Group	9	8,900
Emergent Biosolutions	18	8,720
Granger Group	11	8,275
Clark Hill	13	7,850
Clark Construction	16	7,550
Fishbeck Thompson Carr & Huber	9	7,550
Plumbers & Pipefitters	5	6,900
Neogen Corporation	6	6,575
Tetra Tech	29	6,550
Jackson National Life Insurance	5	6,250
Malcolm Pirnie	5	6,200
Fraser Trebilcock Davis & Dunlap	33	6,000
Gillespie Development	9	5,800
Accident Fund	4	5,600
Dykema Gossett	19	5,600
Kramer Management Group	7	5,600
Nth Consultants	17	5,350
Barron Enterprises	7	5,000

During his tenure, Lansing's unfunded liability for its two pension systems increased from $49,084,000 to $265,913,045:

That's just for the pensions. The unfunded liability for retiree health care was $416,500,000 as of January 1, 2018.

I wrote several stories about him:

8/9/2016	Bernero mayoral campaign account grows to $109,260
6/19/2016	Hiding behind attorney-client privilege
5/19/2016	Jones Property Development gives Bernero $5,000
10/15/2015	Bernero campaign fund grows by $20,354 in first half of 2015
8/15/2015	Replacing Lansing's mayor with a city manager
7/20/2015	How to oust Bernero
2/7/2015	Bernero's City Administrative Account takes in another $8,500 in last half of 2014
9/8/2014	Do City, BWL managers contribute voluntarily?
8/31/2014	Bernero sends a message
7/29/2014	Non-candidate Virg Bernero rakes in $41,300 at breakfast
8/8/2013	Virg's money machine
7/30/2012	Mayor Bernero an Embarrassment
2/29/2012	Virg Bernero's fund raising and spending
8/1/2011	Lansing Booster Club Rakes in $24,081 in First Half of 2011

Memories, memories.

Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.

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