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Rilling mayoral campaign reports $30K in donations, Mangiacopra tops $25K

By Mark Chapman

Former Norwalk Police Chief Harry Rilling, left; District D Chairman Vinny Mangiacopra, right. Both would like to be the Democratic Party's nominee to face Republican Mayor Richard Moccia this fall.
Former Norwalk Police Chief Harry Rilling, left; District D Chairman Vinny Mangiacopra, right. Both would like to be the Democratic Party’s nominee to face Republican Mayor Richard Moccia this fall.

(This story was updated at 5:56 p.m. to add Mangiacopra information)

NORWALK, Conn. – Democratic mayoral candidate Harry Rilling has raised more than $30,000 in campaign contributions, and rival Democrat Vinny Mangiacopra has topped $25,000, according to a pair of press releases issued Wednesday afternoon by the respective campaigns.

The Rilling press release was sent at 4:30 p.m., the deadline for filing first-quarter campaign finance reports with the city. Mangiacopra’s release was sent shortly after 5 p.m.

According to the release, Rilling received $30,318 in contributions from Feb. 24 to March 31, the period covered for the campaign’s first financial report. The campaign received contributions from 85 donors, 80 percent of whom are Norwalk residents (67 percent), business owners and people who work in the city. An additional 11.7 percent of donations came from other Connecticut residents.

“The generosity of these first donors has demonstrated beyond any question that I will run a strong, competitive campaign for mayor of Norwalk,” Rilling said. “Political observers in Norwalk have been looking to these early results to see whether I will be able to raise the funds necessary to run a winning campaign in November, and today I am pleased to show that my campaign has scored an excellent result on this first test.”

Mangiacopra reported $25,533 raised since he announced his candidacy Jan. 22, according to his press release. The report shows 232 donors, 68 of them from Norwalk. The campaign has $22,957.45 cash on hand

“I think people will be surprised by these results,” Mangiacopra said in the release. “… Many Norwalkers are ready to turn the page on the past and get onto the business of making our city the vibrant place it can be. This is just the beginning of the support we are building across Norwalk, Fairfield County, and the entire state of Connecticut.”

Check back Thursday with NancyOnNorwalk for a list of donors.

 

Comments

26 responses to “Rilling mayoral campaign reports $30K in donations, Mangiacopra tops $25K”

  1. VinnieBag ODonuts

    No list of donors? With only about 25% of his donors coming from Norwalk, it is now more than obvious that Mangiacopra’s money is from New Haven and Bridgeport operatives looking to take over the city. Ain’t gonna happen

    1. Mark Chapman

      None of the campaigns have provided a donor list. We get those from the Town Clerk’s office. The reports today were filed too late for us to get donor lists, but we will have them tomorrow (Thursday). Everyone will get equal treatment.

  2. ScopeonNorwalk

    Looks like Vinny had the most contributors and the most Norwalk contributors…A guy that the public thought had been a good or even decent police chief during his tenure should have been able to get more in-town contributors than a 31 year old from Bridgeport. That speaks miles to Rillings relationship (or lack thereof) with the residents of Norwalk.

  3. ScopeonNorwalk

    Let’s recap on Norwalk contributions (the rest is just war chest to beat the Republicans). Norwalk contributions are votes and that’s what matters. Percentages don’t matter either when you’re counting votes and bodies to the polls:

    -Mangiacopra: 68
    -Rilling: 57
    -Garfunkel: 37
    -Miklave: 21
    -Moccia: 17

  4. oldtimer

    SCOPE
    If only it was that simple. All the so-called Norwalk donors are not sure votes and a lot of the out-of-town contributions are from people connected to businesses in town who have a real interest in how Norwalk operates. The dollar totals are more significant than we might like to believe. Advertizing cost money and does influence the vote. Staff working for a candidate also cost money and makes a difference in how many voters are contacted.

  5. Don’t Panic

    I’m betting the Mayor will start working those phones now. Combined, the four Ds raised about as much in one fundraising quarter as the Mayor raised during his entire campaign last time around. The Democratic Town Committee must be pleased that the Ds are this motivated to unseat Moccia. Now that we know everyone is really good at asking their friends for money, can we get back to the issues? Like, how is the BOE going to plug a $1.4m hole due to a shortfall in estimated ECS funding? (and where have I heard this song before?)

  6. NorwalkNeedsAChange

    I must say that I’m impressed with Vinny. The fact that a candidate who is fairly new to Norwalk can raise that much, from so many Norwalk residents, shows he is for real. I had the opportunity to speak with Vinny and in my opinion, his heart and intentions are good. I think people need to change their “old school” mentality and be open to change.

  7. NorwalkVoter

    Dear ScopeOn spinner:
    You seem to overlook the fact that the Rilling campaign did not have a full quarter to raise $$$. Harry only filed on Feb. 21st, I believe. Mr. Vinny had a full quarter and also had more than one fundraiser. Rilling did not have any fundraisers yet. Calm down. This race is just beginning and the Rilling campaign wins the money race so far. The Bridgeport/Vinny campaign has a long way to go to convince Norwalkers that we should do things the Bridgeport way.

  8. Lisa Thomson

    Aside from the politcos, few Norwalkers are paying attention at the moment.
    We have 86,000 residents and 50,000 registered voters and only 13,000 people voted in the last mayoral election – that says a lot. The mayoral candidates will soon have to start talking about the real operational issues that plague Norwalk and better still talk about how they will manage things better in a bad economy. It’s easy to talk about all the things that one would like to do, but it will have to come from smarter government not necessarily property tax dollars that people don’t have. Kudos however, to all the candidates and their fundraising efforts. I hope that the money raised is used for communicating their fresh ideas rather than bashing each other or Dick Moccia. It should be interesting to see if this sort of money translates into more residents participating in the electoral process in November.

  9. Harold

    I always thought it would come down to Harry and Vinny and this pretty much confirms it. We need a change for the better and Harry is more of the “old regime” that we certainly dont need. Good job done by Norwalks Future Now for the first quarter fund raising.

  10. Tom

    Hey Scope: Seems you don’t pay attention to the “real numbers”. Mangiacropa had only 29% of his donors in Norwalk (68 out of 232 donors). The rest came from “out of towners”. Check out the Hour story and read the blog there. As Art Rosetti put it,’ Hey folks, can you say Ernie Newton”? If we forget that debacle, they we deserve him.

  11. Harold

    @Tom
    What does Ernie Newton have to do with this? Yes Vinny worked on his campaign and also worked with Jim Himes and Diane Farrell. Maybe from your point of view Jim and Diane are also criminals? Lastly, more Norwalkers donated to Vinnies campaign than any other.(Just about as much as Moccia,Garfunkel, and Miklave) Doesn’t that say anything to us?

  12. Mike

    The comment by our city chairmen is discerning considering the fact that there is no urgency behind the current Mayors campaign. The only important numbers, are the hard numbers. Pay attention to history.

  13. Asa H.M.

    To Norwalkneedsachange: “his heart and intentions are good” is a nice sentiment about Vinny and possibly true, but ability and experience are what we need. I believe that Miklave has background with all types of constituents, the ideas to move us in new directions and the experience to make hard and sometimes unpopular choices by breaking from the “old” network of Norwalk politics. Listen to his message, please.

  14. Tim T

    Asa H.M.
    You make excellent points.
    Mangiacopra is way to young and has ZERO experience ..He should come back in 20 year and run again.
    Moccia and Rilling are the reason Norwalk is the mess that it is.
    I will give Rilling some credit as he did have some of the best and most original excuses why his police department could not solve or prevent crime. With that said we do not need a new excuse master as in Rilling as we already have one with Moccia
    I believe the only true choices are Andy or Miklave.
    They both seem to actually care about Norwalk which is a refreshing change from the current administration.
    I was hoping the list of Rilling donor names would be published today as I wanted to see how many are current or retired cops or relative of cops donating to protect their cushy jobs that have Zero accountability and unlimited overtime on the backs of the taxpayers

  15. spanner

    Looks like the NY bakery will have two tables now reserved one for Moccia and one for Rilling.Only time you never saw those two there is when the NY bakery were attacked and almost robbed inside the city garage for a week,come find out NY bakery uses the garage so others can park to use the bakery you think by now the two politicians would of done something about parking for them.This was not a plug for the two problems the city has its for the great bakery and what they do for the city.

    Linda got help from the city when she ran and had an office on Washington st why couldn’t the city help out NY bakery?

    Yes its all about those bear claws,sticky buns and Mocha cakes its not about Moccia and Rillings trust me.

  16. Anthony

    Now that Mr. Mangiacopra has shown that he has the ability to raise money, I believe that he is going to very hard to beat. If you have ever come in contact with this guy personally you will know that he is the real deal. People want to take about “no experience” but that’s the same rhetoric that was used for Cory Booker as he ran for mayor of Newark and Barack Obama when he ran for anything. Campaigns are not won on blogs, they are won in the streets through effective organizing and a person dedicated to really winning by any means inside of the law. I’ve been in Norwalk for awhile now and when it comes to municipal elections I just don’t see candidates making that effort. I think the good ol boys network is in trouble because this upstart Norwalk’s Future Now has really hit the ground running.

  17. Tim T

    Anthony
    Maybe you forgot Barack Obama was a United States senator. This KIDS only experience is running a campaign that seemed to have many issues. Maybe when Mangiacopra grows up and gets some experience in 20 years or so we can talk.
    Hey I have a nephew that wants to be Mayor and hes 15 should we sign him up?

  18. BARIN

    Folks, Andy or Harry are the only Dems that can defeat the mayor, whom ever wins the Dem nod, past history has already shown that local Dems are divided, so if your guy doesn’t get the nod, you may not vote for the Dem candidate at all.
    You won the battle but may lose the war, it makes no sense, this could possibly the best chance to have a Dem in the top seat and Dems may blow it.
    Hopefully this scenario won’t pan out, although it could happen.
    It comes down to the voters, Andy and Harry are simply more well known by more Norwalk voters.
    If there is a large voter turnout one of them, head to head against the mayor will stand a better chance of winning.
    It would also be more likely that a disenchanted current Repub would vote for one of the above candidates, before considering to vote for Matt or Vinny.
    Andy and Harry are simply more well known amongst residents, low voter turnout would be the only chance for Matt or Vinny to win.
    The object for the Dems, all of them, is to win, right?
    Popcorn anyone?

  19. Tim T

    Popcorn anyone
    only of its caramel corn.

  20. Anthony

    Tim T-
    What was Obama befor he was a US Senator? I’ll wait for you to google it. Like I said, when he ran for ANYTHING the rhetoric was that he had no experience. And when he was a senator, he was a freshman senator when he decided to run for president.

  21. Tim T

    Anthony
    Obama was a ivy graduate, an attorney and 48 years old and not 31. Unlike Mangiacopra who worked for a campaign that had issues to say the least.
    Mangiacopra has ZERO chance of winning as I have yet to speak with anyone in person that is actually voting for him. Actually most just laugh when you mention Mangiacopra or Rilling.

  22. Tim T

    Anthony
    Mr. Mangiacopra has shown that he has the ability to raise money FROM OUT OF TOWN

  23. Anthony

    Tim-
    I see that google search was fruitful. You obviously aren’t seasoned enough in campaigns or fundraising for me to have an intellectual conversation about either. Raising money doesn’t equal votes, but what it does equal is the ability to run an effective organization that will garner votes. Me. Mangiacopra has worked on Manu successful campaigns and I’m almost certain that he will parlay the skills he has learned into his own. If you are this passionate about the candidate that you are supporting you better start knocking on some doors and making some calls because I can promise you that your rhetoric on this blog is not helping. You are usually well versed on the topic that you post on on this blog, but I see that your knowledge is limited in terms of campaign finances. William Tong, candidate for mayor of Stamford has raised 100k. Peruse through his donor list and see how many donors are from Stamford. To make Norwalk a statewide leader you have to tap into statewide support. Please step out of the box of your confined thinking and dig a little deeper… I know it’s it in. Google Cory Booker too or the mayor of Pittsburgh who is 32 and is at the helm of the most productive city in the nation.

  24. Tim T

    Anthony
    Say what you will but you will see Mangiacopra will not get the dem nomination and he will lose big time in the primary. He is a child attempting to play with the adults. He has Zero positive experience to be mayor and honestly I have issues with the campaigns that he has been involved with in the past.

  25. Anthony

    Time will tell good sir.

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