Facing challenges again, Ken Welch launches third political committee

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch has launched a new political committee to support his re-election bid this year, the third he’s had since first running for Mayor more than four years ago and the second over the past several months.

The new committee, St. Petersburg Progress PAC, replaces The Pelican Political Action Committee, which replaced The Pelican PAC.

Officials with the latest political committee filed paperwork to launch it with the Division of Elections on Jan. 30, after it became public that a former Treasurer for Welch’s previous committee, The Pelican Political Action Committee, had allegedly stolen $207,000 from the committee. Yolanda Brown, according to Welch’s campaign, made a series of unauthorized expenditures to a business she controls. The campaign has said it forwarded a complaint to state and federal law enforcement.

Even before that happened, Welch had his first political committee, The Pelican PAC, revoked by the state for consistently failing to file certain required documents.

The new political committee’s name appears on a flyer for Welch’s campaign kickoff, and already it appears as though the committee is off to a rough start. The flyer contains the required disclaimer noting that it was paid for by the Welch campaign, but it lacks a disclaimer regarding the political committee, which is required because the flyer points donations to that fund.

And while the “donate” button is now working, as recently as last Tuesday, when Florida Politics first checked, the button on the website established for the new PAC did not work. When users clicked the link, nothing happened.

Powerbroker Magazine reported Monday about the new political committee, including comments from the committee’s Chair, Adrienne Bogen, arguing the new PAC is meant to “ensure there are absolutely no distractions from the work ahead.”

She called the creation of a new PAC “about transparency, accountability, and maintaining the highest ethical standards,” according to Powerbroker Magazine.

It’s a strange way to try to shore up confidence in accountability. Creating a new PAC accomplishes nothing that removing Brown from the previous committee and correcting accounting errors hadn’t already created. And it’s worth noting that even removing Brown didn’t go smoothly. Brown wasn’t removed as Treasurer until Jan. 28, 16 days after committee officials filed amended finance reports including the unauthorized transaction.

That means it took more than two weeks for anyone in Welch’s camp to remove an accused thief from its ranks. And it did so just hours after I first reported that Brown’s name was curiously still listed as an officer of the committee.

And if none of that were enough, establishing a new committee — again Welch’s third as Mayor — does nothing to change the challenge he faces in terms of a funding deficit.

As of Monday, Welch and Maria Scruggs — a candidate who has run for office numerous times and never with success — are the only filed candidates in this year’s mayoral race. But former Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to run, and launched a political committee late last year that, in its first seven weeks, hauled in three-quarters of a million dollars.

The Pelican Political Action Committee, Welch’s previous committee that suffered the alleged six-figure theft, had just over $30,000 in it as of the end of December. While that money will presumably be transferred to the new committee, it’s still comparatively akin to starting with nothing.

Welch will hold an event to launch his campaign this week, on Wednesday. Campaign kickoffs are typically big fundraising opportunities and candidates often post big numbers from them. So it will be interesting to see what Welch’s first-quarter haul winds up being.

Unfortunately for us, but perhaps fortunately for him, voters won’t get a look at those results until April, after reports are due.

His fourth-quarter fundraising, which was before he officially filed for re-election, was lackluster, with just $48,225 raised. Supporters no doubt will be looking for assurances in the next report that Welch can run a viable campaign because, so far at least, the mistakes are piling up, but the cash isn’t.