5 hopefuls pick up mayoral paperwork

Five mayoral candidates today picked up the petitions they’ll need for gathering signatures to win a spot on the Oct. 8 ballot.

They are former City Councilor Pete Dinelli, incumbent Richard Berry, retired police Sgt. Paul Heh, Jay Flowers and former Albuquerque first lady Margaret Aragon de Chavez.

Today was the first day that mayoral candidates could pick up the petitions they must circulate to win a spot on the ballot. They need 3,000 signatures to appear on the Oct. 8 ballot. The deadline to turn in the petitions is March 31, so there is still plenty of time for other candidates to enter the race.

Dinelli and Heh also picked up the paperwork they’ll need to seek public financing of their campaigns. They must gather $5 contributions and signatures from about 3,600 registered voters by March 31 to qualify.

If they do, they’ll each get $362,000 in city funding for their campaigns.

Berry will finance his campaign privately. I haven’t yet spoken to the other two candidates.

Dinelli was the first to enter the race, last month. Heh announced about a week ago. And here’s the latest on Berry, whom I’ll be writing about for tomorrow’s paper.

My first preview of the race was published around the first of the year.