Wine Purveyor and Former Restaurateur Runs for Mayor

Anthony “Tony” Bommarito, Sr. has served on Ladue’s City Council for 10 years and now he wants to be mayor. He sat down with Patch, along with his campaign manager, Aimee Whitelaw, founder and president of A.H. Whitelaw Consulting and formerly of Washington D.C. where she worked in the Bush Administration as Assistant to the Vice President (Dick Cheney) for Political Affairs, to talk about his experience and reasons for running.

“I love Ladue and have lived here for 45 years,” Bommarito said. “I have the time to be mayor and it will give me the opportunity to pull away from my business.” His business, A. Bommarito Wines, employs his son, Tony Jr., who Bommarito said is in a position to run the enterprise should he win the election.

He said his business experience makes him qualified to run the city. “There’s nothing like balancing budgets and dealing with personnel,” Bommarito said.  “And I think it’s very important to know and understand the feeling of the community.” He said he knows what’s going on in the city in terms of the government, businesses and employees.

Bommarito said the city is in a good financial position and that the city services, such as fire and police, do a good job.  He would like to help raise the tax base for the city and said that currently there is a business development committee that is looking at the Clayton/64 corridor and the former Lammert’s property at Ladue and I-170.

His overall vision for the city is to make it “one of the best small cities in the U.S.A.”  In order to accomplish this, Bommarito said one needs to be aware of what’s going on. “I ask ‘what would you want?’” he said. While he doesn’t have any particular benchmarks now, he said it’s on his agenda to find out what the top 10 cities in America are doing.

In addressing whether or not Ladue should consider joining with other communities to share public services, he said that the city should remain independent. “I see no reason to join services. What we have is the best we can give residents. Ladue should be a city that everyone else looks up to.”

This past Sunday, Bommarito’s campaign held a “meet the candidate” event at Truffles. “We had sent a brochure to everyone in the city inviting them,” Whitelaw said. “It was open to the public.” She said approximately 150 people showed up.

“I saw people I knew and met new people,” Bommarito said. While he said he did do some door-to-door campaigning, he has a few events coming up that are being organized at people’s homes.

Bommarito’s campaign chair is former state Senator Betty Sims. He has a small group of advisors who have been friends for a long time.