Event hints at Yoon run for mayor

Fund-raiser held for councilor in California

Sam Yoon was not available for comment yesterday.

The cocktail invitations have gone out. The $100 contributions are rolling in. "Help us elect Sam in 2009!" read one invitation, describing the candidate's "quest to become the first Asian-American mayor of Boston."

But this campaign activity by Boston Councilor Sam Yoon was taking place far away this week, in the San Francisco Bay area. And Yoon has not yet said publicly in Boston that he is even exploring a run against longtime incumbent Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Now Yoon is in the uncomfortable position of explaining a candidacy that may or may not be launched.

A spokesman for Yoon said yesterday that the invitations declaring his candidacy were unauthorized and created by overeager supporters, but another Yoon confidante who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the councilor was considering a run for mayor but hasn't made a decision.

Yoon's spokesman, Curtis Ellis, said the councilor could not comment because he is traveling in California.

"Sam's not available," Ellis said. "He's busy."

Campaigning out of state might seem to be an unorthodox way to test the waters for an election in Boston, but some political observers said it may be the smartest way to raise money for a race in which the incumbent is so powerful that many local donors might be reluctant to contribute to a challenger.

"That's just the reality of the situation," said Lawrence S. DiCara, a former city councilor and longtime City Hall observer.

Menino could not be reached yesterday for comment. Dot Joyce, his spokeswoman at City Hall, said she cannot comment on issues related to the mayor's campaign. His campaign spokesman was unavailable.

Yoon joins Councilor Michael F. Flaherty in the ranks of Bostonians considering a campaign against Menino in 2009. None has declared publicly an intention to seek the job. Former district attorney Ralph Martin, who was seen as a potential threat to the mayor, has said he won't be running.

A recorded message on Yoon's cellular telephone says he is "out of town, traveling to support the Obama campaign this week," and refers callers to his council office.

Campaign finance records show $10,000 in deposits in Yoon's account during the past week. The money came from 37 donors, only five of whom are Massachusetts residents. Nineteen are Californians, and the others list addresses in New York, Virginia, and Maryland.

The fund-raiser Monday in Menlo Park was cosponsored by Yul Kwon, a Korean-American winner of the reality television show "Survivor." It was held at the offices of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, an international law firm.

Kwon, who met the councilor last year through friends, said last night that the fund-raiser was meant to be a private affair. He did not say whether the councilor approved the invitations outlining his mayoral ambitions, but said Yoon had told him he is "is keeping his options open."

One Boston political observer, former city councilor Michael J. McCormack, said that whatever the case, holding the fund-raiser so far away when he hasn't outlined his plans to people in Boston appears to be a little off base.

"Maybe he's good at fund-raising but not at geography," McCormack said.

Yoon was first elected as an at-large council member in 2005. He was the first Asian-American to run for the council and the first to win a seat. He ran on a promise to represent communities in Boston that historically hadn't had a strong voice in City Hall.

"The Cape Verdean community, the Haitian community, the Vietnamese community, and the people who live with those communities. I think they came out to vote for me because they saw I would be somebody who would represent the interests of them and their neighbors," he said at the time.

But in the ensuing three years, Yoon has kept a rather low profile.

He chairs the council's postaudit and oversight committee and has called some public hearings on issues of note: police details, mortgage foreclosures, and crime. But his staffers can point to no successful legislation he has authored as a result. One piece of legislation he wrote, to institute a sales tax increase of five cents on every $10 in purchases to pay for public safety programs in the city, is still in a committee a year after he introduced it.

Yoon has been criticized for his absence from some council meetings. Yoon stalled the city's purchase of an acoustic gunshot-detection system last year, saying he wanted to have more public hearings on the anticrime device. But he hadn't attended public hearings already held on the topic.

Yoon's campaign website and the fund-raising flier for the Menlo Park event tout Yoon's education - he has degrees from Princeton and Harvard universities - and say "Sam is known for his work to promote good government by bringing innovation to City Hall and transparency to budgeting."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.