Republican Rick Grinnell formally filed to run for mayor of Tucson as a write-in candidate earlier today.

Grinnell will need to get at least 1,060 Republicans to write his name on their Aug. 30 primary ballots in order for his name to appear on the November general ballot.

He tells The Range he will continue running his lobbying firm, Smart United Business Strategies, while running for mayor.

“I still have to make a living,” he says. “If I won the mayor’s race, then I’d have to step down. I would restructure the company to be able to do certain things. … I could keep the marketing side, but the lobbying would have cease and desist.”

His biggest client is Rosemont Copper, the Canadian firm that plans to dig tons of ore out of Santa Rita Mountains if they can win permission to dump their tailings on U.S. Forest Service land.

Grinnell doesn’t think that his work for Rosemont will be a negative for his mayoral bid.

“The work I do for Rosemont is right in line with the work I do for my company,” Grinnell says. “They’re still a client. I’m still going to advocate for good business positions. I’m still going to advocate for opportunity.”

He added that he has about 12 clients, but he doesn’t plan to reveal their names while he runs for mayor.

“The only ones that would probably be public, because of certain regulations, would be Rosemont,” Grinnell says. “I don’t think that’s an issue. I help people with marketing campaigns. I help them understand the dynamics. I help them with emails and stuff like that.”

Grinnell says most of his work involves marketing for his clients. “There are only a couple that I do political advocacy for,” he explains.

We'll have more on Grinnell and his campaign in this week's Skinny, due on newsstands tomorrow!