Questionable ethics by Pawlowski

If I understand it correctly this quote from The Morning Call is a basis for questioning the Mayor's use of city resources to compile lists for seeking political donations to his candidacy.
"The mayor says he builds his possible donor list by collecting the business cards of city vendors, by tapping friends and acquaintances and lifting the names of contributors who appear on area politicians' campaign reports -- on both sides of the political aisle." (emphasis mine)
It is not the pay-to-play aspect that is so disturbing, it is the use of city resources. How do the business cards of vendors find their way to Ed for this purpose. I suspect that there is some mechanism that is unethical described in that statement. It is that mechanism that is under question here. There should be no way for those vendor cards to get to Pawlowski for that purpose. If he said that his campaign requested public records and culled the names, that is one thing, but he claims to have done this himself, and apparently there is collusion among at least a few City employees to accomplish this. That is unethical as well as illegal, in my opinion. Let me repeat, it may be unwise, even unethical for Ed to target recipients of City contracts so brazenly, but it is not illegal. But to do it in the fashion that he described to the Call reporter does seem to step over the line.

from the City charter:
SECTION 607 POLITICAL ACTIVITY
All employees are prohibited from engaging in any form of political activity during regular work hours and are prohibited from using city facilities or property for any political activity. Violation of this section will warrant discharge or other discipline under the provisions of the Personnel Code.

Collecting these vendors' cards seems impossible to accomplish without violating this provision.