Having no opponent this fall hasn’t put a damper on San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee’s fundraising, with reports being filed Monday expected to show he has amassed $625,000 for his November re-election drive.

“That’s a pretty good run over the holidays,” said campaign spokesman P.J. Johnston.

Lee has been holding almost daily meet and greets, often at $500 a head.

The biggest was in Chinatown, where activist Rose Pak delivered $220,000 in donors’ checks.

Lee’s most recent political party was a breakfast at Original Joe’s in North Beach that netted an estimated $50,000. It was hosted by the lobbying firm Platinum Advisors, whose clients include AT&T, Sutter Health and the tech gamer Zynga.

With the first-round money in the bank, the campaign will ramp up in earnest starting this month.

The campaign will be run mainly by SCN Strategies, whose clients also include Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris.

Bill Barnes, who works as a senior adviser in the city administrator’s office, has taken a leave of absence and will serve as campaign manager — a role he filled for Lee in 2011.

Johnston, who is also working with the Golden State Warriors on their arena project, will be coming on as a communications strategist.

There may not be anyone for Lee to run against just yet, but “we’re taking this very seriously and preparing for a fight,” Johnston said.

Meanwhile: While most of her competitors were busy keeping their campaigns afloat with tens of thousands of their own money, newly elected Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf managed to close out her race in the black and with no borrowed money, according to her freshly filed campaign finance report.

In fact, Schaaf — who spent $437,831 to unseat Jean Quan — ended the year with $13,977 in the bank. That’s money she collected after the election from about 50 contributors — including $700 from Port Commission member Michael Colbruno, who was finance co-chair of Quan’s campaign.

That’s the way the game is played.

Make your bed: There’s more to the fight over Airbnb-style rentals in San Francisco than just the payment of back taxes — there’s a bit of political payback in play as well.

One of the leaders in the push for Airbnb to pay back taxes — a figure some have estimated to be $25 million — is Supervisor David Campos. He opposed the new city law to legalize Airbnb-style operations and was subsequently hammered by a $550,000 attack ad campaign financed by Airbnb investors Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman in his state Assembly race against David Chiu.

Campos narrowly lost the race, but he’s still on the board — and he’s planning to call for the law legalizing Airbnb to be put on hold until the back-taxes issue is cleared up. Last year’s law is silent on whether Airbnb and similar operations must pay up.

If Campos succeeds, the “pay up” issue back goes back to the board, a move that would put Julie Christensen, the mayor’s newly appointed supervisor from District Three, on the hot seat — because she could well be the swing vote.

Ready to roll: After deciding not to challenge Mayor Ed Lee in November, City Attorney Dennis Herrera is quashing rumors that he’s thinking of bailing out of his job for the private sector rather than running for re-election.

“Yes, I’m running — I pulled my papers in December,” Herrera tells us.

Various stories bounced around City Hall in recent days that Herrera had been putting out feelers about either joining a law firm or taking a job as a corporate counsel.

Adding fuel to the rumors was the fact that Herrera hadn’t scheduled any re-election fundraisers this year. Plus, friends say his wife, Anne Herrera — who has a career in real estate — has long wanted him to leave city government.

Herrera says it’s true that he has been approached numerous times during his 13-year stint as city attorney about private sector work, but “obviously nothing has come of it because I haven’t been interested.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross