The Sept. 24 preliminary is 27 days away. In today's round-up: City Councillor Michael Ross releases his first TV ad, while fellow City Councillor Rob Consalvo highlights a blighted property in his new ad.

-- Ross’s ad features the District 8 councillor running through the neighborhoods he represents, handing out his “Boston Smarter” proposal. The ad ends with him at a Mission Hill intersection, being chased off-screen by a group of children. According to the campaign, the ad will be “on cable stations, and expands to all major broadcast stations next week. The ad will be up on major broadcast stations until election day.”

The ad is below:

-- Planned Parenthood has released its voting guide for Boston’s municipal elections, available here. As first noted by Boston magazine’s David Bernstein, the group will not be endorsing in the mayoral race. In a statement on its website, the group said, “Because we are fortunate to have multiple strong candidates supporting women’s health and comprehensive sexuality education in the mayoral race, we will not endorse before the September 24th preliminary election.” City Councillor Charles Yancey and TOUCH 106.1 FM co-founder Charles Clemons did not respond to Planned Parenthood’s questionnaire.

-- Consalvo, in his second TV ad, “Accountability,” points to a blighted house owned by Bank of America. Consalvo, the councillor for District 5, says he will “foreclose” on banks who allow properties like that to fester.

-- “People’s Pledge” catfight, part 22: Consalvo has made his version of the “People’s Pledge” a central part of his campaign. This morning, after the Boston Globe editorial board said state Rep. Marty Walsh and former state Rep. Charlotte Golar Richie should sign onto the pledge, leading Consalvo to issue a new statement. “So far, five candidates have agreed to sign the Pledge or said they would sign if others agreed to do so,” Consalvo said. “In this race marked by such agreement between candidates on many key issues, surely we can come together to protect Boston from the onslaught of outside groups.” The Walsh and Golar Richie campaigns did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

-- State Rep. Walsh is holding a press conference “on student housing and safety” in front of 87 Linden St. in Allston. The presser starts at 1 p.m. today. The address was the site of a three-alarm fire earlier this year that killed one student and injured over a dozen others.

-- Adam Reilly profiles Doug Rubin, master of the Massachusetts political universe, who is currently advising City Councillor At-Large Felix Arroyo on his mayoral run. Former Treasurer Tim Cahill explains how he and his former strategist met up: “It was like two abandoned puppies that meet on a street corner and say, ‘I don’t have a family. You don’t have a family. Let’s make ourselves a family!’ And we did.” There’s more here.

-- Former state Rep. Golar Richie is holding a “25 Days Until Election Day” fundraiser on Thursday at the Phillips Old Colony House. The email notifying supporters said, “This weekend, Howie Carr, of the Boston Herald, said ‘If Golar Richie makes final, all bets are off.’ Let's give Howie his wish, and make sure Charlotte wins the Preliminary Election on September 24th!”

-- The state Office of Campaign and Political Finance launches a new look for its tracking of independent expenditures. Bookmark this, folks: http://ocpf.cloudapp.net/Reports/IndependentExpenditures/