Mike Wasserman leads the race to fill Don Gage’s District 1
Santa Clara County supervisor seat with 43.13 percent, or 15,816
votes. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters had only
one-third of precincts counted as of 12:15 a.m.
– a frustration for candidates and voters alike.
Mike Wasserman leads the race to fill Don Gage’s District 1 Santa Clara County supervisor seat with 43.13 percent, or 15,816 votes. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters had only one-third of precincts counted as of 12:15 a.m. – a frustration for candidates and voters alike.
Forrest Williams and Teresa Alvarado are in a near dead heat with 18.71 percent and 18.37 percent respectively; about 120 votes separate the pair. District 1, which has a population of more than 330,000 and encompasses about 800,000 acres – or 70 percent of the county’s land area – is the largest geographical district. It includes Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Martin, Los Gatos, Almaden Valley, Santa Teresa and Blossom Valley, as well as the Mt. Hamilton Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Gage’s term expires this year and he has said he will consider running for the Santa Clara Valley Water District board of supervisors, a government agency that is a water wholesaler and is the steward for flood protection and reservoirs.
Wasserman hosted an election party at his home in Los Gatos surrounded by his family, friends and supporters. At 12:15 a.m. Wednesday, he was very pleased with the 43 percent he garnered.
“The reaction from me is very, very positive and excited for all of the voters out there for their tremendous showing and their support at the polls and in the mail. That’s very, very gratifying and very encouraging toward my bid to become supervisor for District 1,” Wasserman said. While the registrar seemed to be slower than usual in reporting the results, Wasserman was encouraged by what he had seen so far and predicted a change of a few percentage points possibly. At 12:15 a.m. 180 precincts of 299 were counted.
Alvarado was still at her election party at the Summit Steakhouse and Saloon at the Holiday Inn in South San Jose at 11 p.m. Tuesday with several hundred supporters. She said she felt good about her outreach in the county adding that she and her team spent a lot of time in South County, Alvarado said Tuesday night.
“I’m really hopeful. We generated a lot of momentum throughout the district. I’m very hopeful that was translated to voters,” she said.
Wasserman, 52, lives in Los Gatos and most recently served as a Los Gatos city councilman and rotating mayor. His first priority if he is elected District 1 supervisor is to curtail the county’s spending.
“I’m a big believer in prioritizing needs … I would do the same thing,” Wasserman said. “No entity can do everything for everyone.”
Williams, 73, is a computer science engineer from San Jose who said he would not cut a single job in public safety. His strategy for balancing the county’s $200 million deficit is to examine Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, which has a $2 billion budget nearly half of the county’s budget and a place Williams said could survive on much less.
He spent eight years as a San Jose council member, eight years on the Santa Clara County planning commission and 12 years as an Oak Grove school board member.
Alvarado’s life’s work has been about green technology and innovation and she has said will be a champion for a renewed economy.
“While the county is not directly responsible for generating a lot of jobs, we realize that when people don’t have a job they rely on the county,” Alvarado, 45, said, noting the rise of domestic violence and homelessness and how prevention is the “underpinning of a healthy community.”
Alvarado, a Leadership Gilroy graduate, has decades of executive experience working at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and as NASA/Ames Research Center.
The flooding of Little Llagas creek that can wreak havoc on downtown Morgan Hill is an issue of which Alvarado is well-informed.
“We have to ask for federal dollars. This is a vibrant, active urban downtown and to get flooded on a regular basis … this is not a pork project, it’s critical.”
The current fourth and fifth place candidates – Peter Arellano and Tom Kruse – have garnered 11.64 percent and 8.15 percent of the votes as of 12:15 a.m. Wednesday. Arellano is a medical doctor who lives in Gilroy. Kruse owns and operates a winery in Gilroy.
Check back Wednesday morning for an update on the supervisor race.
