GILROY
– Ellyn Atkins’ bid to become Gilroy’s next mayor wasn’t done
just to get an A. She really wanted to be mayor, she says, or at
least impact a mayoral race she figured she wouldn’t win.
GILROY – Ellyn Atkins’ bid to become Gilroy’s next mayor wasn’t done just to get an A. She really wanted to be mayor, she says, or at least impact a mayoral race she figured she wouldn’t win.
Atkins’ assertion comes two days after San Jose State’s student newspaper ran an Election Day story about Atkins’ mayoral bid that indicates otherwise. Paraphrased comments by Atkins opened the door to questions about whether the first-time political candidate was honestly vying for Gilroy’s top post or just gathering anecdotal experience that would be used for a term paper – all at the expense of innocent voters.
Atkins is an undergraduate sociology student at San Jose State and is doing an honors thesis on the process of running for mayor. In the Spartan Daily article, Atkins is paraphrased as saying “it was pure curiosity” and “a creative research agenda that spurred her to throw her hat in the ring.”
Now, Atkins’ mayoral bid is drawing contrary opinions from two San Jose State political science professors both with 30 years experience in the school’s well-renowned department. And, the prospect that one of his fellow candidates may have had academic, and not political, motives isn’t sitting well with Mayor-elect Al Pinheiro.
“This is not a game,” Pinheiro said. “People give of their time when they run for office because they have real concerns. It’s important to be serious about what you want to do.”
Atkins Thursday called the Spartan Daily’s choice of words and their placement in the story “spin.”
“That’s not exactly what I told them,” Atkins said regarding the paraphrased words. ” ‘Pure curiosity’ is completely inaccurate because ‘pure’ suggests I only ran because I was curious. ‘Creative research agenda’ is also wrong because I didn’t have some hidden academic agenda.”
Atkins said she entered the race, which ended Tuesday night with her in last place, because she did not want pro-Wal-Mart candidates to run unopposed.
Spartan Daily Senior Staff Writer Tony Burchyns, the graduate student who wrote the piece, says he was simply reporting the tone of Atkins’ conversation with him.
Burchyns declined to comment in detail about his piece, but defended its fairness.
“I do not believe I implied or said anything (in the article) about Ellyn Atkins not wanting to be mayor,” Burchyns said. “And I did not mean to imply that Ellyn was belittling the election process (by running for mayor and writing a paper about it).”
According to Atkins, she came up with the idea to write the term paper in the fall semester several weeks after she filed her mayoral candidacy papers. Gilroy’s campaign filing deadline ran from July 14 through Aug. 13.
Aug. 25 was the first day of instruction for the Fall 2003 semester at San Jose State.
“I did want to be mayor,” Atkins said. “When I started the class in the fall (and had to decide on a thesis paper topic), I figured I had this experience so why not write about it, too.”
Atkins’ story is corroborated by two of her professors. Last spring, Barbara Zahner and Michael Fallon taught a sociology course in which Atkins had to do 24 hours of community service.
Atkins admits the course, in part, inspired her to run for political office. However, both Zahner and Fallon said Atkins never talked to them about running for mayor during her time in the sociology course.
Both Zahner and Fallon praised Atkins for her desire to run for office.
“I would like to think the course gave her a degree of confidence to throw her hat in the ring,” Fallon said.
For San Jose State political science professor Terry Christensen, the Spartan Daily article makes him question Atkins’ true intentions.
Christensen, who teaches local politics, said had he been her professor, Atkins would have been discouraged from running for office.
“There are ways to learn without running. I would have encouraged her to work on someone else’s campaign, get some political experience and then make a run for office if that’s what she wanted to do,” Christensen said. “I tell my students to use San Jose as a frog in our dissection since that’s our backyard. But even then, we’re observers in the process.”
Christensen stopped short of claiming Atkins’ mayoral campaign tainted the university, but said his department is proud of its political track record that has seen many students graduate and later become elected politicians.
Gilroy’s own Roland Velasco, who won reelection to his City Council seat, is one such example.
“Roland paid his dues and then ran for political office,” Christensen said. “In general, that’s better for everyone’s credibility.”
However, fellow political science professor Larry Gerston, points out that such a philosophy would oust Arnold Schwarzenegger from the governor’s seat.
Gerston said Atkins is not only one of many politicians who ran for office void of experience, but also not the first San Jose State student to run for office with no experience.
‘We pride ourselves in this country to make it easy for anyone to run for office,” Gerston said. “It’s scary if we start setting up criteria beyond the existing bare minimum. That would put us one step away from saying certain people can’t run based on their political views.”
