The cost of running for City Council has increased by nearly 40
percent since the 1999 election.
The cost of running for City Council has increased by nearly 40 percent since the 1999 election.
Eight candidates are running this year, and each one has spent an average of $13,409 so far.
Nine candidates ran in 1999, and each spent an average of about $4,500 by the end of October.
“The costs are just outrageous,” candidate and Mayor Al Pinheiro said. “Look at the rates of printing and advertising. Everything has gone up.”
Candidates this year point mainly to inflation and the increased costs of postage, printing and advertising. But there is also the fact that the city has grown by about 10,000 people since 1999 and that this year, eight candidates are vying for three seats in an issues-laden election.
Councilman Craig Gartman is challenging Mayor Al Pinheiro for the mayor’s seat, and Planning Commissioners Tim Day and Cat Tucker, former Councilman Bob Dillon, lawyer Perry Woodward and incumbents Roland Velasco and Russ Valiquette are running for the three council seats.
In the mayor’s race, Pinheiro has outspent his opponent by one-and-a-half times and raised more than twice as much money.
But nobody has made financial waves as large as Woodward.
Local campaign finance rules dating back to 2001 dictate that a candidate cannot spend more than $24,824 during a single campaign season in exchange for being allowed to accept donations of up to $250 from individual donors.
Candidates can reject the spending limits, but then they are legally allowed to only solicit donations of up to $100, and their names do not have little black asterisks next to them on the ballot that indicate their agreement with spending limits.
All candidates this year have agreed to the spending limits because of the positive public perception associated with it, most of them said.
“If somebody spent $30,000 or $40,000, they’d be raked over the coals,” Valiquette said.
While his expenditures have yet to prompt any public opposition, Woodward has taken almost full advantage of his little black asterisk by spending $24,634 so far this year, just $190 shy of the spending limit.
He has outspent Valiquette, the second-highest spender, by more than $8,500. He said he knew he would spend so heavily going into the campaign because he was an outsider lacking name recognition. He had to spend accordingly, he said.
“I didn’t have the name recognition that the incumbents had, so I knew going into it I was going to have to spend quite a bit of money to get my name out there,” said Woodward, referring to his various signs, ads and postage-requiring mailers. “I had a budget going into the campaign that put me just about where I am now, so why not avail myself of those two advantages?” Woodward asked in reference to the positive public perception of spending limits and his subsequent ability to solicit $250 donations instead of $100.
The majority of Woodward’s coffer comes from nearly $22,000 he loaned himself. Tucker has loaned herself $5,000, Valiquette $4,000, and Velasco $500.
The other candidates may have not spent the money Woodward has, but they all said they have felt the pressures of inflation and Gilroy’s growing population. The City Council bases spending limits on population. In 2003 the body decided that candidates could spend the equivalent of 50 cents per resident, up from 30 cents per resident in 2001 when the first ordinance was passed, according to City Clerk Shawna Freels.
Dillon has spent about $6,500 in each of his three campaigns, which is a far cry from Woodward’s five-figure spending. Dillon said inflation is to blame, but the rising costs of postage and advertising have hit him and the other candidates hard this year, so much so that Dillon plans on spending all the money he can raise.
“If there is even 38 cents left in my account after the election, I’m going to bed mad,” Dillon said. “If I got it, I’m spending it.”
The last time eight candidates ran for City Council seats was in 2003, and then they only spent a total of $42,198 by the end of October, which means each candidate spent about $5,275.
Contrasting that with the average $13,500 spent per candidate so far this year, candidates bemoaned the increase.
“The costs of getting the word out has increased dramatically,” Gartman said.
The cost of advertising with The Dispatch, for example, has risen steadily at about 5 percent a year since 1999, and a small 16-square-inch ad today costs about $240 for one time. A first-class stamp in 1999 cost 33 cents. Now it costs 41 cents.
The real culprits appear to be slightly higher stakes and postage, postage and more postage, the candidates said.
“With the literature we’re producing, we end up paying for it again with postage,” said Velasco, who spent about $8,000 in the last month on campaign mailers, from their design to their send-off.
Valiquette, who has nearly $4,000 in outstanding loans, said he will only pay for one more round of mailers before the election, and then he said it is just a matter of face-to-face time and old-fashioned hand shaking with voters.
Candidates who win office can keep any leftover money for the maintenance of that office, but those who lose must return contributions, donate the extra money or send it to the Secretary of State for deposit into the state’s general fund.
