With five days to go until the polls open, candidates in this
year’s mayoral and city council races await the end of what most
say is the most contentious election in Gilroy history.
With five days to go until the polls open, candidates in this year’s mayoral and city council races await the end of what most say is the most contentious election in Gilroy history.
All eight candidates have set record spending levels this year, outspending the last eight-person election in 2003 by more than 250 percent.
Along with higher financial stakes, campaign issues such as sidewalk repair, land development, city salaries and open government have consumed the candidates, and some say this has come with another price: negative politicking.
“The only way my opponent could ever make any sense of opposing me is if he started a campaign of nothing but negativity and fear,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said in reference to Councilman Craig Gartman, who is challenging Pinheiro. Gartman is running from a safe seat since his election to a four-year term in 2005.
“I’ve tried to stay positive in what I’ve said, in what I’d like to see as needed changes, but you have a sitting mayor who has a number of friends who are willing to help him fight his battle, whereas I believe in fighting my own battles,” Gartman said.
On the council level, incumbents Roland Velasco and Russ Valiquette, Planning Commissioners Tim Day and Cat Tucker, former Councilman Bob Dillon and lawyer Perry Woodward are running for the three available seats.
SIDEWALKS: THE ‘PERENNIAL PROBLEM’
Nearly three months after the council first discussed making residents more responsible for their sidewalks, city staff are still finessing the ordinance that is not scheduled to appear until the current council’s last meeting Nov. 5.
The incumbents lament frustrated constituents who come to them with misunderstandings, they said, specifically that the ordinance transfers to property owners all of the liability for injuries sustained on buckled sidewalks adjacent to their lot. In reality, property owners must maintain their sidewalks by state law and can split the cost with the city, but they must also “assume the proportionate liability if an accident should occur in the sidewalk area,” according to city Transportation Engineer Don Dey.
“Once you explain it to people, and you give them all the details, people kind of say, ‘Oh, that’s not what I understood,’ ” Pinheiro said.
But the only reason it has yet to pass is public outcry, Woodward said. The city should shoulder all sidewalk repair costs, and that is not negative campaigning, he added.
“People say Craig is running a negative campaign and they include my name in there, but frankly I don’t see how people can say I’m running a negative campaign when I’m not attacking anybody,” Woodward said.
That may be, but scaring voters with mailers implying that their homeowners insurance rates will rise is wrong, Valiquette said.
So many factors affect homeowners’ policies that the sidewalk ordinance would be just a drop in the bucket, according to local State Farm insurance agent Joan Peros. The varying conditions of sidewalks throughout the city also make it impossible to raise residents’ rates across the board.
But as soon as someone falls on a buckled sidewalk and sues, insurance companies will lobby for new regulations to hedge risks, Woodward said.
“We can argue about whether it’s going to be in six months, a year or five years, but we all know that as risk goes up, so do insurance premiums,” Woodward said.
Tucker did not comment specifically on Woodward’s campaign, but she said she has sensed negative vibes, especially over sidewalks. She and Gartman believe the city should repair sidewalks at full cost.
Dillon advocated a speedier approach: “Can we just fix the damn sidewalks with a bond?” he asked rhetorically at the council debate last month.
The council created a task force to study the issue, and the body rejected the idea of bonding as a lazy fix in the form of a property tax, incumbents said. Plus, the current dialogue over the issue is healthy as long as it isn’t politicking, Valiquette said.
“Even though the community doesn’t agree with the citizens task force, at least it got the dialogue going so we got more input from community,” Valiquette said.
One vocal community member is conservative activist Mark Zappa, whose letters to the editor and advertisements in The Dispatch have irked incumbents who say the ads boast of Gartman’s fiscal conservatism even though he has also approved deficit budgets.
But Zappa echoed Woodward and said disagreement does not equal negative campaigning.
“When you don’t go along to get along, all of the sudden you’re negative,” Zappa said. “To get attention, you unfortunately need sound bites, and I consider myself a sound bite expert … and Gartman is being very civil about it.”
Residents seem to have mixed feelings about all the commotion, though.
Paul Rede said as much Wednesday in his letter to the editor: “Does Craig Gartman realize how much damage Mr. Zappa is doing to his campaign for mayor? … I don’t see any way for him to win unless he finds a way to have Mr. Zappa tone down his rhetoric.”
Rhetoric aside, Woodward said he wanted to survey residents to see how the city could raise $2 million a year to repair sidewalks in a triage-like fashion until the “problem’s under control.” Valiquette and Velasco have derided Woodward’s plan as unrealistic and joined Day in defending the city’s current cost-splitting program with residents as a reactive tool.
Emergency services deserve $2 million more than busted sidewalks, though, according to former mayor and current Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage.
“I think that Gartman and Woodward are stepping way out of line here in their negativism and how they’re trying to get elected,” Gage said. “We have a small town. We don’t need these negative politics here and these lies. It disgusts me. They should be talking about the issues and not making up stuff.”
CITY SALARIES
Woodward said the city could save money by slashing some of the 42 top-level positions. The city council voted to pay these high-ranking employees 15 percent more than their subordinates and 10 percent more than comparable positions in nearby cities.
“The city may end up paying a higher salary, but in the long run, you’ll pay more for average results,” Day said at the debate.
Gartman has opposed the new salary program, but Pinheiro said his opponent is posturing for the electorate. Valiquette said the same about Woodward on the council level.
“How else is (Gartman) going to come after an incumbent unless he started the negativity and misperception?” Pinheiro said. “You can’t come out against me saying this is a wonderful community with $25 million in reserves and nice parks.”
Woodward, Dillon and Tucker also oppose the new schedule that can fluctuate when other cities raise salaries.
“But that’s something we do with our other bargaining units (of police, fire and municipal workers), but they don’t seem to have a problem with comparing salaries when it comes to these other groups, and that to me gets to the issue of fairness,” Velasco said.
The issue of fairness struck a chord with Tucker, who shied away from annulling the measure.
“All of us work, and we all want fairness given to everyone, so when a raise is given, nobody wants to take that back,” Tucker said.
Velasco said repealing the plan could spur another union, though, since the salaries apply to the city’s 42 high-ranking, non-union employees.
“We haven’t bankrupt our city. We’ve kept employees here, and we’ve never eliminated anything,” Valiquette said. “Why am I being told things are so messed up when you look around you, and things aren’t messed up?”
LAND DEVELOPMENT
The potential Westfield Mall project could turn more than 100 acres of farmland east of Gilroy into retail space, paving over fertile farmland zoned for lucrative technology jobs.
Tucker is the only candidate to oppose the mall outright, while most others said they’ll continue to ponder the merits of a sales-tax-generating mega mall that could boost property values and, in turn, property taxes that might be able to shrink the $15 million school facilities deficit.
Woodward said the idea sounded promising.
Dillon also leaned toward the project.
“I have formed no opinion yet, but I am generally inclined to vote in favor of new proposals which will garner the city new tax revenue, and Westfield would certainly do that,” said Dillon.
Perhaps it is time to face the shopping-center music, but Day said he won’t decide until all the facts are in.
Gartman, on the other hand, has expressed favor for the project since it would bring in more money than empty farm land.
TRANSPARENCY AND NEGOTIATIONS
All the candidates agree that City Hall should be held accountable for its decisions, but Woodward has taken the lead in championing higher standards of transparency beyond the state’s open-meeting law known as the Brown Act.
“Milpitas and San Jose have already gone above and beyond the Brown Act, which has a lot of ambiguities, and we need to tighten up those details here,” Woodward said. “If everyone knows what the rules are, then there’s much less to argue about.”
Controversy has emerged over undisclosed drafts of a consultant’s report on the police department, but Velasco and city officials have said releasing drafts could confuse residents.
But keeping the drafts under wraps has caused Pinheiro to defend the council.
“The community has been told that this council is holding back on it,” Pinheiro said, so the council decision aims to disprove skeptics and show the community that “we’re not trying to hide anything. We’re just trying to get our jobs done.”
Gartman and Woodward point to this attitude as representative of the city council’s trust-us approach, they said.
“As mayor, I don’t want to see seven heads bobbing up and down saying, ‘Yes, we agree. We agree. We agree,’ ” Gartman said. “I want seven independent minds thinking and coming up with independent ideas.”
It is this kind of talk that has defined the negative tone of the election, most of the candidates said.
“It was set by our leadership,” said Tucker, who thinks the Brown Act deserves stricter enforcement before the city passes anything new. “The two mayors started it, and then the other candidates for council just followed suit because I guess people felt it was working for the mayors.”
Velasco shook his head, too.
“There are candidates in the mayoral race and council race who are trying to take an issue and twist it and confuse the public,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind this is by far the most negative campaign that Gilroy has seen.”
Now it’s time to see if any of it worked on the voters.
