GILROY
– Financially speaking, Al Pinheiro is leading Lupe Arellano,
Ellyn Atkins and Mary Hohenbrink in the race for mayor.
GILROY – Financially speaking, Al Pinheiro is leading Lupe Arellano, Ellyn Atkins and Mary Hohenbrink in the race for mayor. And in the City Council campaign, Roland Velasco is far ahead of the six other hopefuls, including fellow incumbent Peter Arellano who has yet to put together more than $500 in financing.
Candidates for the Nov. 4 election filed the first round of required campaign finance documents late last week. The documents reveal that Velasco has already banked $13,000 for his re-election bid, nearly $8,000 more than the next highest donation earner fellow City Council candidate Paul Correa.
“I am humbled by the amount of support I’ve received so far,” said Velasco, who credited part of his early fund-raising success to the fact he was among the first to announce his candidacy.
Already, the financial statements have become a source of friction and finger-pointing between candidates.
Improper spending
Velasco and Councilman Bob Dillon, who is managing Council candidate Russ Valiquette’s campaign, criticized mayoral candidate Lupe Arellano for paying $700 in city fines with her campaign money.
The city fined Arellano for failing to file financial disclosure forms from two past campaigns.
“There may be nothing wrong with it legally, but it’s not the straightest way of running a campaign,” Dillon said. “I’d be curious to know what her donors think about it.”
For Rachel Perez, who contributed $100 to the Arellano mayoral campaign, it’s a non-issue.
“When you donate to a campaign, they can use your donation to run the campaign however they need to,” Perez said. “I have no problem with it.”
Arellano is not taking the criticism passively. After defending her use of campaign funds, the former Councilwoman questioned Valiquette’s use of campaign money to buy a personal computer.
Valiquette defended the $400 purchase. He says the computer will be used to run the campaign, communicate to constituents via e-mail, conduct research over the Internet and produce professional word processing documents.
Valiquette described the computer as “home-built” and said it would be used primarily for City Council business if he is elected.
“It’s not like I went out and bought the top of the line office computer with a plasma screen and 5 million gigabytes of memory,” Valiquette quipped. “I’m just trying to come up into modern times.”
Who supports who
The documents reveal that if it were up to the unions, Correa and Bruce Morasca would be elected to two of the three vacant City Council seats. And if it were up to Realtors and economic development leaders, Pinheiro would be mayor and Velasco would be re-elected to the Council.
The Correa campaign received two $250 donations from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. They were two of several contributions made from out-of-town interests. Of Correa’s 23 donors, only four have Gilroy addresses.
Correa stood behind his donor list.
“It just shows I can leverage my contacts to combat the current machine that runs Gilroy,” Correa said. “It’s good that I don’t have the usual suspects in my pocket,” a reference to the Chamber of Commerce and other business interests that Correa claims have too much pull in Gilroy.
Velasco and Pinheiro are heavily supported by those interests. For both Velasco and Pinheiro, six of their current donors are Realtors or real-estate brokers. Pinheiro also received $200 from Bill Lindsteadt, the executive director of the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation and quarterback of the recruitment of big-box retail stores here.
Goin’ it alone
Some candidates are exempt from filing this recent round of campaign finance forms because they have not raised $1,000 or more. They are mayoral candidates Atkins and Hohenbrink and City Council hopeful Mark Dover.
Atkins and Hohenbrink, both of whom could not be reached for comment before Tuesday’s deadline, are first-time candidates. Both have claimed their personal, business and volunteer experience gives them the know-how to be effective mayors. Both have claimed their political inexperience gives them a fresh perspective the city dais needs.
But Dover isn’t a newcomer. He is a former city employee, sits on the Gavilan College Board of Education and has earned endorsements from the union in this election.
“I ran my Gavilan campaign for about $800, and I think that’s about what it will take this time,” Dover said. “If I get elected I want to be able to vote my conscience and not cater to any special-interest groups.”
Dover said he has received checks from supporters but has yet to cash any. The donations he received up to this point do not exceed $1,000.
“I still have my signs from the Gavilan campaign. I can remove the part that refers to Gavilan and replace it with City Council,” Dover said.
City Council candidate Dion Bracco is also going it alone, at least for this first round of filing. So far, his only donor is himself, with a contribution of $2,600.
City Clerk Rhonda Pellin said Bracco will have to refile his donation using a separate form. When candidates donate to themselves, the contribution is filed as a loan.
Candidates have two more rounds of campaign contributions to file with the city, one on Oct. 23 – which covers donations made during the period from Sept. 21 through Oct. 18 – and another on Dec. 31 to cover the remaining weeks through Election Day.
When candidates receive donations totaling $1,000 or more within 16 days of the election, they must do another special filing.
