Write-in mayoral candidate Robert Martinez has been watching a lot of politics lately. The supply chain professional wakes up every morning at 4:30 to do his doctor-prescribed exercises and while he gets his body moving, ready to start the day, the latest media showdown between the two presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump provides the soundtrack to his morning, and this has got him thinking.
“I see what I could do differently than the two major candidates,” said Martinez over a club soda at Westside Grill earlier this week. “The winner of this election is going to have a great effect across the entire nation. We have to have the right people in the right place.”
After numerous local candidate forums, campaign kick-off parties, Facebook-sponsored ads, meet-and-greets and precinct walking, Martinez’s decision to throw his hat into the ring to become Gilroy’s next mayor, pitting a person who has never before run for public office against longtime public servant, Roland Velasco, and Gilroy’s local son and incumbent mayor, Perry Woodward, has raised questions among the city’s political watchers.
But for Martinez, who has been fighting cancer for the past year, the time is right, no matter how much of a long shot his candidacy may be.
“I’m going to jump in. What do I have to lose? Nothing,” he said.
At the tail end of his recovery, Martinez said his battle with cancer has slowed things down, put things in living color and given him a focused energy. And his focus now is on the mayor’s race in Gilroy, his home since 1997.
“Instead of the same politicians looking at the same things over and over again. What we can do is look at the city from a different perspective. A fresh set of eyes is not a bad thing,” he said.
A supply chain professional for more than two decades, Martinez’s personal passions include animal welfare and sports. He refereed college basketball and was the appointed commissioner of officials for Santa Clara County highs schools including the Blossom Valley Athletic League, the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League and the West Catholic League.
While he has never run for public office before, he said an overheard conversation about the mayoral candidates first put the thought into his mind.
“I heard a group of people talking: ‘Who are you going to vote for?’ ‘I’m going to vote for the incumbent because he’s a nice guy.’ The other guy says, ‘well what about the councilman that is running against him? Ah, don’t worry about him, vote for the nice guy.’ And I stared back and thought, “wow, is this the way that people look at things?”
In a conversation that touched on his cancer diagnosis, his compassion for the less fortunate— the Gilroyan has driven homeless folks in need to the city’s armory during the winter months, no questions asked, the words “change” and “progression” come up repeatedly.
“We have to be relentless in our fight for progression. Progression is very important at City Hall,” he said.
“You look at Gilroy as a small city; I see it as a destination. The only problem is people drive by this place. They only see the Outlets, not the beauty within it.”
Martinez said if he were mayor, he’d focus on the economy, infrastructure and enticing Silicon Valley tech companies to put satellite locations in the city.
“Look at Morgan Hill, which I consider a benchmark for a small city. They are 10 steps ahead of us. Everything they are doing, we should be doing. Sure, they got the redevelopment money we didn’t, but we have methods. We can look at our overall scope of business.”
He also said a trip to Palo Alto’s Sand Hill Road would be wise.
“Has anyone ever gone to venture capitalists in Palo Alto and told them: ‘I see your list of 10 startups, our city has facilities to accommodate your [fledgling] companies’?”
He added: “It goes back to our blend. We have some agriculture, some blue collar, but this is 2016, progression is a very important issue, not just for me but to everyone who resides here.”
Martinez would also like to see South County wineries better promoted, the city prioritize downtown and more local pride in sports and recreation.
“We once had a long history of people coming out from this area to go onto Division One programs. I feel we have lost that zest and zeal.”
