May 06, 2005

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Publication Date: Friday, May 06, 2005

Main issue facing candidates: "What election?"

The three candidates seeking voter support in the special election June 7 for the still-vacant City Council seat are finding Pleasanton residents have lots of gripes - they just don't know there's an election coming up.

Taking their campaigns to Farmers Market last Saturday, candidates Brian Arkin, Dan Faustina and Jerry Thorne had trouble, first, finding registered Pleasanton voters to talk to since many of the shoppers were from other cities, and, second, finding very many Pleasanton voters who knew about the special election.

Also dampening hopes for a sizeable turnout at the polls next month was a notice to registered voters by the Alameda County Registrar's office that the election date for this year's school board election has been changed. The notice followed a decision by the school board to move its off-year elections to even-numbered years, starting with the election, with the next election moved to Nov. 7, 2006 from its scheduled date of this next November.

"Some of the voters I talked to thought that notice referred to the council election coming up," said Planning Commissioner Brian Arkin as he campaigned for votes at Angela and Main streets. "They read the notice quickly, saw that the election has been moved to next year and confused the school board election with this one."

"But most people I've talked to don't even know we're having an election," he added.

The special election, which is costing Pleasanton taxpayers about $160,000, was made necessary when Councilwoman Jennifer Hosterman was elected mayor last November, with two more years remaining in her four-year council term. The winner of the June 7 election will serve out that term, and would have to run again Nov. 7, 2006.

Although the four-member council has managed to reach consensus on most issues, several possibly controversial matters are being delayed until a fifth, and tie-breaking council member is elected. Last Tuesday, with Hosterman in New York for a meeting, there were only three council members at the meeting, the minimum allowed to make policy decisions.

"Please go out and vote on June 7," pleaded Councilwoman Cindy McGovern. "We need to fill that empty seat."

During their campaigning last Saturday, the candidates said most of their questions from voters concerned "quality of life" issues, with traffic and too much housing leading the list of complaints.

"I've knocked on doors from the Country Faire to Danbury Park neighborhoods, and I just don't see any support for extending Stoneridge Drive to El Charro Road," said Jerry Thorne, 60, a retired business executive who is making his third bid for a council seat. "People are concerned about cut-through traffic coming off I-580 if it is extended. They don't want that, and I think we need to take that option out of the new General Plan."

Thorne added that he also heard the opposite from Farmers Market shoppers from Dublin and Livermore, who want to see Stoneridge extended to provide better access to jobs, stores and ValleyCare Medical Center for their own motorists.

What differentiates Thorne from his two opponents? voters asked.

"I think what differentiates me is my long history of business management, having had responsibility and accountability for large budgets, many employees and being able to lead those kinds of organizations," he answered. "We need people on City Council who have a business background as Pleasanton goes from being a development-oriented community to a buildout situation where you will need tighter budget controls."

Arkin, who has been on the Planning Commission since 1999, said concerns over increased traffic dominated his discussions with voters at the Farmers Market campaign.

"It's not just the growing number of cars," Arkin said. "It's also how much trouble drivers are having getting across town. They feel they're stopped repeatedly by traffic lights, often for no reason. I want to fix that by synchronizing signals."

Arkin, 44, is director of Hardware Engineering at a semiconductor company in Milpitas. He first became involved in local politics 10 years ago by opposing a 2,500 housing unit project on the 520-acre Bernal property. Saturday, he heard again from voters who are concerned by proposals for hundreds of high-density housing units in Hacienda Business Park, an issue Arkin told them will be discussed by the council and Planning Commission later this year.

At age 26, Faustina, a sales executive at Great-West Healthcare, joined his campaign team at Farmers Market, but also spent much of the day "walking the precincts," as he said, to ask residents in neighborhoods across the city for their votes on June 7.

"There are a lot of issues out there, but the main one seems to be that people want an independent voice on the council, "someone who can rise above the politics and make tough decisions to make sure Pleasanton has a great future."

"They want new leadership and a new voice on their City Council, someone who is really going to speak for the citizens, not politics as usual," Faustina said.

In their campaign funding disclosure reports filed with City Clerk Dawn Abrahamson, Arkin leads with total contributions to his campaign reported at $6,555. Faustina has received $5,720, and Thorne trails with $5,617, which includes $1,217 left over from his council election campaign last year. The disclosure reports cover the period from Jan. 1 through April 23.

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