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With Election Day coming up in less than a month, candidates for Pleasanton mayor, City Council and the Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees recently submitted their campaign finance statements.
Campaign donations are typically used to buy signs, pay for applications, purchase advertisements and all the other things that come with running a local campaign. But knowing who contributed to campaigns can also give voters insight on candidates’ priorities and where they stand on issues.
That’s why the Secretary of State requires campaigns that have raised more than $2,000 in donations to file campaign finance forms known as a Form 460 four times per year – twice during campaign season, along with annual and semiannual reports. Available forms list the names of donors and how much they have contributed to a campaign from Jan. 1 and Sept. 21.
This election year’s campaign finance reports show the various trends on how residents, non-residents and different organizations have been spending as much as thousands of dollars on these individuals.
Pleasanton mayor
Pleasanton City Councilmember Jack Balch raised almost twice as much campaign money compared to his opponent, Mayor Karla Brown, whose majority of donations came from her own campaign coffers, as of Sept. 21, according to the most-recent records.
Fair Political Practices Commission 460 filings show that incumbent Brown’s largest donation of just under $30,000 came from her previous mayoral campaign in 2022, during which she ran unopposed. Apart from that her highest contribution was $500 that came from Greg O’Connor, a former city planning commissioner.
She received other smaller donations ranging from $100 to $350 — one of which was $100 from District 2 City Council incumbent Valerie Arkin — from various other residents. In total, Brown raised just over $35,700, including the money from her previous campaign.
Balch, on the other hand, raised a total of just over $83,000, according to his 460 filings. While the challenger also contributed almost $1,500 from his own money, plus over $34,500 from a City Council 2024 campaign committee, his 460 filings from the entire year show more people donating to his campaign.
For example, PUSD trustees Mary Jo Carreon, Justin Brown and Laurie Walker have all donated to Balch’s campaign with Walker, donating $500. Former trustee Joan Laursen also donated $100 to his campaign.
Other noteworthy financial contributors to Balch’s campaign — with donations as little as $100 or as much as several hundreds of dollars — were from Nelson Fialho, former longtime city manager; City Council District 4 candidate and retired police Capt. Craig Eicher; Justin Dunn and Steve Dunn, two directors for Steelwave LLC; former councilmember Kathy Narum and former Planning Commission chair Herb Ritter.
Balch’s largest donations were $5,000 from Ashit Jain, a self-employed resident; $2,700 from Asif Godil, a resident and CEO of AG Microsystems Inc.; $1,000 from Ted Fong, a Pleasanton resident and president/CEO of Silicon Genesis Corp.; $1,000 from Steven Rivera, a Fremont resident and contractor who works for Bayside Interiors; $1,000 from Keith Symons, a San Leandro resident and roofing contractor at State Roofing Systems; and $1,000 from Frank Slootman, a retired Pleasanton resident.
City Council candidates
The 460 filings for the four council candidates show slightly different stories.
District 4 candidate and Planning Commissioner Vivek Mohan saw a sole donation of $1,000 from Sukhwinder Sangha, a self-employed resident.
However, Mohan’s political opponent, Planning Commission Chairperson Matt Gaidos, had a lot more people donate to his campaign, which raised over $18,000, during the reporting period.
According to his 460 filings, Gaidos received $2,500 from Rockford Realty Inc., based in Pleasanton and $1,000 from Chris Koopmans, a Pleasanton resident and COO of Marvell Technology — both of those were his largest donations.
His other largest donation was $999 from Ron Casassa, a retired Pleasanton resident. Other than that, Gaidos had several hundreds of dollars come in from some deputy and assistant deputy district attorney colleagues from Alameda County and as well as from other counties in California. Mayor Brown also donated to his campaign.
For the District 2 race, Arkin received several hundreds of dollars from noteworthy people such as Mayor Brown, PUSD Trustee Kelly Mokashi, Vice Mayor Julie Testa, Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council president Kelly Cousins and PUSD Area 4 candidate Charlie Jones.
Arkin’s largest donation was $990 from Neil Kripalani, a self-employed attorney and she also received $300 from the East Bay Women’s Political Alliance, which is based in Oakland.
Eicher also received hundreds of dollars in donations from Narum, Laursen and PUSD Trustee Brown, but his largest contribution was $1,000 from Charles Marlin, CEO of TEOC, Inc. He also received $500 from Deborah McKeehan, Pleasanton’s city manager from a couple decades ago, as well as a couple hundred from Balch and Ritter.
Arkin had raised just over $7,800 while Eicher earned just over $13,000, according to the finance reports.
PUSD candidates
While there were no 460 filings listed in the county for Area 3 trustee candidate Donalyn Harris, her opponent and incumbent Trustee Mokashi didn’t have too much to show either.
According to Mokashi’s campaign finance reports, the current trustee only raised a total of $2,100 so far, with her largest contribution being $500 from a retired resident in New Jersey.
Her other contributions, which ranged from as little as $25 to as high as $200 came from people like Mayor Brown, Cousins, PUSD students and other local residents.
Over in Area 4, first-time school board candidate Jen Flynn raised just over $6,000, according to her sole 460 filing from Jan. 1 to June 30, while her opponent Jones, who is also running for the first time, raised nearly $26,300 from January up until September, according to his filings from both timeframes.
Flynn had just over 20 people listed in her finance reports, with the largest contributor being her husband, Keith Flynn, who donated $2,000. Narum was also on her list of mostly Pleasanton residents — with the exception of two — who donated anywhere between $100 and $500.
Jones, on the other hand, saw a lot more donations but a lot of those came from political action committees (PACs), unions or teachers who lived and worked outside of PUSD.
According to the 460 filings, Jones — a Pleasanton native who teaches in Hayward — received $100 donations from about two dozen teachers, most of whom were from outside districts as far as Santa Rosa and as close as Hayward.
More notably, Jones also received a total of $13,163 in donations from the Association of Pleasanton Teachers union this election year.
In a recent public forum, Jones acknowledged he received money from APT and compared the amount to receiving the equivalent of about $15 from each member, quipping it was enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
And while he did receive financial support from people like Trustee Walker, Arkin, County Board of Education Trustee Cheryl Cook-Kallio, it’s the PACs and other unions that really brought in the big bucks for Jones.
For example, he received a $1,500 donation from the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104 Political Committee, Livermore; $1,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595 PAC, Sacramento; and $1,000 from The Six PAC, Sacramento — a Democratic progressive Federal PAC that supports progressive candidates in the state, according to its website.
He also received $500 from Sprinkler fitters and Apprentices Local 483 PAC, Hayward; $800 from Laborers’ Local 304, Sacramento; $250 from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, Washington D.C.; and $750 from the Operating Engineers 3 District 20 PAC, Concord.
Measure PP
Aside from the various local races, residents will also be voting on a half-cent sales tax increase measure — which, if a simple majority of people votes yes on Measure PP, would raise the city’s sales tax from 10.25% to 10.75% for the ensuing 10 years.
The City Council approved placing the revenue measure on the November ballot earlier this year after roughly a year and a half of council meetings where staff reviewed public polling and emphasized the importance of bringing in new revenue in order to balance the city’s budget where expenditures are outpacing revenues.
While there were no 460 filings for the pro-Measure PP campaign as of Sept. 21, the No on Measure PP committee did file a 460 report for the second half of the year, which shows just over $3,000 being raised for the anti-revenue measure campaign.
According to the 460 fillings, 26 individuals — all Pleasanton residents except for two — donated anywhere between $50 to $250 to support the campaign against the revenue measure.
