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Pleasanton City Councilmember Jack Balch officially announced on Wednesday that he will be running for mayor during the Nov. 5 general election.
Balch, who served as the city’s vice mayor last year, said he hopes voters choose him as Pleasanton’s next mayor so he can begin addressing several issues he has seen during his four years on the council.
“The current direction that Pleasanton is on is not my vision for Pleasanton’s future,” Balch told the Weekly. “I don’t see how the current paths and choices by the council are ones for vibrancy and growing Pleasanton. Ones that work to solve problems.”
He will be competing against current Mayor Karla Brown, who ran uncontested during her reelection in 2022. According to the city’s campaign disclosure statements, Brown has already filed her campaign papers for the November election.
Balch was first elected to the City Council in 2020. Before that, he served the city as a planning commissioner from 2014 to 2020 and as a parks and recreation commissioner from 2009 to 2014.
Balch is also currently sitting as the chair of the Ava Community Energy Joint Powers Authority and is on the Alameda County Waste Management Joint Powers Authority and the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department Joint Powers Authority.
His decision to enter the mayoral race means that the City Council District 4 election will be fully wide open without an incumbent on the ballot.
Balch said over the last four years he has demonstrated through how he votes on certain issues, such as the city’s capital improvement projects, that he cares about how he spends the resident’s money and that the city needs to be open and transparent with how it spends taxpayer money.
“I don’t think between our actions as a council — related all the way back to district elections, to campaign finance reform, to virtual public comment — I don’t believe we have been doing all we can to support transparency and build trust,” Balch said.
He said he doesn’t agree with some of the council majority’s priorities in the past like how the council voted, with Balch dissenting, to put more money toward building a new skate park at Ken Mercer Sports Park and rebuilding the Century House.
Balch said the city instead needs to do more to stabilize the Stoneridge Shopping Center, get the city’s first Costco online and work to improve Pleasanton’s overall tax revenue base, including trying to help the downtown continue to prosper.
That’s why, if elected as mayor, Balch said his priorities would include fiscal discipline, making sure Pleasanton does everything it can before passing along rate increases for things like water and garbage service, and further evaluating things like a sales tax measure.
“The city has opportunities that it could do, and priorities it could set, that I think could lead us to a stronger fiscal path or fortunate path for the future,” Balch said. “I think there’s a different path forward, one that can be more vibrant, one that can work harder to watch how we spend taxpayer money and be diligent about what we do.”
He said as a local, small businessman and certified public accountant with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he can help improve Pleasanton’s economic strength while also maintaining its overall quality of life and unique character.
“Being mayor should be a straightforward job — providing safe streets, clean and affordable water, and spending taxpayers’ money with care and deliberation,” Balch said. ” The time has come for new leadership, which is why I’m running for mayor.”
More information about Balch’s campaign can be found at www.JackforPleasanton.com.
I wanted to acknowledge why we have turned off comments to this article for the time being. As a journalism nonprofit, we are now subject to IRS rules that prohibit “political engagement” by 501(c)(3) organizations. That means our editorial board can no longer write endorsements of political candidates (but ballot measures are fair game), and there is prevailing belief within our organization that the prohibition on endorsements also likely extends to reader-based content deemed editorial such as Letters to the Editor and even online comments that are explicitly pro or con a declared candidate.
We are still fine-tuning our organizational policy, but in the meantime, we need to limit any potential exposure. As a result, the pro-candidate type comments previously posted below this story have been removed indefinitely and we will turn off the commenting for now on this story and likely all other campaign announcement articles.
I appreciate your patience as we work through this new world as a journalism nonprofit, and thank you for keeping such a close eye on our local election coverage!
Jeremy Walsh,
Editorial director, East Bay Division