Thorne wins council seat on third try in light voter turnout Thorne wins council seat on third try in light voter turnout (June 10, 2005)

Defeats Arkin, Faustina in decisive victory
by Jeb Bing

Persistence paid off for retired corporate executive Jerry Thorne as voters elected him to the City Council on his third consecutive try. To the applause of more than 100 supporters who gathered at a victory party at the Hop Yard Grill and Alehouse as the polls closed Tuesday night, Thorne said he plans to "hit the ground running." His top priority will be to have the council complete work on the General Plan and take it voters for their approval. No. 2 on his agenda will be to complete work on the new sports fields planned for the Bernal public lands.

"I hope this election will send a message to the council that it's time to stop studying things and start doing things," Thorne told his supporters. "I will do my level best to really do you proud."

The day after he was elected, Thorne joined the council as a non-voting member to start work on the city's proposed $158 million operating budget for fiscal year 2005-06 that starts July 1. A hallmark of Thorne's campaign was fiscal constraint as the city nears buildout, and he has promised to weigh in throughout the review process.

Thorne, who managed multi-million-dollar corporate budgets and payrolls before retiring from Agilent Technologies last year, said: "I'm not the sort of person who will go through a budget like this line-by-line or to try to micro-manage what our finance staff does quite well. But I also will be watching for benchmarks and road signs as we go along to make sure we avoid letting any large projects get out of hand as happened with the golf course."

Thorne beat out challengers Brian Arkin and Dan Faustina, winning 3,512 votes, or 41.2 percent of the 8,530 votes cast in the special election. Arkin trailed by nearly 500 votes, receiving 3,022 votes, or 35.43 percent. Faustina finished last with 1,968 votes, or 23 percent.

With just 21 percent of Pleasanton's 38,330 registered voters taking part in Tuesday special election, the number casting ballots fell far behind the record turnout last November. However, it was slightly more than the 8,000 analysts had projected last weekend, and better than the 6,459 voters who turned out for a similar off-year election for the school board in November 2003, which was even more spirited with eight candidates.

At election night rallies at separate downtown restaurants, Arkin and Faustina also thanked their supporters for hundreds of hours of work in turning out the vote.

Arkin criticized the heavy campaign financing that Thorne had, including costly pamphlets paid for by PG&E and the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce, and citywide automatic phone messages seeking the public's votes.

"My campaign cost about $10,000 and was the kind of banner-waving, hand-shaking effort that should be the norm for electioneering in Pleasanton," he said. "We shouldn't be spending all this money to win a seat on the City Council."

Faustina conceded just after the polls closed and when the only votes listed on the Alameda County Registrar's Web site were for absentee ballots. Even then, with no precincts reporting yet, the gap of about 10 percentage points between the candidates was about the same as two hours later when all 38 precincts reported.

"We're proud of our efforts," Faustina said. "Considering that this was the first campaign we put together, we're real pleased with the support we've gotten from the community and with the volunteer base that we were able to put together."

"We were hampered with the fund-raising part of the campaign," he added. "It's tough to compete for the money that was being spent. "But we're going to come at this again and we plan to be back in a year-and-a-half to do it again for the next council election."

The special election was held to fill the seat vacated by City Councilwoman Jennifer Hosterman when she was elected mayor last November. Although Thorne, who was the runner-up in that election, could have been appointed to finish the two years remaining on Hosterman's council term, the council decided to hold a special election at a cost to taxpayers of about $160,000. Because of election regulations concerning candidate-filing deadlines and the county Registrar's need to verify voter signatures, June 7 was the earliest date for the election.

In the meantime, the council carried on with only four members, occasionally sidestepping possible controversial issues until a fifth - and tie-breaking - councilmember could be seated.

If the Registrar certifies the results of Tuesday's election by today, which Pleasanton officials believe will happen, Thorne will be sworn into office Tuesday June 21 at the start of the regular council meeting.

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