By Robert Haugh
Kudos to Santa Clara vice mayor Dominic Caserta. He proved he can raise money. Lots of it.
In his candidacy for Santa Clara County supervisor District 4, he’s already raised $250,000 (the voluntary campaign expenditure limit) while several of his opponents have just begun fundraising efforts. This gives him a big head start. The election is 18 months away.
The Mercury News did a brief summary.
Caserta raised the majority of his money from developers and development interests. Our quick analysis estimates he’s raised over $125,000 from organizations and people with projects or ties to projects – either approved, on tap or proposed in Santa Clara, including: Prometheus, Sobrato, Related Companies, ROEM, Core Builders, Swenson Builders, Mariani’s, DevCon and many others.
Some things to ponder:
- Support from developers, will likely cause backlash from Santa Clarans. How will Caserta explain to neighborhood leaders that he’s protecting Santa Clara neighborhoods?
- Caserta took money from the 49ers. During the 2016 Santa Clara city council races, all candidates refused to take contributions from the 49ers. Most candidates think the team is toxic. Caserta either doesn’t think so, or doesn’t care.
- Caserta took a big check from Larry McNeil, the former 49er VP who was the team’s point person on the soccer park issue. He’s the one who stiff armed the soccer community and they haven’t forgotten.
- Will Caserta vote for two major controversial El Camino developments? He took money from Prometheus who is pushing for a high density development at the Moonlite Shopping Center. He also took money from Lou Mariani and Miles Barber who are pushing for a high density development at the Mariani’s site.
We asked Caserta to answer these questions last week, but he did not do so by our deadline. In fairness to him, we have offered to let him write a guest opinion piece to tell his side of the story. We know Santa Clara neighborhood leaders are concerned and probably want to hear from him directly.
Looks like he’s not going to run for re-election in the City of Santa Clara. He’s already exceeded and violated city campaign fundraising rules!
No Robert … All the terms reset back to zero thanks to the new term limit rules. I hope those who were terming out , actually DO respect the citizens of Santa Clara and DO NOT run again. We have had enough of many of the same people over and over again. It is time to end the family dynasties in Santa Clara!
Thank you so very much for bring this to the eyes of us voters. Can’t wait to hear his response.
Caserta’s developer leanings & other unethical behaviors need to be publicized to the county voters. Thanks for starting the ball rolling, Mr Haugh.
In the 2014 election campaign Dominic promised the Mariani he would not vote to change the Mariani zoning. Any chance he will keep this promise?