By Robert Haugh
At Tuesday’s special City Council meeting, the council narrowed a field of 10 planning commission candidates to two. Jeremy Hicks and Anthony Becker will appear to the Council on April 24 when the Council makes a final decision.
Hicks is an engineer at Intel and was supported by: Vice Mayor Kathy Watanabe, Councilwoman Debi Davis and Councilman Pat Kolstad.
Becker is a Production Floor Manager/Cinematographer at CreaTV and was supported by: Councilman Dominic Caserta, Councilwomen Patty Mahan and Teresa O’Neill.
Mayor Lisa Gillmor was absent and will be the deciding vote it looks like. She was representing the city at an East coast conference.
Two interesting things:
- Becker said he will not run for City Council during questioning. “Well, first off, I am probably not going to run if I’m appointed to the position Planning Commission. First off, I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. Second off, if I did even run, especially with the whole District talk now, I figure I’d rather wait for that to be settled first.” Watch here at 52:09.
But this is a complete 360 from what Becker wrote to us just over two weeks ago.
Becker commented on the Santa Clara News Online Facebook page on March 24:
I will be a candidate for council so I would love to hear your opinions on how bad I would be for council? Or I’d love to hear for [sic] your support to finally return Santa Clara to the people and taking our city back. I respect your writing but I feel it is unfair that you [sic] reporting neglects the voice that matches what the residents want. Media is controlled and pushes only selective inclusion individuals.
Count on me on the campaign trail and I hope for fair reporting on someone who really cares about my city. #Becker2018
- Becker was not asked about his negative comments about Mayor Gillmor and other councilwomen that he’s made in the past publicly on social media and in public settings. We remember “respect” being a big deal for Caserta and Mahan when Hosam Haggag applied to the same commission a few months ago.
The other candidates that were interviewed by the council: Arundhati Bhowmick, Maria Horwich, Ashish Mangla, Jonathan Marinaro, Charlie Moon, Kevin Park, Maria Schulter and Jie Zhang.
You can watch the full video here.
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It seems to me Becker is nothing more than a want a be blu packer. That’s the last thing this city needs. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I got to thank Kolstad for not voting for Becker. Not sure what to think or say about Teresa’s vote.
I could see that some of the council members would be threatened by Kevin Parks intelligence and presence, what a shame.
It was apparent there was a plan to push Becker into the commission seat. Becker will just be a puppet for Mahan and Caserta. Hicks deserves the appointment.
And Becker is preferred over Kevin Park? Really? Is Kevin over qualified? And not qualified is preferred to over qualified?
Kevin Park is an angry and disturbed individual. He treats people who disagree with him like a bully (a dumb bully too).
@ n-something. Your last sentence took the words right out of my mouth. Becker sounds like a clone of Caserta. And heaven knows we don’t need anymore of THAT on the city council – or on any city commissions either.
Becker sarcastically referred to our police officers as “IRS Agents” that we’re conducting traffic enforcement in front of a school on a Facebook thread. I don’t want anyone like that representing me or the city.