By Robert Haugh
Last night in the Santa Clara City Council Chambers, candidates faced off in their only head-to-head debate before the election. The forum was hosted by the San Jose/Santa Clara League of Women Voters. Approximately 50 people attended.
Mayor
The highlight of the evening was actually the last forum. The mayoral debate featured Mayor Lisa Gillmor and her challenger Councilman Anthony Becker.
Becker stole the show but not in a good way.
Becker was reprimanded twice by the moderator for attacking his opponent, a violation of the forum’s ground rules. Wow. That’s never happened at a Santa Clara debate.
The crowd in the City Council chambers also booed Becker a few times when he went negative. Double wow.
Becker’s answers were getting negative so the League’s moderator said she wanted to “change the tone” to lighten the mood.
Here are some clips so you can see it to believe it.
Here’s Becker’s one-minute answer, followed by the moderator’s brief statement.
Four minutes later, Becker went on the attack with this one-minute answer. The moderator reprimands him after it.
Just three minutes after that reprimand, Becker receives his second warning after a 30-second answer.
While the moderator is talking, Becker speaks over her while shaking his head. It sounds like he said “facts.” But many in the audience thought he used the F-word. (You be the judge).
Then one minute later, Becker gets loudly booed by the audience when he interrupts the moderator to complain. Triple wow.
With Becker’s performance, Gillmor would have won this debate by just breathing and smiling. But she did deliver some key messages.
Gillmor said that she represents “leadership you can’t buy.” She said she stood up to the 49ers when they tried to lower their stadium rent and won over $150 million for the City.
Gillmor also said that her fiscal responsibility helped build up $50 million in reserves that helped the City get through the pandemic.
Gillmor dropped some good names of endorsers: Congressman Ro Khanna, Councilmember Kathy Watanabe and former Council members Jaimie McLeod-Skinner and Teresa O’Neill. Santa Clara police officers and firefighters are supporting her, too.
GRADES
Gillmor: B+
She was calm, cool and collected. Her messages and accomplishments were good. But one answer was too long and went past her time limit.
Becker: D-
He didn’t get an F because he civilly agreed with Gillmor twice. But for most of the debate, he looked like he didn’t have the temperament to be Mayor or even in public office.
District Two
The evening started at 6 p.m., with Councilman Raj Chahal and his challenger Larry McColloch.
Chahal took a lot of credit for what the City Council has done with affordable housing and other major grants. He emphasized his list of endorsements from elected officials. He also took credit for creating the business head tax that’s on the ballot.
McColloch focused on what he called his two “C’s” – cash and corruption. He said he would use his business experience to find more cash or revenue for the City. And he would not be part of the corruption that comes with the 49ers’ spending and influence in Santa Clara.
Chahal was defensive about his relationship with the 49ers. He said that he condemns all independent expenditures, but he never mentioned the team by name.
McColloch did not have detailed answers to most policy questions. He introduced himself as “not a politician” but a “prolific innovator with 63 patents.”
GRADES
Chahal: C
He spoke too fast and went past the time limit a lot. He looked defensive about the campaign spending issue.
McColloch: B
His answers were too short, but he was clear. He stuck to a consistent message about cash and corruption.
District Three
At 6:45 p.m., Councilmember Karen Hardy faced off with her challenger Christian Pellecchia.
Hardy emphasized her roots in the community and her educational credentials.
Pellecchia highlighted his business experience and volunteer efforts in local nonprofit organizations. (Pellecchia Zoomed into the meeting since he was on a business trip out of town).
Pellecchia’s priorities were clearly about public safety. He said that he has the Santa Clara police officers’ and firefighters’ endorsements. He was specific about improving the Swim Center and his support for downtown and uptown (the Related project).
Hardy wants to “stop the bleeding” of spending. She said that 78 percent of the budget goes to salaries and benefits and that’s higher than in other cities.
A major disagreement was the business head tax. Hardy pushed it as a solution to the budget deficit. Pellecchia said it will drive out or hurt small businesses.
Another major contrast was what Pellecchia said was his top priority – to “bring back dignity and respect” to the City Council which he said is considered a “laughing stock” around the Bay Area.
Hardy said that the dysfunction is not her fault and blamed other unnamed people on the City Council.
GRADES
Hardy: C
Her answers were a lot of run-on sentences and lists without a clear point.
Pellecchia: B
He was definitive in his answers and well prepared, although he spoke too fast at times.
I had a personal relationship with Mr. Becker a number of years back, I can tell you with a immense degree of certainty that he is most definitely not someone you want in any kind of position of power. Not only does he have an abnormal thirst for title and power, but he has a really short fuse and a horrible anger problem. He’s always wanted to skip to the front of the line without putting in the work. I can’t believe he’s even made it to the Council.
Burt Fields, if you are trying to make a point and convince someone of your point of view why would you alienate half of your audience? If you want to insult someone, compare them to joe carter/jimmie biden. Check your investments or quality of life under Trump compared to now. Or better yet, stick to the issues. We do agree on what a loser becker is and what a crime it would be to put him in as mayor. Let’s stick to that if you would please. Thanks
Thank you
Note to Becker campaigh strategist
Dont use the city seal
Red means stop on the road!!@
https://youtu.be/kjxSCAalsBE
Becker campaigh ad ready
Jain, Park, Becker
Mahan, McLemore
https://www.google.com/imgres
Why is Becker campaign manager using this image on linked in
I am disappointed that this is the only debate. I was looking forward to another opportunity for Becker to lose his cool and perhaps take off his shoe pound it on the table before sticking it in his mouth.
— Nikita Khrushchev
In case you cannot use the Google Image link posted. It is a Linkedin page for Bruno Kirschbaum. I am giving Mr. Haugh the lead. He can do his own exclusive if he chooses to, or Mr. Field or Mr. Myers. Kirschbaum and Becker are USING THE CITY SEAL for campaign purposes. A picture was sent to Mr. Haggag. CLEAR VIOLATION. Becker should be censured. Use it if you want, figure, i owe you one.
Becker kept talking about homelessness… what has he done other than start a task force that has done nothing but give money to an organization? The TF doesn’t even meet anymore. The issue cannot be handled on a city level.
He tried to use a bunch of city buzz words to generate support, “homelessness,” “downtown” and “great America.” All empty words.
Who would bring guests from out of town to great America?
I too was waiting on the big blow up and it happened right on cue.
Councilman Becker did not do himself any favors with his behavior last night. His demeanor is one of several reasons why he should not be our mayor. But all this “Wow” pearl clutching on your part is rather much.
As is your grading McColloch and Pellechia higher their incumbent councilperson opponents. Both of them came across as obviously weaker candidates compared to Chahal and Hardy. Much more so McColloch than Pellechia.
You detract from your credibility when your analysis is so obviously partisan.
Agree with your comment to a certain extent. Both McCullogh and Pellechnia stated they were not politicians. Pellechnia definitely had longer answers than McCullogh but at the same time he answered the questions and based on his background sounds pretty smart. These two guys are courageous seeing what they are now up against thanks to Jed York and his PAC.
Would you rather that Hardy and Chahal ran unopposed?
Angie,
No I do not want Chahal and Hardy running unopposed. But I wish that their opponents were stronger candidates. And I think that this site should not spin so much in its evaluation of the performances.
McColloch brought up the corruption angle and I suppose did it in a way that allowed him to stay within the rules of not making personal remarks. That was good. However the repetition of claiming he would bring in more cash was without any specifics and so came across as empty talk. And his repetition of claiming to be an innovator and having patents without any specifics came across as empty talk. And so were the claims of “earning” billions of dollars.
Lack of specifics while also not using all his time showed that he was not sufficiently prepared. And so his claims of being an innovator and bringing business sense to the council comes across even more as empty talk. He looked very satisfied with himself whenever finishing his statements and that made him look ridiculous to me because his statements were so lacking.
Pellecchia was better. He was not bad but was also not good. Showed more but hardly any knowledge of specific issues and said little about specific changes and solutions. Too much general claim that his experience in the construction business means he can run the city well. That is possible but it must be shown or proven and he did not do either.
His talk about bringing civility and respect to the council was welcome. It is true that the council is dysfunctional. But he is not running against a councilperson who contributes to that. I have big questions about Hardy’s Forty Niner friendly voting and off the record meetings. Her endorsement of Becker is a discredit to her. But I have never seen her behave in a way during council meetings that is bad.
Pellecchia was not bad but he also did not show any reason to support him other than not having a record that suggests being in the Forty Niners pockets. That might be enough to vote for him but maybe not. I wish he had shown more.
Because what the Forty Niners are doing really is quite disgusting. Like this site.
https://www.christianpellecchiafacts.com/
As Robert says “Wow!” You make good points. I don’t think there have been other candidate debates for Pellechnia and McCullogh to work on their message. In the end they may not be polished politicians but after the last 2 years voters may be looking for trustworthy candidates especially since Hardy & Chahal are under FPPC investigation so their hands aren’t too clean. Bottom line is at least there are candidates making them work for their reelection. Thanks for sharing that website about Pellechnia. Hadn’t seen it.
Angie,
I agree that McColloch and Pellechia could both probably do better if they had more experience with public speaking. And that Chahal and Hardy have gotten a lot of practice speaking in front of audiences as city councilpersons.
I am glad that both are running. I am glad to see Chahal and Hardy being challenged but I am disappointed that McColloch and Pellechia have offered such weak challenges.
If I could vote in these two elections I would maybe vote for the the challengers just because of the big questions I have about potential corruption of the incumbents by the Forty Niners. But outside of that issue McColloch and Pellechia have shown very little. And Pellechia came across as being someone who will be chummy with the Forty Niners too.
Ok, raise your hand if you really thought that Baby Trump had any chance of not losing his temper at some point last night.
Everyone knew it was going to happen… just when was the question? He is a time bomb waiting to go off.
No one that I know, ever thought he was a viable candidate to run our city, did last night finally prove to the 40 Whiners they are backing the wrong horse? So sorry, didn’t mean to offend any real horses out there.
If I was either the 40 Whiners, or one of the other 4 members of that club, I would put as much distance between Baby Trump and my campaign…..and as quickly as possible.
It’s so bad for this “wanna be” that if he applied to run one of our local community pools he wouldn’t qualify for that job either.
“Aim High Anthony” (ok, who just giggled?, you now have as much chance of being our Mayor, as you do being our next President of our Country.
So while I could not see the debate live, I did look online to see if anything was posted where I could see it. What I did find was a clip on Youtube from Oct 2020.
Watch it, it is telling.
Look at the carnage that has happened to our City in just two years that the 40 Whiners have had the control of our City Council.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piDyvA5f-EA
Mayor Gillmor nailed it as well as our Chief of Police Pat Nikolai
Burt Field
burt.field@gmail.com
Please don’t disparage Donald Trump with the likes of Anthony Becker. Not one similarity as Becker has not 2 sticks to rub together, rents a room from someone in his district, and has not accomplished anything his entire life.
Besides, Trump has luxurious hair.🫣
We desperately need to change the 49er-backed council members to recover our city’s integrity. Becker was shameful, untruthful, and incoherent last night. Gillmor made sense and showed compassion for the citizens who suffered from COVID and its aftermath.
Becker has been a disgrace from the beginning. I’m in his district, but have never had any communication from him. He says he takes no 49er money, but his flyers say they are “sponsored by DeBartolo corporation & affiliated entities including Forty miners Football Company”. Not only should he not be mayor, but he should not be in Council!
Becker is a named witness in three fppc investigations involving the 49ers.
He couldn’t even control his temper for, what, 30 minutes?
Becker demonstrated zero original thought. When asked to give concrete examples, he uses the opportunity to bash the Mayor and violate the forum guidelines.
Niners, joke’s on you for backing the worst of the bunch!!
And yes, Becker, you are taking their money by allowing them to mail out all those garbage political flyers in support of you!
How’s about Hardy use her ‘save the environment’ platform to investigate Becker’s flyer waste to the landfill.
Becker is a “BULLY” Becker has been “BOUGHT” Becker is NOT Mayor Material!!!!!
Two years on the council does NOT make you qualified to run a city!!!
Raj took credit for the $8.5M shuttle grant. OMG, Raj you didn’t have anything to do with it. Go talk to Mayor Darcy Paul and he will be glad to fill you in. Stop taking credit for other people’s work. Stop riding people’s coattails.
https://www.santaclaraca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/43772/3171
I have to agree with Cupertino Insider – You’re really scrapping the bottom when you try to steal credit for anything that Darcy Paul touched. Especially given how abysmal and dysfunctional Better Cupertino leaders are.
It looks like the present City Council members are going down. Becker, good to see you consistently show your true colors, you’re unprofessional and you should sign up for anger management therapy. You are an embarrassment to the City of Santa Clara.
Becker will never be my mayor. But the image at the end of this article is a bit much. And it’s pretty clear the F word he used was facts.
I hope people see how unprofessional and unintelligent he is and he loses the election. By a lot.
He doesn’t know how to keep things classy. You should also try it a bit more with these articles, though, so they garner more respect.
Becker is already on next door doing damage control. He knows (and I’m sure his handlers told him) that the debate last night was an unmitigated disaster for him. Angry. Shallow. Unprepared. But he “brought FIFA.” LOL.
Becker never explained why the deficit is on the Mayor’s shoulders. He first demonstrated an understanding that the Mayor is one vote on the Council…but then conveniently ignored that his coalition has had control of the Council and budget for two years. He said it wasn’t the pandemic so it must have been….him and his cronies’ fiscal mismanagement.
This is a great point. Hopefully voters will see through his illogical negative attack.
Becker
Punk