By Robert Haugh
Mayor Lisa Gillmor was outspent by millions of dollars and still won re-election.
The 49ers targeted Gillmor and spent an unprecedented amount of money in a Santa Clara election to beat her. They spent over $4.5 million and failed big time.
As of Wednesday’s official tally, Gillmor led by 696 votes.
Gillmor had 14,199 votes and her challenger Councilman Anthony Becker had 13,503, a 51.3% to 48.7% victory.
Gillmor released a statement late yesterday as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News.
“I thank Santa Clarans who gave me their vote and sent a message that our city is not for sale. I am proud of our residents and hopeful about our future,” wrote Gillmor.
“But we can’t expect that by turning back a multi-million dollar negative campaign, everything will suddenly be positive … or the public interest will magically be served.
“We must remain steadfast if we want a City Council free from corruption and a city hall that operates transparently and ethically.”
Coincidentally, the City Council met last night to discuss the City’s response to the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury’s October report.
That report concluded that Becker and his colleagues “put the 49ers’ interest ahead of the city’s interests” and may have violated laws.
The 49ers also spent big money in the San Jose mayor’s race and lost.
The team spent $700,000 to support Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez who lost and conceded yesterday.
As Mark Twain once said, “We have the best congress money can buy!”
Several years ago, I went down to city hall and looked at the books for the campaign contributions and it was a real eye opener. But to look at the 49er’s a the big evil corporation that tried to influence an election when we have so much influence from ‘non-voters’ in our elections across the board makes me laugh!!!
Here’s my suggestion: the only ‘entity’ that can contribute to the election of a candidate is a person eligible to vote for that candidate.
Now that I’ve told you that we need to put a bell around the cat’s neck, who’s willing to do it? ;-}
Burt,
You are so right. I was also afraid that most of the people did not know what Jed Yord and his IDIOTS were doing. I still say that we should have our own “ news paper“ in Santa Clara. It is amazing how many people still do not know what is going on in our City. It’s about time , that they do !!!!!
Becker the $4 million dollar:
How much money Jed York is willing to spend on a recall. What a disgrace the 49ers are, money they spent could have gone in helping the community instead of trying buying power. When they wanted the voters to approve a stadium they where so nice to the citizens of Santa Clara. Now they have a stadium it screw the city. What goes around comes around Jed. Congratulation to Mayor Gillmor.
Best comment
Becker is such a no class punk he cant even congratulate Mayor Gillmor. I have more respect for the crap I pick out of my teeth then I do for Becker.
I will keep it brief,” Becker said. “I concede today to Mayor Lisa Gillmor”
To Mayor Lisa Gillmor: God bless you for not leaving us in the lurch. The fact that you ran again, despite having to deal with five councilors who are so firmly NOT interested in the residents of our city, shows a strength of character and commitment to Santa Clara and its ctizens that is an example of integrity and what every public servant should be. Thank you.
To Buchser Alum: I have enjoyed reading your posts on this blog, even when I didn’t necessarily agree with you! Thank you for your calm, informed writing. Keep up the good work.
So awesome!!!!! Yea!!!!
Thanks to a majority of our residents in supporting our Mayor.
My sincere belief many of the voters were still not clear on what was happening…. right in front of them.
Hard to argue, when almost on a Weekly, Daily, Hourly, even Min by Min you are getting fed lies… real lies that can alter the way people perceive the world around them.
Thank you, to the Civil Grand Jury for taking the time and energy to study some serious issues. Then to bring forth these allegations that need to be looked at in a very detailed manner. My hope is we can remove at least 5 of those problems in one swoop, then send a message to all local companies that we are not for sale.
Not now, not ever.
Congrats Mayor Gillmor, we are all very proud of you.
Burt Field
Great news!
The 2018 contest between Lisa Gillmor and Anthony Becker had approximately 16k total voters turn up, 75% voting for the known name, Gillmor. This time 28k residents cast their votes but only 51% marked the box for her.
Let’s say all 12,000 of Gillmor’s supporters from 2018 stayed with her, and all of Becker’s 4,000 again supported him. That would imply an additional 2,376 came out for Gillmor in 2022 while an additional 9,689 showed up for Becker. That is impressive on Becker’s part as Santa Clara County saw a decrease of 89k ballots counted (-14.3%) from from 2018 – 2022 but the City of Santa Clara had an increase of 12k (+75%) ballots cast. Mayor Gillmor may have edged out Becker by a slight 687 votes but she and her allies have lost grip of the city.
Nice math but your forgot to calculate in Becker’s guaranteed missteps that will cost him most of this new voter “base”. I will enjoy watching him implode over the next 4 years.
Large popcorn please!
Chipping Away the Stone,
You wrote: “Mayor Gillmor may have edged out Becker by a slight 687 votes but she and her allies have lost grip of the city.”
We have a weak mayor system and the mayor is just an at large council vote. Gillmor has not been steering the city for two years now.
When you do your analysis you need to consider the impact of $2,500,000 the Forty Niners directly spent on the mayor’s race and the portion of the $2,000,000 more they indirectly spent.
Gillmor will be termed out in four years. Analyze Becker the next few years and ask yourself if you want him to be our mayor. Ask yourself how much the Forty Niners will spend to make him mayor in four years.
Ask yourself why it is worth so much money to them.
Who spent 4 million, paid circulators 40 an hour to walk, had 6400 tv ads and 50 mailers?
Becker
Personnel Investigation for threatening women
Three fppc investigations
Civil grand referral to district attorney
Accused city first responders of fraud regarding donuts
What a grip
@ Ted, Buchser, Cassandra…
Empirical data and statements, as provided above, illustrate results without emotion. While normative statements like yours might be valuable in a social setting, they are not necessarily proven and usually don’t lead to a rational conclusion – it’s more like tween Twilight fans arguing between Team Edward and Team Jacob. The vote is over this debate should be as well..ciao!
What about them walkers goin around collecting ballots and helping people vote? Is ROV going to look into that? What’s their impact on the election? Did they help GOTV in other cities? Who was behind them? Lots of questions. Just glad sanity prevailed!
eh, whatevs,
Are you “Chipping Away the Stone” or someone different? I suggest you pick an alias and stick to it if you want to have a conversation with others.
And if you would like to direct something to me that you would like me to reply to then please direct something more specific to me and not the vague and general statements you made and also bundled together as the reaction to two other commenters.
6 million will do that
Congratulations Lisa! It’s nice to see not everything can be bought.
Congrats Lisa, a big win for SC.
We still have 13,503 Santa Claran’s who are not happy with the direction of our city. It was disturbing to see all of the marketing material disparage the competition rather than tell us what they’re going to do to make this City great again. I hope we can learn to play nice with the Niners and I hope we can pay the construction workers for the project that took away our golf course the wages they deserve and will need to live here.
Concerned Citizen,
If anyone is unhappy with the direction our city has taken they need to know that they should not blame Lisa Gillmor. Becker and his bloc on council have had a 5-2 majority for the past two years.
They have been running Santa Clara for the past two years.
Instead of hoping that we play nice with the Forty Niners you should hope they play nice with us. They have a council who will vote in their interest. Let us all hope that they will hold the Forty Niners accountable.
Congratulation to Mayor Gillmor!
This is great news. A real two-fer. We keep a mayor that cares more about Santa Clara residents than the 49ers and it is a slap in the face of jedyork. She is a leader that money didn’t buy. Now if we can have a few crooked council members removed we can get down to taking care of Santa Clarans.
I have to say I am disappointed it takes Santa Clara 8 days to count the votes.
Note to Bugsy Becker, Stalker Suds
Act Two begins