The filing period has ended for people to declare candidacy in local elections. Three newcomers and two incumbents are running for three seats on the board of directors of the El Camino Hospital District.

Dennis W. Chiu, Bill James and Julia E. Miller have all filed their candidacy papers with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, challenging incumbents Wesley F. Alles and John L. Zoglin, who are seeking reelection. Non-incumbent Catherine Vonnegut had pulled nomination papers, but ultimately decided not to run.

Miller is the latest of the candidates to throw her hat into the ring. She is a former administrator at Lockheed Martin, has served as mayor and city councilwoman for the City of Sunnyvale, and serves as a board member on the San Francisco Bay Trail and works for Sustainable Silicon Valley.

She said she is concerned with issues that were raised by two recent reports, issued by the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury and the Local Agency Formation Commission. And, she noted, both of the incumbents were not elected but appointed. "I think the public gets to choose," she said.

Chiu is a lawyer and the owner of the Sunnyvale-based firm, Prodigy Law. He said he is running because he believes the hospital has strayed from its original purpose and he wants to get it back on track.

James is a patent lawyer and partner at Van Pelt, Yi & James LLP, an intellectual property law firm based in Cupertino. He ran for the hospital district board 2002. According to James, one of his biggest concerns is transparency. He believes too many decisions are made behind closed doors at El Camino.

Alles was first appointed to the board in 2003 and is seeking his third term on the hospital district's governing body. Zoglin, senior director of digital marketing services at the IBM-owned Coremetrics, is the board's current chairman. Both incumbents said that their experience on the board makes them the best choices for this election.

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