The race for three seats on the El Camino Hospital District's board of directors is shaping up to be an expensive one, with all of the candidates -- and their backers -- spending big bucks.

All together, non-incumbents Dennis Chiu, Bill James and Julia Miller have raised a total of $58,686 and spent $46,504, according to the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.

The two incumbents, Wes Alles and John Zoglin, have raised a total of $35,912 and spent even more than they raised -- $39,333.

In addition to the individual campaigns being run by the candidates and their committees, local labor chapters of national labor organizations are supporting the non-incumbent candidates in a big way. The South Bay Labor Council, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has spent just about $107,900 to support the three new-comers -- $36,040 on Chiu, $35,813 on James and $36,040 on Miller.

All three candidates received donations from the Silicon Valley chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union -- $500 each for Chiu and James and $750 for Miller. Chiu and Miller also received $2,500 from the SEIU-UHW.

On the other side of the campaign, the well-known Palo Alto political activist, Charles Munger, Jr., is supporting incumbents Alles and Zoglin, who are pooling their funds through a joint campaign finance committee. Munger contributed $20,000 -- the vast majority of the $21,149 the two men raised since the last campaign finance reports during filing period covering Oct. 1-20. Two other large contributors included Kent McCarthy, an investment manager from Ranch Mirage, Calif., and Gerry Besson of Los Altos, each of whom contributed $1,000.

Zoglin and Alles

So far, Alles and Zoglin have raised $35,912. They have spent more than they took in -- $39,333. A great deal of that money has gone toward newspaper advertisements. This period, the Alles and Zoglin campaign spent almost $1,500 on ads in publications owned by Silicon Valley Community Newspapers and more than $700 on advertisements in the Voice and other papers owned by the Voice's parent company, Embarcadero Media.

Bill James

James raised a total of $26,430 -- more than half of that money, including a $15,000 loan he made to himself, came in during October. His largest campaign expenditure was for the printing and mailing campaign literature and promotional materials, which cost him a little more than $14,000.

Dennis Chiu

Chiu raised $23,795 over the course of his campaign, with about $4,160 coming in during October. He was given $2,000 by Peter Chiu, a retired doctor living in Palo Alto, and $1,500 from Paul Lewin of Palm Springs.. He has spent a total of $16,617.

In the period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 20, Chiu spent $4,163 -- the majority of it on campaign literature, printing and postage -- the rest on campaign signs.

Julia Miller

Miller has raised the least of all the candidates. Over the course of her campaign she has brought in $8,461, much of it in smaller donations. However, many of her donors are influential local political figures. In October, she received two $100 contributions -- one from Richard Santos, District 3 director of the Santa Clara Valley Water District; and another from Rod Diridon, Jr., clerk for the City of Santa Clara.

Of the money she's raised, Miller has spent $5,456 on advertisements in newspapers, including ads in the Voice, the Los Altos Town Crier, the Penny Saver, the Sunnyvale Sun, and in the California Voter Guide.

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