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Midyear reports show that City Council candidate Lucas Ramirez is off to an early lead in the competition for fundraising dollars. Ramirez, a member of the city’s Environmental Planning Commission, has raised just over $24,000 in his bid to replace outgoing Councilman Ken Rosenberg.
Ramirez’s campaign reported receiving donations from Rosenberg ($250), Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian ($350) and former Councilman Mike Kasperzak ($100), who is also serving as his campaign treasurer.
Fellow Planning Commissioner Ellen Kamei is not far behind, reporting about $13,000 in fundraising, including donations from Councilwoman Lisa Matichak ($130), Planning Commissioner Robert Cox ($100) and South Bay Assemblyman Evan Low ($500).
Incumbent Councilwoman Pat Showalter has raised nearly $6,800, including a $1,000 contribution from Deb Henigson, an organizer with the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning who is also serving as her treasurer. Showalter also received $500 from her former employer, Norma Camacho, CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
In his filing, Mayor Lenny Siegel reported that he had raised no money so far for his bid for re-election.
Campaign filings were not immediately available for former Councilman John Inks or Alison Hicks, who have also declared candidacy in the race.
Campaign finance report can be found on the city’s website.
this goes along with the other headline about “Smoke”
when will we start to see Smoke in who is financially supporting these candidates
when will we start to see the BIG BUCKS that large property owners and other money interests start to pour in
when will we see the Democratic County machine start to grind with significant contributions in volunteer phone bank calls and ‘Official Democratic Endorsement” mailings
Voice always tries to follow and report the public filings – THANKS!
What about the reporting on Ellen Kamei. No note of her large amount of out-of-town donors?
Lucas Ramirez was endorsed by the Voice 2 years ago for council at the last election, he lost at that time.
The Voice will do everything they can to get him elected this time as the county Dem party wants him to quickly be elected as council member, then onto higher state office. He is a Latino, articulate with an easy going personality and that is his only qualifications that the party wants.
Never mind that he is way to young, never lived thru a recession as an adult but he thinks he can handle a multi-million dollar city budget in a recession.
He has not shown in any professional capacity that he is capable of being a part of the city council, and that he can make the best decisions for the city today, and not what would be best for him to move up to a higher state office.
He only ran for the planning dept. after he lost the council race, and 1 1/2 years on the planning dept is no experience at all.
Mountain View deserves much better for our city council.
Many of the same ‘issues’ that the poster finds with Ramirez also existed with Mr. Clark. Yet somehow, someway, we and our Council and City Government survived. No miracle! Clark was 1/5 of the Council.
In the same way you might say Showalter was almost ‘over the hill’ and ‘ready to retire’ when she first ran for Council. Yet she had decades and decades of experience with complicated public works projects – and their budgets.
I will be supporting Showalter – at least she didn’t take my support dollars – then transfer them to support the Regressive school parcel tax, that hits the small wallets of the smallest condo property owners the same as the GIANT GOOGLE parcels. I worry Rameriz does not actually understand public finance and economics (will The Business Man give him an A endorsement?)
oh well, math matters – maybe we survived because our Council is 7. (so Clark was 1/7)
Checkout the Menlo Park and Sunnyvale candidate filings. Looks like the $ you are talking about is going to those cities right now.
wow, the amount of positive reporting this paper does on Lucas I would expect that they would need to report it as in-kind contribution to his campaign!