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In another high-stakes campaign for a seat on the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s board, incumbent Gary Kremen has amassed a war chest of $272,814, which is nearly 10 times greater than that of his opponent, attorney Rebecca Eisenberg.
Her campaign received $27,978 for the period Jan. 1 through Sept. 24, according to California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) financial contributions filings.
But actual contributions to Kremen’s and Eisenberg’s campaigns from individual donors and political action committees amounted to only several thousand dollars. In Kremen’s case, it was $9,374; for Eisenberg, the individual donations amounted to $7,978.
The majority of their contributions came from the candidates themselves. Eisenberg loaned her campaign $20,000. Kremen loaned his campaign $101,000. Another $162,440 was rolled over from his campaign for county assessor, which was aborted earlier this year, through Eldridge Gary Kremen for Assessor 2022, the FPPC filings show.
Kremen is no stranger to spending huge sums of cash in his elections. He upped the stakes for funding a campaign for the Valley Water board in his 2014 inaugural bid by lending his campaign $503,000, an unheard-of sum that squashed his opponent, incumbent Brian Schmidt, who raised $20,457 during his campaign.
Of individual-donor contributions to his 2022 campaign, notable were the the Plumbers, Steamfitters and Refrigeration Fitters Local 393 Political Action Committee, which donated $1,000, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 332 Education Fund, which donated $2,500, and Charles “Chop” Keenan, a Palo Alto developer, who donated $500.
Eisenberg’s individual donors included two powerful allies: retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell, who donated $500, and Kremen’s former rival, County Assessor Larry Stone, who donated $2,000.
Kremen had sought to unseat Stone, an incumbent who is now in his seventh term, during the assessor’s race in June primary. He dropped out in February after a former campaign staffer accused him of sexual harassment. Kremen has said he accidentally left a few photographs of himself and his partner in bed while she was breastfeeding in a large Dropbox cache of campaign photos.
Regardless of where their cash is coming from, Kremen is by far the monetary leader. As of Sept. 29, he has an ending cash balance of $233,741 after $39,072 in expenses; Eisenberg has an ending cash balance of $22,078 after $5,899 in expenditures.
I will vote for the challenger, who seems a reasonable enough person to participate in The Golden Faucet’s legislative governance. and .. not do it by BUYING A SEAT!
The $3 million measure to ‘reform’ the term length limit by adding one-term / bad governance, enough of That Guy!
-besides – her policy directions (PA Weekly Sept 28) seem much more Green / recycle investments rather than just same-old-same-old Big Water (build more dams and canals/tunnels)
IMO, so goes my vote.