Eight-year resident and council candidate Allan Abrams is
running a new kind of campaign.
Eight-year resident and council candidate Allan Abrams is running a new kind of campaign.
He is – with one exception – making no appearances, spending no money, printing no signs or flyers, asking for no endorsements and shaking no hands. He is also kissing no babies.
Instead he is relying on the kindness of friends and their e-mail address books.
“I’m getting the word out by word of “mouth,” Abrams said last week. “I’m asking each of my friends to send my e-mail on to five others in a kind of chain letter method, and we’ll see what happens.”
The one exception was Thursday’s candidate forum sponsored by The Times and the American Association of University Women. Abrams answered questions on the city budget, the library, public facilities, downtown, police staffing, Coyote Valley development and the recent “City Hall Flap.”
But his top concern, in fact, the primary reason he decided to run, was the city’s proposal to change its operating rules and allow one or more new auto dealers in the Walnut Grove area, right behind his house.
He’s dead set against it.
“I am 100 percent against allowing the city to amend the general plan, alter the present zoning and allow auto dealerships along Dunne Avenue,” Abrams said.
He believes dealerships have a place in town, under the right conditions, but prefers the Cochrane/101 interchange.
The Walnut Grove issue caused Abrams and his Rosemary Circle/Diana Avenue neighbors to rise up, circulate petitions and demand that they be heard when it appeared to them that the City Council was not listening.
He sees the auto dealership, and the recent uproar over where to put the new library, as indicative of the need for “new blood” on the council. Abrams said the present council did not heed residents’ wishes.
Underlying the auto dealership issue is the city’s need for revenue and sales taxes from car sales would be lucrative.
“The city is cloaking the auto dealership requirements as a way to plug the $1.2 million budget gap,” Abrams said. “The gap may go away in three or four years. We should look at other businesses we can bring into the city.
He does not consider tax increases the way to gather in more revenue.
“There are other ways ,” he said.
On other issues, Abrams favors Measure C, the voter-approved residential growth control that has kept the lid on city sprawl, thinks the Redevelopment Agency has performed well and probably should be continued, wants a close eye kept on Coyote Valley development and believes the city should subsidize public facilities until they can be self-supporting.
Communicating with the public is important to Abrams and, if elected, he intends to hold quarterly town hall meetings, walk neighborhoods and send out periodic questionnaires asking how council is doing.
The role of a city council, Abrams said, is to balance what is good for the city and for the neighborhoods.
Abrams is 47, grew up in Ohio, came to California 25 years ago, mostly “because of the weather,” is married to Jennifer and has two sons, ages 10 and 13. He works at home as sales manager for FCI where he manages the Cisco account.
He has been running for 10 years, taking part in marathons and half-marathons. Abrams’ wife, Jennifer, and a few neighbors who work in Morgan Hill, act as his “kitchen cabinet,” where he goes for another opinion.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
