City of San Jose Airport Commissioner Tom Cruz will challenge incumbent appointee John Varela for South County’s seat on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors in the Nov. 8 election, according to election officials.
The qualifying period for candidates ended this week, and the latest list of candidates on the Registrar of Voters’ website shows Cruz and Varela vying for the District 1 seat on the seven-member board.
The board appointed Varela to the seat December 2015, after former Director Dennis Kennedy resigned due to health reasons. Varela was appointed to complete Kennedy’s unfinished term, which expires after the November election.
Kennedy, a former longtime mayor of Morgan Hill, died in March age 77.
Cruz and Varela were both among the 21 applicants for Kennedy’s seat when the SVWD board began the appointment process last year. After a public interview process, the board chose Varela.
Varela, a 38-year Morgan Hill resident, is a former mayor and city councilman for the City of Morgan Hill. He is also an entrepreneur and co-founder of a number of nonprofit organizations in South County, and of several for-profit companies in the renewable energy industry. He is also the co-founder of South Valley Angels, an organization that helps people start small companies.
Cruz, a south San Jose resident, works for the County of Santa Clara and is a San Jose Mineta International Airport Commissioner. He ran against Kennedy in the November 2014 election for the District 1 SCVWD seat.
District 1 on the SCVWD board includes South County from south San Jose to Gilroy, and unincorporated areas in the southern and eastern areas of the county.
The SCVWD provides wholesale drinking water to the county’s 1.8 million residents, and has an annual budget of about $524 million.
