Labor Day, come and gone, is traditionally the opening bell for
the fall campaign season.
Labor Day, come and gone, is traditionally the opening bell for the fall campaign season.
Instead of the Memorial Day cry of “Gentlemen, start your engines,” the Labor Day call is “Voters, mark your ballots.”
Most local candidates for school board, council and mayor remain a bit mysterious to residents but The Times will try to ease that in the coming weeks with candidate interviews, profiles and – in October – a series of open-to-the-public, televised forums where voters can see the candidates and make up their own minds.
Visitors to the Taste of Morgan Hill can meet local candidates when they make an appearance for an hour each at the Morgan Hill Times booth.
School board candidates, with one exception, will hold forth on Saturday, Sept. 25, from 11am-5pm. Candidates for mayor and city council will appear on Sunday, Sept. 26, from 10am-5pm. School board candidate Peter Mandel will be at the booth on Sunday 2-3pm.
As an extra treat, the county Registrar of Voters is sending a touchscreen voting machine for voters to try out before they have to face the real thing on Nov. 2. Registrar staff members will demonstrate on Saturday at the Times’ booth.
The booth with candidates, touchscreen machine and The Times will be found on the east side of Monterey Road between Third and Fourth streets, near Mezzaluna Restaurant.
Six residents will vie for three seats on Morgan Hill School Board: Mark Davenport, Kathleen Sullivan, Peter Mandel, Harlan Warthen, Bob Griesinger and Julia Hover-Smoot.
Five hopefuls, including one councilman seeking a second term, hope to win one of two council seats: incumbent Larry Carr, Julia Starling, Mark Grzan, Allan P. Abrams and Kelly Bell Kubica.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy is seeking a fifth two-year term and is being challenged by Councilman Greg Sellers who is half-way through his second four-year council term.
The three candidate forums will be held in City Council Chambers at City Hall. The Times holds these forums before almost every major election, co-sponsoring them with the American Association of University Woman, Morgan Hill branch.
Because the South Valley area has no League of Women’s Voters, traditionally the group that runs candidate debates and forums, the local AAUW works with The Times to collect residents’ questions, moderate the program and conduct the forum.
While not all state and federal candidates have confirmed, this is the plan:
• On Monday, Oct. 4, voters can meet and hear John Laird, Assemblyman, D-Santa Cruz, and Jack Barlich, Republican and mayor of Del Rey Oaks, discuss issues important to the 27th Assembly Distridistrict includes Morgan Hill and San Martin, but not Gilroy.
• Also on Oct. 4, The Times has invited Abel Maldonado, Republican Assemblyman from Santa Maria, and Peg Pinard, Democratic candidate for the 15th State Senate district. Pinard is the former mayor of San Luis Obispo and current supervisor of San Luis Obispo County.
The 15th is a newly drawn district that now includes the counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo, the southeast portion of Santa Clara County (including Morgan Hill and San Martin but not Gilroy) and the northern portion of Santa Barbara County.
• On Thursday, Oct. 14, voters will hear candidates for mayor and council. Candidates for the 11th Congressional District are incumbent Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and his Democratic challenger Jerry McNerney from Pleasanton.
• On Monday, Oct. 18, school board candidates will face each other and try to convince the voting audience that they have the answers to running the largest – nearly 300 square-miles – school district in the area.
Information on candidates, issues and elections is available on many websites. Women’s Voices. Women Vote (www.wvwv.org) is a site to help women register to vote. Women on their own were the largest block of potential voters in November 2000 election not voting, not taking part in the democratic process – 22 million of them.
Dates to remember: Oct. 4 is the first day to mail absentee ballots, Oct. 18 is he last day to register to vote.
Send questions for any candidate to ed******@*************es.com, fax to 779-3886 or call 779-4106.
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.
