Santa Clara Election Results

I think there will be runoffs in the races where no one exceeds 50%. Not 100% sure of that.

 

I believe Measure F only applies to county, not city, elections.

Looking at the latest numbers, it would appear that Don G.'s recommendations have prevailed.

GO SANTA CLARA EARTHQUAKES!!!!

 

If Hardy beat Kennedy, and there is no run-off, that's not the best news. Hardy will oppose the stadium at every turn. Moore winning is big, and so is McLeod, potentially. If you count Mahan, Matthews, Moore, McLeod, Kolstad, Caserta there is potentially a 6-1 for, but Kolstad has a record of being independent, so he can't be relied on. But Hardy may throw up a lot of road blocks.

We'll see.

 

If Hardy won by such a small margin, man that hurts. If there's a run-off between Hardy and Kennedy, there's a good chance Kennedy would win, assuming he siphons more of Nguyen's votes than Hardy does. If Hardy wins, I think we might be able to move her position a bit on the stadium. But it will take some work.

 

Does the stadium initiative require unanimous votes to proceed generally, or just a majority?

I think Hardy believes that the stadium would somehow inevitably siphon money away from youth programs. Seems to me she could be brought to a different understanding with some polite education / lobbying. If there's little to no public funding for the stadium, wouldn't it potentially result in additional revenue for the city that could be used for youth progams? (I guess she'd have to buy into the "potentially" part, and I'm sure there's some question as to whether the project could really be done w/o issuing a bond.) And what about all of the youth activities the team is involved in? Having a pro team based in the city would be such a great complement to the youth soccer programs that use the youth soccer complex.

 

From what I understand, she would just be dead set against it, even if the stadium cured cancer. I'm trying to find out more, but that's my initial read. And it does not require a unanimous vote, only a simple majority. But there's a lot of permutations. It's not the end of the world if she wins, but Will Kennedy is such a nice guy and potentially pro soccer, it would've been nice if he won.

 

Someone (bsman?) posted an email response from her about the stadium issue a month or two ago. If she wins I'll see if I can dig that up. She must have some rationale for her position, and maybe there's a way to move her position a bit, at least so maybe she doesn't go nuts trying to throw up roadblocks.

 

Obviously SSV will explore these options. It could simply come down to the fact that she doesn't understand that we are trying to accomplish this without any public money. Additionally, she may not see the big picture or understand how we are planning to create deep relationships with the community, which would include youth development and involvement. I think if we educate her on how this will enhance the youth programs we may help her warm up to the idea.

Santa Clara has a long history of supporting athletics which we can show have had a very positive impact on the youth and the community.

 

Sounds good.

 

Actually - we communicated twice on this issue. Here is her initial and followup response:

First:
I do not, and will not as a council person, support any
funding, directly or indirectly, for professional sports
franchises. My first and only priority is to promote the
best interests of the residents of Santa Clara; that includes
preserving and enhancing youth activities in our City. I will
not compromise that goal by subsidizing private interests.

Thank you for concern for our City, and, more importantly,
your efforts supporting youth activities in our City.

I then communicated further with Karen Hardy, and she indicates the following:

"Bob,
My strong response stems from my concern for the long term financial well being of the city. As a planning commissioner I have studied many proposals and weighted the advantages and disadvantages. I have seen no proposal as yet, only the estimate of $60-70 Million for a stadium and the Earthquakes to put up $15 Million. Where is the other money to come from? I am not closed to the idea of a stadium, only the idea of using public funds to subsidize a private business. Let a funded stadium proposal come forward and I will judge it on
its merits from a land use and zoning perspective as I would any other project. I hope I have been clear. Did you know in the original draft for the youth soccer park that the youth program could be "bumped" for professional soccer at any time? I was vocal about that and a council member helped get that clause taken out. Not everyone in this city who claim to be for youth soccer are honest about their intentions.
Sincerely,
Karen Hardy


She's pretty 'intense' and focused on her specific concerns, but I don't think she's going to prove impossible. I think that if this is to go forward, the proposal will have to done right...

 

Thanks, bsman. Those are the emails I remember you posting on another thread.

 

The race between Hardy and Kennedy is not over. Only 93 votes separate them and there are about 8,000 more to count - absentee ballots.

 

Good news, this one's far from over. Kennedy only has to get a little over 1% more of these absentee ballot votes than Hardy to overtake her (discounting votes for Nguyen, which are running at something like 16% I think).

 

Just saw this, which appears to be very good news. I'm not sure if this is the final final count, but Kennedy has gone from about 90 votes behind to about 150 ahead of Hardy, apparently due to absentee ballots. I'm so used to getting bad news these days, I had to look at it several times to make sure I was seeing right.

48/48 100.00%
Vote Count Percent
WILL KENNEDY 9,720 42.08%
KAREN HARDY 9,564 41.41%
NAM NGUYEN 3,767 16.31%
Write-In 46 0.20%
Total 23,097 100.00%

So if this holds up, looks like all of the candidates recommended by Don Gagliardi (from the Quakes fan perspective) have won seats on the city council.

 

Doh! The way things are going these days, I wouldn't be surprised to see it flip-flop again.

 

Don't think it's quite final, unfortunately. I think there's still another 2% of the votes to count. Kennedy was up by about 150 votes at one point, so I don't think this one is over yet.

 

The county election website has the same numbers. It said that 98.18% of the ballots are counted. That's a county-wide number. Who knows how many are left in the city of Santa Clara.

Results are updated tomorrow at 4 pm.

 

Final results should be in today.