Eschewing all campaign contributions and endorsements, Siporen is taking his word-of-mouth candidacy to the residents of San Jose City Council District 10 almost single-handedly.

A former bank vice president and advertising agency owner, Siporen, 48, spent the last few years "being a dad" to his two children following the death of his wife, Elaine, from cancer in 2001. His daughter, Becky, 22, has finished her bachelor's degree at the University of Southern California and is now in law school at Pepperdine University. His son, Jacob, 8, attends Almaden Country Day School, where Siporen is on the board of directors.

"I was trying to right the ship," Siporen said of the time he spent with his family. "It was the only thing that made sense. Now that I have hindsight, it was the right decision. I've been volunteering around my son's activities—baseball, soccer, tae kwon do, golf."

In October he read that the council seat held by Vice Mayor Pat Dando was going to be open due to term limits. That got him thinking.

"It was not on my radar screen to be in politics in any way," Siporen said. "But I've always followed politics; been aware of what the issues were. I saw it was an open seat and I started thinking about it.

"I started checking things out, visiting city council meetings, talking to residents, getting feedback," said Siporen, who came to the conclusion that the city's residents were being left out of the business of running the city. "Big, powerful interests tend to control the process, and the residents were left out. The city is not being open with the residents. The government runs, but it doesn't disclose a lot. I'd like to change that."

He cites two examples of the city government operating without telling the citizens exactly what is going on: The fact that the city has run deficit budgets for the last three years and the $45 million cost overrun on the new city hall.

At a recent Almaden Valley/Blossom Valley Business Association candidate forum, Siporen spelled out what is wrong with how the city is being managed.

"The budget has been in disarray for a number of years, and the city hasn't told us," he said. "On the civic center overspending, there was no assessment of operating costs. Now [politicians] are blaming the staffers. That's irresponsible. It's the city council's responsibility. Now they're going to try to micromanage the project. If they can't macromanage a project, how can they micromanage it? The council is not acting like senior management."

He'll also talk about cleaning up the city's byzantine permitting process, cleaning house on out-of-date regulations, and bringing common sense to the city's decision-making process.

"We have to speak openly and frankly and raise the level of debate. There's no reason to hide, unless there is a hidden agenda," Siporen said.

While Siporen has some campaign signs scattered around District 10, he's doing most of his campaigning person by person, augmented with some email literature and a couple of future mailings.

"People who don't know me are talking to me and offering support, letting me know I'm on the right track. When I'm talking to people who are engaged, it's fun," he said, although he's aware that one-on-one campaigning won't reach everybody. "Knocking on doors is not an effective way to reach people. People won't answer or won't get engaged. And phone calls from phone banks just annoy people."

Siporen has been taking advantage of friends and acquaintances who are backing his campaign, sending out emails explaining his positions and asking the recipients to forward those messages on to their friends and neighbors, who will hopefully forward his messages on again and again.

"Government hasn't changed to meet our new lifestyles," Siporen explained. "Town hall meetings have 20 people show up for something that affects thousands. People don't have the time to be involved like that. But asking them to forward an email after the kids have gone to bed, that's easy. My campaign is grass roots, but it's a new style of grass roots."

While some of the other candidates are in a race to collect campaign contributions, Siporen's modest war chest comes from one source: himself. He's not taking contributions from anyone.

"I've had offers and I appreciate that. But I tell them to vote for me and to tell their friends about me," he said. "I'm going to spend about $10,000, I guess. But bottom line, I'm not going to be beholden to anybody.

"I'm for the residents. I'm in position to be their representative. I'm running for office. I'm not looking for a political career. This election is as local as we can get, and if I can't get the support of the residents, then I don't deserve to win," Siporen said.