Los Gatos residents will have a difficult choice to make on Nov. 5. There are five very solid, knowledgeable candidates running for the three vacant seats on the town council this year.
The five dazzled the crowd at a recent candidate forum held in the council chambers and co-sponsored by the Southwest Santa Clara Valley League of Women Voters and the Los Gatos WeeklyTimes.
The candidates demonstrated humor, fielded the questions from the audience with composure and expressed their opinions and ideas in a professional manner.
Moderator Marlene Duffin was also impressive. The League representative set the tone for the evening with her affable personality, allowing spectators to not only be informed but entertained.
"The town of Los Gatos should be proud if all of you served," she told the candidates as she wrapped up the evening's event. And it's true that all five appeared to be quality candidates.
That's why we were so disappointed last week to find that two of the candidates provided misleading information for the sample ballot distributed to voters. The two—Barry Bakken and Mike Wasserman—misrepresented their occupations on the ballot.
Bakken, who indicated that he was in "sales for semiconductor companies" in his interview that was published on Oct. 2 in the WeeklyTimes, listed his occupation as "businessman/foundation director" on the ballot.
True, he does both—but not for a living. Bakken is a businessman, but he does volunteer work for the New Millennium Foundation. While that work may occupy much of his time, that position hardly qualifies as an occupation. And to try to tell voters that it is is at the very least misleading.
Wasserman, who said that he "owns a property and financial asset management company" in his Oct. 9 interview in the WeeklyTimes, indicates on the ballot that his occupation is "school coach/administrator."
Clearly, his position as a school coach is no occupation. He's the 8th grade basketball coach at Fisher Middle School, for which he is offered a stipend. Again, while he may spend much of his time in that role, it could only be classified as an avocation—not an occupation.
What's more, the manner by which Wasserman listed his occupation could have a voter believe that his career is that of an educator.
All council candidates received written ballot regulations from the town clerk that clearly spelled out the difference between occupation and avocation.
Whether Bakken and Wasserman provided the information to deliberately mislead the voters or whether they were just the mistakes of political neophytes is difficult to determine.
But one thing's for certain—the information is not correct. And that sort of tactic is certainly disappointing in what has been shaping up as an exciting Los Gatos Town Council race.
