"It's just because I'm trying to stick to this 'Don't spend a penny outside of Los Gatos' idea," he says. "Because one-eighth of the sales tax comes back to benefit us."

If more Los Gatans followed his lead, he says, the town would be in better financial shape and in turn be able to provide more of the services its residents have come to expect.

But that's not Wasserman's only plan to help the town. Before even taking the mayor's seat in the council chambers Nov. 15, he sent an email out to a group of friends and community members asking how an additional 300 or so volunteers could help the town.

"In 48 hours, I got back 171 responses, email after email after email," Wasserman says, holding up a manila envelope filled with printed out responses. "These are all from Los Gatos residents with ideas on how community-minded, service-minded people could better help Los Gatos."

Their suggestions covered a number of topics, but the most common areas of focus involved assistance to seniors, assistance to youth and maintenance of park trails.

So how does Wasserman plan to obtain an additional 300 volunteers? Through an idea he calls "Community Unity." The plan is to compile a list of all the service organizations and individuals who are willing to offer volunteer service, and combine resources to more ably carry out projects and fulfill common goals.

For example, he says a home repair project for a senior citizen might be completed by a volunteer handyman group from Calvary Church, a Boy Scout troop and some high school students. The church group has experience in home repair, and can oversee the work of students who want to complete community service hours, and help the Scouts earn merit badges. The obvious benefit is that the senior's home would get much-needed attention.

Wasserman sent out another email to volunteers, and already has more than 100 groups and individuals interested in the Community Unity concept.

"What benefits will come of that I think will be more than I'm even beginning to envision," he says. "Obviously we'll be doing good. That's number one. Number two could be that if we're cleaning up park trails, if we're cleaning up graffiti ... that could help free up some funds the town currently uses, and that might help us somewhere else. Because, budget-wise, we're in a pretty tight situation."

Wasserman is prepared to take on the Community Unity idea, and all of the other tasks that come along with being mayor. Last year, he closed his popular sports memorabilia and card shop, Collector's Corner II, and took on no new clients with his property management business. That business takes a minimum of his time, so Wasserman says he is a full-time mayor.

"If I had my druthers, I'd like to serve my community like this forever," he says. "There's a lot of good you can do, but you've got to have the time for it."

Though his "Don't spend a penny outside of Los Gatos" plan might be too hard for some to follow, Wasserman knows there's hope for the next generation of the town's residents. His son Sean was recently at a water polo team sleepover where the mother of one of the players served bagels for breakfast. One of Sean's teammates was a bit dismayed to find out she had bought them in Campbell, and told her that "Mayor Mike" wanted Los Gatans to shop in town.

"The story got back to me, so I called up the kid," he explains. "I said, 'Hi, this is Mike Wasserman, mayor of Los Gatos ... I heard you told somebody about getting the bagels in Los Gatos.' He said, 'Yeah, well you said we should buy everything [here].' I said 'Very good. If you ever want to run for political office, let me know.' "