Rose Garden Resident
News
Unwanted District 6 campaign fliers anger Oliverio supporters
By Mary Gottschalk
As the run-off campaign for San Jose City Council District 6 between Pierluigi Oliverio and Steve Tedesco heads toward the March 6 election, tempers are flaring.
Homeowners with Oliverio campaign signs say they are being targeted with photocopies of a Feb. 17 Mercury News article headlined "District 6 candidate's credibility under fire." The article questions some of Oliverio's claims about involvement with community groups in speeches and campaign literature.
The article was left on Jenny Duncan's front porch, as well as those of several of her neighbors in the Shasta Hanchett area on the same day it appeared in the Mercury. Across the top, someone had printed "Noticed your Oliverio sign. Did you read this?"
Duncan says, "I'm very upset. You walk out on your front porch and see this. I was intimidated by them placing this on my property."
Duncan says she sees the action as a form of harassment and an effort to intimidate residents so they will remove their signs supporting Oliverio.
Oliverio says he's received several calls at his campaign headquarters reporting similar incidents throughout the Rose Garden and Willow Glen areas.
"Pretty much the majority of the district" got them, he says. "We received numerous calls and e-mails from people saying they were offended by the tactic, in particular because it was anonymous."
Tedesco says the first he heard about it was when the Rose Garden Resident called him for comment.
"I didn't know anything about it. We did not send anyone out to do it, but clearly volunteers can do anything they like on their own," he says.
"Obviously someone in the neighborhood supports me and said, 'Wow, I wonder if these people read this?' That's an honest, legitimate reaction.
"It's not harassment, intimidation or terrorism."
Tedesco says although he had no knowledge of the photocopies and their distribution, "I think it's overreacting for someone to feel threatened and harassed."
