Rose Garden Resident

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Oliverio wins District 6 seat by wide margin

By Alicia Upano

San Jose District 6 will finally have representation again. From early on, Pierluigi Oliverio was the clear winner over Steve Tedesco in the runoff election.

With more than 7,500 absentee ballots cast by midday on March 6, initial results showed Oliverio had received more than half the vote. By 11 p.m., with all the precincts counted, Oliverio won by a wide margin, with 58.36 percent or 6,428 votes, while Tedesco had 41.64 percent or 4,587 votes. The total number of voters was 11,015, only 28.9 percent of the district's 38,100 registered voters.

Oliverio chalked up his success to hard work and running a positive campaign. His campaign manager Denelle Fedor said his one-on-one contact with the community made a difference. Not only did he make a lot of personal contacts by knocking on doors, but he was willing to talk about the residents' concerns during the community forums held throughout the campaign, Fedor said.

Voters, however, said it was more than that. For many, Oliverio represented a changing of the guard in city hall, including newly elected District 3 Councilman Sam Liccardo, District 1 Councilman Pete Constant and Mayor Chuck Reed.

Rose Garden residents Tim and Helene Lavelle flew home from Reno in time to vote for Oliverio, and made it to the polls an hour before they closed. Both are in the high-tech field and appreciate Oliverio's background and the expertise he'll bring to the capital of Silicon Valley.

"I like his youthful approach; I think he's creative, and he thinks outside the box," Helene Lavelle said. "I think he's going to challenge people on the council."

Her husband said Oliverio will learn on the job, but "I think he's going to shake things up."

By 10:30 p.m., with his steady lead, Oliverio's party at Tomato Thyme was turning into a celebratory one. Earlier, Tedesco shared the evening with supporters in his Jansen Avenue home. Many there said they had known and respected Tedesco for many years. His supporters gathered around a computer in his living room, hoping the gap would close.

"The hard thing is, it wasn't about the issues, it was about experience," Tedesco said. "It was very frustrating to run against someone who basically had a free pass on what he said about his background."

Tedesco said Oliverio's public service background was less significant than touted. In the past weeks, Tedesco said the tide began to turn in the election, but perhaps too late for absentee voters who had already turned in their ballots.

In the District 6 and District 4 elections, 61.5 percent of voters cast absentee ballots.

"We've just seen a general trend toward voting by mail, and it's more pronounced in the special election," said Matt Moreles, a spokesman for Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.

Oliverio will be sworn in at the March 13 city council meeting and serve the remainder of Ken Yeager's term, which ends in December 2008. He will also be eligible to run for two four-year terms. Oliverio has already put thought into the staff that will be serving District 6, including hiring his campaign manager Fedor as part of his staff.

Oliverio had been gaining momentum since the election in November, when more than 2,000 more residents voted for Oliverio than any of the other five candidates, who included Clark Williams, Jim Spence and Art Maurice.

Oliverio and Steve Tedesco received the most votes, but neither won enough to avoid a runoff. Yeager's District 6 seat became vacant when he was elected as a Santa Clara County supervisor.

Oliverio, 37, was the youngest of the candidates. He also had political leanings at a young age. At 22, he made an unsuccessful bid for the San Jose Unified School District board.

He was raised in a home on Willow Street and is a graduate of Willow Glen High School. He taught high school government, economics and U.S. history for three years in San Jose. He worked at Foster City-based Arena Solutions as an environmental software executive. He will continue to consult for the high-tech company.

Tedesco is executive director of Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley . He also serves on the city's airport commission and is a past member of the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission. He is co-founder of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, Christmas in the Park and the Silicon Valley Charity Ball Foundation.

A Del Mar High School alum, he also served 10 years on the Campbell Union High School District Board, where he won a seat at age 22. He lives in Willow Glen with his wife and son.