The list of candidates for the Nov. 6 election in San Mateo County has been settled. With the exception of write-in candidates – their window opens on Sept. 10 and closes Oct. 23 – the filing deadlines have passed for people seeking seats on the city and town councils in Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside.
Contested elections are ahead for all three seats open on the Menlo Park City Council. In Woodside, four council seats are open, one is contested, and no incumbents are running for re-election.
Just one candidate is running for each of the three open council seats in Atherton and Portola Valley, and for three of four seats open in Woodside.
When races are uncontested, councils have the option of appointing candidates to office and forgoing elections. The Woodside council has authorized elections for all four seats. The Atherton and Portola Valley councils are scheduled to take up the matter next week.
This is the first election in Menlo Park since the council changed the election system from at-large voting, in which every voter can vote for every candidate, to voting by district, in which voters living in each of the five districts vote for candidates who also live in their respective districts.
In Menlo Park, all three seats are for four-year terms.
• District 1, which includes Belle Haven and the rest of Menlo Park east of U.S. 101: Mike Dunn, Cecilia Taylor and George Yang.
• District 2, which includes the Willows, Flood Triangle and Suburban Park neighborhoods: Drew Combs and current council member Kirsten Keith.
• District 4, which includes the downtown and Allied Arts neighborhoods: Betsy Nash, current council member Peter Ohtaki and Ron Shepherd.
Four seats are open on the Woodside council. The seats for districts 2, 4 and 6 are for four-year terms, and the District 7 seat is for a two-year term.
Three seats are open, each for a four-year term. The candidates are incumbents Rick DeGolia, Mike Lempres and Bill Widmer.
Three seats are open, each for a four-year term. The candidates are incumbents Maryann Moise Derwin, Craig Hughes and John Richards.
Posted by Let’s Go Drew!
How can anyone that works for Facebook be unbiased? Or how can anyone (Cecilia Jones) that has gotten Facebook Foundation Grants be unbiased?
Drew Combs has served as Vice Chair of the Planning Commission and as Chair of the Planning Commission.
No one has ever accused any decision he made as being biased. He has to recuse himself on issue related to Facebook.
That is much better than Keith whose record on Facebook is ALWAYS approve. Kirsten Keith's record is the best evidence of bias.
Are u kidding me? Do u really believing recusing yourself makes up for your professional or personal bias. Who knows what happens behind the scenes.
Keith is not an employee of Facebook or take any money or financial contributions from Facebook.
@Red_Herring writes, "That is much better than Keith whose record on Facebook is ALWAYS approve. Kirsten Keith's record is the best evidence of bias."
Combs will need to quit his job, sell all his Facebook stock, and wait a year before being able to have any input on Facebook development or the Transportation Master Plan.
Saying Kirsten negotiated a trip cap is about as ridiculous as you can get. First that trip cap was for the first development in 2012. There hasn’t been one since, for any other development. The cap is so lax Facebook has never exceeded it. Not once. That’s like saying she gave hairspray to a bald man. Either totally irrelevant or totally incompetent or both. The transportation Master Plan is mess. Her stewardship is nothing to brag about.
The fact is Kirsten is a rubber stamp for any development interest that can contribute to her political ambition. It’s time for her to go.
Saying Kirsten negotiated a trip cap is... true. She also negotiated with Stanford to drop medical office from their ECR project.
The transportation Master Plan is... the missing piece of the General Plan Update. Combs cannot participate.
Facebook is proposing the largest development in the history of Menlo Park. Combs cannot participate.
Kristen has been awful on development issues on Council.
She has been a lever yes vote. She has never voted against a large development or up zoning.
She absolutely negotiated a terribly irrelvant trip cap for one Facebook project that has no teeth at all. Have you ever been to Facebook. There are cars everywhere! They have valet parking so many cars are coming and going.
She did such a terrible job negotiating with Stanford she blessed a project in negotiation that eventually was completely scrapped. The current project looks nothing like the one she actually endorsed in her negotiations.
She owns the traffic mess in the Belle Haven and on Willow. She approved all of that development. She just accepted more money from those developers.
Saying we should elect her because she can vote on development is a weak argument. That’s precisely why we shouldn’t elect her.
When Combs eventually names supporters, no real person will want their name/face associated with the nensense described in the previous post. Combs must recuse himself from everything related to or near Facebook. Good luck with that.