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Published on 11/10/1997 All articles from this issue

Voters unseat incumbent, choose new voices for Los Altos City Council

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

With light voter turnout for the city council elections Nov. 4, Los Altos voters chose two new faces and failed to reelect the incumbent.

In a four-way race for two seats, John Moss finished first with 3,304 votes, 33.6 percent of the turnout. King Lear came in second with 2,981 votes for 30.3 percent of the ballots.

Incumbent Patti Williams was third, with 2,531 votes, 25.7 percent. And Steve Smiley finished fourth with 1,016 votes, 10.3 percent.

"I'm a bit surprised to be the top vote-getter," John Moss said, "when you have such high-quality candidates."

Moss is finishing a second four-year term on the Los Altos School District, which is kindergarten through grade eight. "My strategy was to appeal to people in all parts of Los Altos."

Marge Gratiot, superintendent of the Los Altos School District, helped Moss celebrate as the vote count came in.

"He'll be a very good council member," she said. "He was a very good school board member," Gratiot said.

Of the 19,021 registered voters in Los Altos, 22.7 percent came to the polls, 5.9 percent voted by absentee ballots.

Mayor Francis La Poll called the 28.6 percent voter turnout "incredibly low."

In 1995 there was 39.9 percent turnout and in 1993, 57 percent.

Some called this election an "issue-less campaign" in spite of the upheaval in city hall that includes the city manager and a city council member resigning, the council firing the chairwoman of the planning commission and hiring a professional to lead in conflict resolution.

There were no close calls this year. In 1995 Councilman Lou Becker edged out Bob Norton by only 14 votes for the third seat on the council.

In 1993 Patti Williams, who had been appointed to an unfinished term, nudged out Kristine Salmon by 52 votes for the second seat on the council.

Money raised and money spent, as of Oct. 18, two weeks before the election, were not indicators of how the election finished.

Moss, in first place of votes cast, spent the least, with $4,689; Williams, in third place, spent the most with $4,942. Lear spent $4,441 and Smiley $380.

But Lear raised the most with $13,698; Moss raised $8,244; Williams raised $6,862; and Smiley raised $754.

Council voted a $12,000 cap on campaign spending. Money raised in excess of that may be rolled over into a fund for office-holder expenses, said city clerk Carol Scharz.

City-hall turmoil may not have caught the voters' attention, but it did bring out at least one candidate.

"I ran against city hall," Lear said. "The issue I was running on was good management, seeing problems and fixing them early. Gloria's frustrations (Gloria Bauer, chairwoman of the planning commission who council fired) were real. They should have been addressed before."

Moss said he sees the biggest projects on the city council plate to be finding a new city manager and rebuilding the planning commission (that is short two members).

Moss may be the first to come to council after serving on a school board.

"It's a great opportunity to forge new relationships," Moss said, "to work to the benefit of all the people in Los Altos."

The new council members will take office at the 7:30 p.m. Nov. 25 council meeting in the city hall chambers when a new mayor will also be elected.