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Fremont Chamber picky with endorsements

By Matt Artz
Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 1:21 am in City Council Election, Fremont, Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Mayor's race.

You’ve got to hand it to the Fremont Chamber, they’ve got some stones. Ten people are running for two city council seats, they represent just about any constituency you can imagine, and the chamber’s political action committee endorses just one person, and it’s not even the incumbent.

The chamber’s PAC, Business for Better Government, endorsed Trisha Tahmasbi and only Trisha Tahmasbi for city council.

They also endorsed Tahmasbi’s boss, Alberto Torrico for Assembly; Bob Wasserman for mayor; Desrie Campbell, Bryan Gebhardt and Ivy Wu for school board; Bob Brunton and Greg Bonaccorsi for Ohlone College Board and Pat Danielson and Bill Nicholson for Washington Hospital Board.

I know what a couple of people are thinking: “Wait a minute, they didn’t endorse Sue Chan? But John Dutra is supporting her, and John Dutra owns Fremont. He owns the Chamber. They could only make endorsements because he let them out of his back pocket.”

I don’t know what to tell you two. Maybe Mr. Dutra has already scaled Mission Peak in a single leap and is preparing to rain down thunderbolts on Chamber CEO Cindy Bonior.

The two mild surprises for me was picking Brunton over Lam Research’s Teresa Cox, and selecting only Tahmasbi for council. You figure if they’re going to endorse Torrico and his top assistant, they may as well also endorse his law parter, Councilmember Bob Wieckowski. Maybe Bob is a little too into banning Styrofoam cups and plastic shopping bags — two initiatives that the chamber opposed. But there are plenty of pro business challengers. How about Fazlur Khan or Larry Montgomery? I just met Larry tonight. Cool guy, cooler bike. He rides a Harley and wears Pittsburgh Steelers crocs. I wish I could be that cool.

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One Response to “Fremont Chamber picky with endorsements”

  1. Californiaguy Says:

    The Fremont Chamber of Commerce influence under its present leadership is insignificant

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