One thing I hate about elections season: campaign finance. Sure, it could be important, and even interesting, to know which candidates have accepted money from special-interest groups and who’s backing whom. But getting one’s hands on those financial statements always ends up being a big pain in the butt.

Read the rest of this entry »

Say what you want about Charles Bartlett and his plans to dissolve Fremont, he’s the first candidate I’ve interviewed in which by history/poly sci degree actually came in handy.

To read about Charles, click here.

I doubt Argus Editor Steve Waterhouse misses me, but I’m starting to miss him. While he vacations in North Fremont, I’ve made two boo-boos that he surely would have caught.

First, I misspelled the name of Union City finance guru Rich Digre in Wednesday’s paper. I gave him an extra “e”. I didn’t run a correction, because I spelled his name correctly in Thursday’s paper.

Second, in my profile of Sue Chan, I should have written that the landslide district would have included 2,000 homes, not 200 homes. There will be a correction on that one in tomorrow’s paper.

Also, the Chan story should have been lower down on the page, not the top story. Our policy is not to run candidate profiles as the top story. However, since our editor is on vacation, the folks taking over didn’t know that, and made Chan the top story. Sorry about that.

Last night, Fremont City Council and school board candidates answered questions at a forum sponsored by the Fremont Council PTA. It was the second forum for the candidates this month. The questions focused on school issues, including those that are affected by City Council actions.

All five school board candidates and seven of the 10 council candidates were there. It would take too long to go through all the questions and answers, but I understand that the Fremont Council PTA will post candidates’ written responses to the questions on its Web site: www.fremontcouncilpta.org.

Here’s a video from Fremont Council candidate Vinnie Bacon:

I’m going to have a story in tomorrow’s paper about the council debate Monday. With so many candidates and only so much room for copy, it’s tricky and frustrating to write those stories. I’m going to use the blog to go into depth about a couple of the things brought up in the debate.

One is crime. Several candidates said crime is on the rise, and Fremont needs more police. Here are the FBI stats for the past three years. More tomorrow.

In 2007, Fremont had 606 violent crimes and 5,173 property crimes

In 2006, Fremont had 569 violent crimes and 5,298 property crimes

In 2005, Fremont had 521 violent crimes and 4,803 property crimes

Mayor Wasserman is suffering from a bout of phnemonia. It’s not nearly as serious as the one that kept him away from City Council meetings two years ago, but it’s enough to keep him out of tonight’s candidate forum and away from Trisha Tahmasbi’s big party/fundraiser on Thursday.

I’m planning to do a live blog of the council debate at 7 p.m. and the mayoral debate at 8 p.m.

Thanks, Dave in Hayward.

To see the web site for City Council candidate Charles Bartlett, click here.

Things I didn’t know about Charles: He’s against the A’s ballpark village plan and he wants to dissolve Fremont into self-governing townships. For real.

Democratic Central Committee endorsements are in. Here are the names and faces that will be on the fliers that Democrats will be getting in the mail soon enough:

Mayor
Bob Wasserman

Council
Trisha Tahmasbi
Bob Wieckowski

School board
Anne Crosbie
Bryan Gebhardt
Desrie Campbell

Washington Hospital
Ravinder Singh Johal
Pat Danielson

Not all endorsements are created equal. Some come with money, some come with union foot soldiers and some come with nothing at all. But the best endorsement deal in town is probably the one from Alameda County Democratic Central Committee.

If they endorse you, you get to pay a relatively small fee to get your face on two fliers with all the top Dems that go to every Democratic voting household in town. Probably a $50,000 value.

Their method for making endorsements is a little convoluted. Bob Wieckowski, who is a committee member, has already gotten an endorsement. The other endorsements will be made this weekend, with Trisha Tahmasbi favored to get the nod for council and Bob Wasserman for mayor.