Well, guess what? The Neighborhood Empowerment Coalition has gone negative in the Santa Clara County Water District race. It's only a matter of time that they will do the same in Mountain View.

We need to keep this group out of our city. The only way to do that is to VOTE NO on Rosenberg, Showalter and Kamei.

None of the three city council candidates came out and publicly repudiated this shady group. Instead they just sat back and enjoyed the benefits.

Meanwhile Kremen's silence if deathening.

Let's follow NEC's Kremen expenditures:

- NEC's treasurer Gary Crummitt has 2 violations and 1 warning from the FPPC this year alone! see here: Web Link
- in addition to this vile mailer, NEC also paid 5,000 dollars to Barry Wyatt Associates for Consulting supporting Gary Kremen for Santa Clara Water District
- Barry Wyatt Associates was until recently (it's still in Google's cache) part of Robinson Communication's team see here: Web Link
- and guess who's running Kremen's water district campaign.... Rich Robinson

Maybe the expenditures are truly independent but what a series of coincidences...

Thank you so much for making the connections.

Ellen Kamei also used Robinson Consulting. She paid Robinson Consulting close to 18,000.00 (according to her campaign)for that awful mailer.

I attended many of the forums and Kamei never mentioned traffic as one of her major issues or 10K cars in the forums and it's also not on her website as a main issue.

Then I get a NEC mailer supporting her regarding traffic and then she sends out that awful mailer about traffic that was created by essentially the same people.

This is all making sense.

WOW. This is bad.

This is disgusting. The NEC is attempting to corrupt the political process in Mountain View.

Anyone who hasn't voted yet should seriously consider boycotting any candidates who benefitted from NEC money. It doesn't matter if they knew or not. Those candidates are Kremen, Rosenberg, Showalter, and Kamei.

Daniel DeBolt, thanks for this article. It's a little late now, but still, thanks.

The real issue here is the issues. Lets focus on who is doing best for Mountain View. Money in politics is a different issue. Kamei, Rosenberg and Kremen think correctly on the issues and that is all I care about.

The real issue here is the issues. Lets focus on who is doing best for Mountain View. Money in politics is a different issue. Kamei, Rosenberg and Kremen think correctly on the issues and that is all I care about.

The real issue here is the issues. Lets focus on who is doing best for Mountain View. Money in politics is a different issue. Kamei, Rosenberg and Kremen think correctly on the issues and that is all I care about.

The real issue here is the issues. Lets focus on who is doing best for Mountain View. Money in politics is a different issue. Kamei, Rosenberg and Kremen think correctly on the issues and that is all I care about.

The real issue here is the issues. Lets focus on who is doing best for Mountain View. Money in politics is a different issue. Kamei, Rosenberg and Kremen think correctly on the issues and that is all I care about.

Josue Garcia Padia,

(1) You posted the same comment here several times. Maybe you were impatient for it to load online, but it's more seemly to first check the Town Square version, and notice it was already posted. You should ask the moderator to remove the extra copies.

(2) Outside money *IS* a central issue in this local election, even if you personally don't care. The few candidates it supports didn't do the one thing that would preserve some appearance of independence, which was to criticize and distance themselves from the spending. Voting for them endorses outside money influencing our election! Also, Ellen Kamei has made several missteps and questionable moves, as detailed in the comments above and earlier reports Web Link -- not encouraging in a would-be Council member.

i'm disgusted

this is a summary of 2 posts from: NEC finances "toilet water" attack ad in Water District race" Original post made on Nov 3, 2014 www.mv-voice.com/square/2014/11/03/nec-finances-toilet-water-attack-ad-in-water-district-race

- NEC's treasurer Gary Crummitt has 2 violations and 1 warning from the FPPC this year alone! see here: Web Link
- in addition, NEC also paid 5,000 dollars to Barry Wyatt Associates
- Barry Wyatt Associates was until recently (it's still in Google's cache) part of Robinson Communication's team see here: Web Link
- and guess who's running Kremen's water district campaign.... Rich Robinson
- Ellen Kamei also used Robinson. She paid Robinson close to 18,000.00 (according to her campaign)for that awful mailer.
- There is a NEC mailer supporting her regarding traffic and then she sends out that mailer about traffic that was created by essentially the same people.
-Gary Kremen and Ellen Kamie share an office space and are having their election night party together.

This is all making sense.

WOW. This is bad.

Maybe the expenditures are truly independent but what a series of coincidences...

@Josue - You are right that the "issues" are more important than the funneling of money described in this article.

The big issue in this election is how Mountain View will handle development. Rosenberg and Showalter are in favor of rapid, high-density development. Kamei has been less outspoken in this regard, but her record is one of playing ball with developers.

High-density advocates tell us that this overdevelopment will produce affordable housing. That's a false promise. All that we are likely to see are more overpriced "luxury" units. That's mostly what is being built these days, because that's where the big money is for developers.

The source of this NEC funding actually matters a great deal. Obviously, major developers think that Rosenberg, Kamei, and Showalter would be just great to have on the Council.

I have a different hope for Mountain View than these candidates. I'm in favor of sensible growth, preservation of neighborhoods, and preservation of existing affordable housing. For anyone who shares this view, I'd encourage you to vote for Lisa Matichak, Mercedes Salem, and Jim Neal.

I attended several candidate forums and don't recall ANYBODY saying they were in favor of "rapid, high-density" development.

There IS such as thing as thoughtful, well-planned housing. All this talk of NYC and slums of Mumbai and concrete canyons is such fear mongering! I'm in favor of limited height and keeping the View of the Mountains but yes there is such as thing as replacing some of the office space in North Shoreline with housing that looks like Park Place on Castro Street. Remember, the really pretty one that's only a couple stories high, with fountains and tons of shady trees?

Before we say NO to this let's just take a look at what the possibilities are, then we you can reject what you don't like. But to say NO before even seeing any sketches of anything sounds like a little kid who refuses to try a new food because they're already certain they'll hate it.

Go Vote for the candidate whose ideas match your own, THEN let's figure out how to keep NEC from polluting our MV elections.

Is anyone else repulsed by the amount of campaign literature that is being sent daily? In addition, I need to single out Ellen Kamei for her bad judgement in persuing my vote...the mailer with the electronic message made me and my neighbors angry...the batteries will surely go into the landfill and pollute our groundwater. In addition, I got a personal letter in addition to daily pamphets. The final straw was a personal phone call at 6:45 pm on Halloween while I was handing out candy to the neighborhood kids...I only picked up in case it was an emergency. I gave her a piece of my mind about her apparent lack of common sense, etc., and told her that I urged everyone I knew not to vote for her. In a town that prides itself on being "green", this over-spending and enormous waste of resources needs to stop. One flyer, one article in the Voice and a website is all that we need to educate ourselves about the candidates...any excess money should have gone to CSA or the schools. I was so tempted to save all the flyers and dump them on the steps of city hall...I did the right thing by recycling it all...

@incognito - I agree with you that we shouldn't throw out the candidates with the bath water.

But I am disappointed in the candidates not being much more vocal than they have been in stating that the NEC (and its associates) water REEKS.

I'm sorry but Kremen's lone Facebook post doesn't cut it when he spent so lavishly on robo-calls, push polls, flyers, consultants, shared office space....

Strangely, Kremen's expensive campaign consultant (Rich Robinson) lamented about Independent Expenditures in this blog:

Web Link

He also called Mountain View's voluntary caps one of these "stupid laws"...-

KPIX Channel 5 covered that Water District Race and the toilet water mailer:

Web Link