Money speaks loudly. The landlords spent a fortune to defeat Proposition 21. Commercials claimed it would raise rents on the poorest renters. Locally, the only close contest is now for the 4th seat on the city council. Alex Nunez is just 57 votes behind Pat Showalter. He was previously more than 250 votes behind. Two years ago, Pat Showalter was leading for the 3rd seat then on the ballot but fell out of the money.

Again, lets look at this:

MAK and LM are going to be in the minority of the City Council, they may be able to bring motions, but as long as the other 5 do not accept the arguments for the motions, they will not get anywhere.

I hope the 5 will do their own research and not get conned by the false authority of these two. Thus their influence will be either weak or non existent.

The City Citizens need to perform their Constant Vigilance to prevent these 2 from causing more damage to the City.

@Steven: Wait, so MAK and LM are two of the top 3 vote getters, and you are thinking we need to make sure "City Citizens need to perform their Constant Vigilance"?

Seems like the "city citizens" were behind MAK and LM to a very large degree. I think we will be fine.

Ron MV,

You are so mistaken, just think about this fact:

Abe Koga got 16.75%, 15,696 votes. That means she only got 17 votes out of 100. Too bad the City Council isn't voted by a district, she would have lost. Especially if it went to a run off where she needed more than 50% of the vote to win:

Matichak only got 12.64%, 11,852 votes, which means she only got 13 votes out of a hundred. Again I can almost guaranty given the Measure D fiasco, that if these two were to be forced to compete in an election where they needed 50+% of the vote to win, the would lose.

I strongly urge that we adopt a City Council system like San Francisco because there, they get a clear choice to vote for and must get a majority vote per district to seat at the City Council.

Our process allows for MINORITY rule if the voters are intimidated from voting by outside interests, like the landlords of Mountain View issuing threats to voters like they did with Measure V in 2016.

They won with a REAL minority vote and you know it.

Please understand the percentages for each candidate are of the total vote of 96,759 votes as of this writing. Voters could vote for 4 candidates. So the percentages should be multiplied by 4 to get an approximation of the percentage of voters. (not exactly since some voters voted for fewer than 4 candidates)
Abe Koga 67%
Lieber 56%
Matichak 51%
Showalter 47%

Well Steven. Not exactly. Each voter had up to 4 votes for city council. Getting over 16% of all votes cast for 9 candidates is pretty good. Margaret Abe-Koga finished first - almost everywhere in the city. It helps to have been elected 4 times previously and to be the current mayor - and to list your occupation partly as "mother" (in her candidate statement). And all of those signs in common areas of apartment complexes and near streets. It made it appear she had a lot of supporters. Plus, it helps to be supported by the firefighters' union. Firefighters fight fires. Who would want to be seen as favoring fires? Margaret Abe-Koga did favor Measure C concerning RVs. She voted to propose and adopt the ordinance. Most voters agreed with her. Indeed, Abe-Koga has usually been on the right side of issues. She just has a soft spot for landlords and some developers. And she really is very smart and knowledgeable. But to know just why she finished first, one would need to interview many voters.

In response to Elliot Lepler you wrote:

“Please understand the percentages for each candidate are of the total vote of 96,759 votes as of this writing. Voters could vote for 4 candidates. So the percentages should be multiplied by 4 to get an approximation of the percentage of voters. (not exactly since some voters voted for fewer than 4 candidates)”

Sorry but you are simply WRONG.

The numbers reported ARE the results of the VOTES. You cannot manipulate them in any way. You cannot ARGUE that you can multiply them at all. As long as these are the results recorded by the Registrar of Voters they cannot change at all. The unaffcial results are from the last update at the Santa Clara Reigistrar of Voter say this:

“Abe Koga 16.72%

Lieber 13.92%

Matichak 12.64%

Showalter 11.74%”

The Ballot Counting progress is at 87% You can see it here (Web Link

You cannot change these numbers; any attempt is simply misrepresentation of the results. SORRY!

Gary,

I did a comparison from the last election

Ellen Kamei got 19% of the vote

Lucas Ramirez got 18.17% of the vote

Alison Hicks got 17.74% of the vote”

From the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters found here (Web Link

So, let’s compare with the current standings:

“Abe Koga 16.72%

Lieber 13.92%

Matichak 12.64%

Showalter 11.74%”

It would appear that unfortunately no one in this last election fared well at all. Comparing APPLES to APPLEs here. Unfortunately, this election process simply does not do well for this City. The city should be broken up into 7 districts and have the candidates be residents of those districts and compete for their votes in them. Of course, if it is that no one runs for one, so be it. If only one runs in a district, so be it. But it is very rare to see anyone run unopposed. This process requires that candidates campaign only in their locations for their votes.

This process needs major improvement.

@Steven, percent of the votes is very misleading here. What is relevant is the percent of people voting. I don’t see a total for ballots cast, but 30,654 votes were cast on measure C. Using that as an estimate, 51% of voters voted for MAK, 43% voted for SL, 39% voted for LM, and 36% voted for PS.
Two years ago, 26,758 people voted on measure P, so, using that as a denominator 45% voted for EK, 43% voted for LR and 42% voted for AH.

Joel,

You cannot change the vote results.

Here is a complete breakdown:

“Margaret Abe Koga got 16,178 votes resulting in 16.72%

Sally Leiber got 13,468 votes resulting in 13.92%

Lisa Matichak got 12,226 votes resulting in 12.64%

Pat Showalter got 11,363 votes resulting in 11.74%”

The total votes cast in the election was 96,759 regarding all votes in the City it is a 100% reporting report

Again, look at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters report found here (Web Link

You cannot use the Measure C’s vote totals in this comparison because it was a YES/NO vote. Ands you know it.

If your approach was valid the registrar of voters would report it like you claim. THe reporting standards are defined under the laws of the state of California, you are in no position to change them. You must accept the results reported.

SORRY

In 2018, there were 6 candidates for 3 seats. This time: 9 candidates for 4 seats. So, Margaret Abe-Koga actually was the choice of a higher percentage of voters in 2020 than was Ellen Kamei in 2018. Therefore, Abe-Koga should be made mayor again in 2021. Ok. On the "therefore" part, just kidding.

Think of it this way: if there had been 4 candidates for 4 seats, no candidate would have lost - only the voters given no choice would have lost. So thanks to everyone who ran. And if Pat Showalter does not hang on to 4th place this time, well maybe she will in 2022 (hang on to 4th place).

Gary,

Lets look at the 2016 numbers a little more closely:

“LISA MATICHAK got 12,435 votes resulting in 15.84%

MARGARET ABE-KOGA got 12,271 votes resulting in 15.63%

CHRIS CLARK got 11,319 votes resulting in 14.42%

JOHN MCALISTER got 11,145 votes resulting in14.20%

The total number of votes were 78,508 per the Santa Clara County Website found here (Web Link

Compared with the last election:

“So, let’s compare with the current standings:

“Abe Koga 16.72%

Lieber 13.92%

Matichak 12.64%

Showalter 11.74%”

With 96,759 votes cast.

If you look Margaret Abe Koga did outperform the last election by 2.1%. BUT Lisa Matichak lost 3.2% in this election.

A mixed bag.

One last point. Voting is over - but vote counting is not. Ballots continue to arrive for processing. Don't be confused by the "100 percent" stuff.

@Steven, you can’t compare the percentage of votes cast in an election where each voter gets to vote for three to an election where each voter gets to vote for four. To take your argument to the extreme, suppose every voter voted for Kamai, Ramírez, and Hicks in 2018, and every voter voted for Abe Koga, Lieber, Matichak, and Showalter in 2020. Kamai, Ramírez, and Hicks would each have gotten 1/3 of the votes cast in 2018, while Abe Koga, Lieber, Matichak, and Showalter would each have gotten only 1/4 of the votes cast in 2020. Yet certainly you wouldn’t say the 2020 candidates performed worse than the 2018 candidates. All seven candidates would have gotten all the votes possible.

Joel,

Yes I can because the results reported are what they are.

You are the one comparing APPLES to ORANGES because the candidates were NOT in the same ELECTION.

Only where MAK and LM were in the same election as EK, LR and AH can you compare them. Because they will be directly competing with each other.

You keep on trying to make up a story with no rational basis to support it.

You can compare the results of elections regarding the SAME candidates running in both, and you know it.

In any event, I like the fact that MAK and LM are in a clear minority of the City Council at this time no matter what. I truly hope that when it is based on sound logic, that AH, LR, EK, PS, and SL will simply override any attempts of MAK and LM to abuse their position. I hope they provide proper revisions like the RV ban and new policies like extending the CSFRA to the Mobile Home land rents. Given that they are arguably the best decision to make.

What I'd really like to see is a ranked voting process, i.e. be able to rank order our preferred winners, especially when we have so many candidates.

By the way

I also hope we can have a CLEAM RHC roster, no more financial interests involved.

Just Mountain View homeowners or residents with no financial ties to the Apartment industry.

My hope.

@Steven
You say "You are the one comparing APPLES to ORANGES because the candidates were NOT in the same ELECTION." Yet my initial response was to a post where you seem to be comparing the 2020 council winners to the 2018 council winners. Maybe I just don't understand the point you are trying to make.

Joel,

Yes I initially did. It was a mistake to do so to some degree. Except they did get better vote percentages. To me that shows "less divisiveness" and if the candidates were really good ones it wouldn't matter how many candidates were in the elections.

But I will say that it was not a good comparison. However when the SAME candidates are in an election and they see a loss in vote level, that surely is not a good sign. And that comparison is significant. LM clearly did not do herself any favors, and fortunately these 2 will not be able to run in 2024.

Still the results were pretty clear, and the fact that the voters didn't choose to populate the City Council with a "RIGHT" leaning majority is not going to be good for MAK or LM in their run.