Here Are Winners Of Mayoral & City Council Elections In Santa Clara County

Santa Clara Mayor Jamie Matthews was reelected to a second term Tuesday, defeating challenger Deborah Bress, while a slate of two other candidates endorsed by reform group Santa Clara Plays Fair lost as well.

Santa Clara was among a dozen cities in Santa Clara County that held elections today for city council seats, while voters also chose mayors in San Jose and Milpitas.

In the Santa Clara mayor’s race, Matthews garnered 8,169, or nearly 70 percent of voters casting ballots, compared to 3,591 for Bress.

Matthews ran on his record, which he touted as including this year’s opening of Levi’s Stadium, the new home of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team, and the campaign that led to the NFL choosing Levi’s to host the planned 50th Super Bowl in February 2016.

Bress and Santa Clara council hopefuls Karen Hardy and Kevin Park, all supported by Santa Clara Plays Fair, ran as critics of Matthews, complaining that the deal that brought Levi’s to the city involved too much public debt.

They also claimed the city’s government lacked transparency and accountability and left residents out of decisions on development projects that have affected neighborhoods, such as traffic problems caused by fans driving to and from the stadium.

But Hardy, running in City Council District 2, came in second to incumbent Patrick Kolstad, who had 40 percent to Hardy’s 31 percent in a three-way race.

Park, seeking the seat in District 5, also finished second to former Santa Clara Councilman Dominic Caserta, who got 40 percent to Park’s 35 percent.

Elsewhere, in the San Jose mayoral election, Sam Liccardo held onto a slim lead this morning with 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for Dave Cortese with all precincts reporting, but election officials have yet to count a number of absentee ballots turned in at the polls Tuesday.

In San Jose City Council races, Charles “Chappie” Jones won in District 1, Raul Peralez prevailed in District 3 and Tam Nguyen was victorious in District 7, according to the complete unofficial election results.

In the City Council election in Campbell, Liz Gibbons, Paul Resnikoff and Jeffrey Cristina were the top three vote getters to win seats.

Cupertino’s City Council race for three seats turned out to be very close, with Mark Santoro, Darcy Paul and Savita Vaidhyanathan winning with more than 15 percent of the vote each.

In Gilroy, Roland Velasco, Peter Leroe-Munoz and Dion Bracco finished highest among five candidates to win election to the City Council.

Mary Prochnow and Jean Mordo finished first and second in the voting to be awarded seats on the Los Altos City Council.

In Los Gatos, Steven Leonardis, Marico Sayoc and Rob Rennie were elected to the Town Council.

Milpitas Mayor Jose “Joe” Esteves, who has been mayor since 2002, was reelected with nearly 61 percent of the vote over two other candidates, while Marsha Grilli and Garry Barbadillo won seats on the City Council in a field of eight hopefuls.

Voters in Morgan Hill elected Gordon Siebert and Rich Constantine to the City Council.

In Mountain View, voters chose Pat Showalter, Ken Rosenberg and Leonard Siegel for seats on the City Council.

Karen Holman, Tom Dubois, Gregg Scharff, Eric Filseth and Lydia Kou were each elected to the Palo Alto City Council in a race that attracted 12 candidates.

Saratoga’s voters elected Emily Lo, Mary-Lynne Bernald and Rishi Kumar to the City Council.