Never shy to whisk the pot, San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio has enraged some of his potential successors. We say “some,” because not all eight candidates for the District 6 council seat, which covers Willow Glen and Midtown, have boycotted his Voter Info Transparency Project. Each week Oliverio gives candidates items on current agendas and asks them to submit a thumbs up or down on how they’d vote. Oliverio has been criticized for playing “kingmaker” in the process, and he’s also taken flack for using district resources to publish the answers. The city attorney's office so far has dismissed all complaints, and we can think of a few things (flag raisings, plaques, days named after idiots, etc.) worse than connecting residents to possible representatives. Norm Kline, a former planning commish running for the D6 seat, was participating in the mock votes until January; he reportedly bowed out because Oliverio wouldn’t let him change an answer after a deadline. That leaves just four candidates—Devora Davis, Ruben Navarro, Myron von Raesfeld and Chris Roth—as participants, after Peter Allen, Helen Chapman, Erik Fong refused to join from the get-go. All seven of those individuals, however, are currently scheduled to participate in Oliverio’s candidate forum being held Monday at Bellarmine College Prep. Kline has said he will not attend, and San Jose Inside finds itself a bit in the middle as editor Josh Koehn had already agreed to help moderate the forum a few months ago. Kline criticized Oliverio for using the whole process to boost his name ID ahead of a surprise challenge to Mike Honda and Ro Khanna for Congress, but Oliverio says he was motivated to run by the recent passing of former city planning director Joseph Horwedel, adding “life is short.”
The Fly
District 6 Candidate Forum Has Some Contenders Bristling
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Pierluigi Oliverio will hold a candidate forum to succeed him on the San Jose City Council, and not everyone is happy about it.
One can only hope PLO’s life is short. Isn’t he running so he can keep hearing the sound of his own voice?
Norm Kline sure sounds wishy washy and petulant. Maybe that’s why the Chamber didn’t endorse him. I admire the candidates who said no to PLO from the get-go.
What a fckn disaster – and who does PLO think he is trying to conduct his own forum like he is Boss Tweed
All this to seal HIS endorsement. Get real. Why is he wasting his resources on this? The story speaks on candidate position but what about voters? Is there an overwhelming positive reaction to this? Are voters clamoring for this information? Glad to see that some candidates were smart enough to abstain from the BEGINNING. They have voters to meet and learn from!
Who the hell does he think he is? Enough of this charlatan….Maybe he should go back to stealing campaign signs!
He lives next door to his parents for a reason…. they are the only ones that listen to him “yes mijo, you’re right. Anything for my mijo.”
You do know he is of Italian descent, right.
Ya I was gonna say, either regazzo or regazza would be the proper term, bambino bambina (sometimes shorted to bino/bina) would be more slangish, equivalent of mijo mija.
Wow, what a bunch of nasty, uncouth and cowardly (no real name) trolls lurk here!
Wow, what a bunch of nasty, uncouth and cowardly (no real name) trolls lurk here!
And you are the poster child of social media double talk… I cant stop laughing
Forum reported in press to be a great success with nearly 200 people showing up. Questions were all from D6 residents.
Even Helen Chapman wrote on her web site about the Forum: “Monday’s public forum was an empowering experience to answer questions from District 6 residents.” and then claimed to be the winner.
Scott Herhold said it best, “event was a victory for Councilmember Oliverio” and “Kline’s decision not to take part was a mistake.”
I’d bet 100 to 1 Kline flip-flops and participates in the next two.
Full video event is online. Judge for yourself.
https://youtu.be/OVOX-rvWCnk