Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Candidates challenge 'big city' style

By Clarence Cromwell

Three of the four candidates in the race for a pair of Monte Sereno City Council seats belonged to the defunct group Citizens FOR Monte Sereno, and they're campaigning on some of the same issues the group criticized the City Council for last January.

The challengers are Joel Gambord, Gordon Knight and Lilian Harman. All three are saying again that the city should loosen up on landowners, especially those who own historical buildings, and that the city staff ought to be downsized, or at least function more like a friendly, small-city government.

The city has responded previously to these concerns by pointing out that the heritage ordinance was enacted by a past council after repeated requests of Monte Sereno residents, and that it's no longer possible for one employee to do the work the city must do.

Hobbs said the council now relies on expert consultants when it rules on historical buildings to ensure careful, well-informed decisions.

The city, Hobbs said, is not a big bureaucracy.

"Anything that is very well-organized--to someone who doesn't understand what is going on--will appear to be a bureaucracy," Hobbs said. Monte Sereno is actually working on simplifying its ordinances and making the city staff more efficient, she said, and some developers have noticed the difference.

Citizens FOR Monte Sereno is the group that presented the council with a letter at the beginning of the year complaining about those issues, among other things. A letter addressed to the mayor and council in January also criticized the city for cracking down on Gambord when he performed work on his historical house--the John Steinbeck house--without permission. It criticized the city's efforts to preserve Claravale Dairy, as well as the size of the city manager's salary and what the group perceived as unfair decisions on the part of the current council.

The group never declared who its leaders were, but Gambord and Harman were two of the authors of the letter. And Knight and Harman have confirmed that they were members of the group.

Gambord and Knight both said their campaigns are not connected with Citizens FOR Monte Sereno.

"We didn't want to be painted with the same brush," Gambord explained. "We all have our own ideas."

Harman was on vacation last week and couldn't be reached.

Knight said his reasons for running were the same reasons that made him join Citizens FOR Monte Sereno. He appeared more concerned with defeating Hobbs than winning a seat for himself.

"Any one of the three of us would do a good job on the council," Knight said, adding that the mayor represents the bureaucratic, "big city" philosophy the three challengers want to fight against.

Anyone who wants to meet the candidates can attend a candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters on Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Monte Sereno City Council Chambers, 18041 SaratogaLos Gatos Road.