Photograph by George Sakkestad
Candidate Frank Jones (left), Councilmember Steve Blanton and candidate Egon Jensen (right) had hoped to build a coalition on the Town Council, but both candidates lost the election.
By Clarence Cromwell
In a race that started out maddeningly close, Jan Hutchins won his first-ever election and one of two open seats on the Los Gatos Town Council on Nov. 5.
Voters also gave incumbent Linda Lubeck a second term, forgiving her council decisions to pass a utility tax and make unpopular budget cuts.
Former mayor Egon Jensen didn't win a seat with his harsh criticism of the current council, though he came close.
The top three vote-getters--Hutchins, Lubeck and Jensen--spent the first half of the race within 30 or so votes of one another, as election officials tallied the first 14 of the town's 36 precincts.
Then Hutchins pulled far ahead.
Hutchins got 5,214 votes or 28.5 percent; Lubeck, 4,941 votes or 27 percent; Jensen 4,465 votes or 24.4 percent; and Frank Jones 3,676 or 20.1 percent.
"I'm obviously honored ... but I'm humbled by the seriousness of the responsibility," Hutchins said with his usual aplomb. Phoning the Los Gatos Weekly-Times from a Hawaiian vacation that started election day, he also jokingly demanded a recount.
Longtime councilmember Lubeck said on Monday this will be her last council race.
"I have no intention of ever running again," Lubeck said. "Eight years is enough for anyone."
Jensen said he lost the race because of Hutchins' TV fame. The new councilmember was a KICU-TV newscaster for a decade, until 1991.
"If Jan wins, it's his name recognition," Jensen said shortly before officials counted the last two precincts. "Because Jan's never expressed any thought about what he stands for."
Hutchins presented himself as a communicator who will listen to town residents' complaints and suggestions. The former newscaster was upbeat, positive about the future and quoted famous philosophers.
Hutchins also happens to be the spouse of Teri Hope, owner of the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Co.
Lubeck, the only incumbent in the race, campaigned on her business knowledge and past performance at cutting the budget. For her, the election rode on whether or not voters would forgive her for enacting the utility tax without putting it on the ballot first. Jensen slammed Lubeck for that decision. Voters overrode the tax last March--at Jensen's urging--when the council put it on the ballot as Measure C.
The underdog during much of the campaign, Frank Jones got a late start raising funds, didn't earn any important endorsements, and was taken seriously by few within the political establishment. He emphasized his work on the anti-Measure C campaign last March and his business experience. Like Jensen, he called for a streamlining of the town building departments, and he said government should be run like a business.
Egon Jensen, a former mayor who led the anti-tax forces against Measure C, made the tax a campaign issue. He bashed Lubeck for approving the tax and criticized the cuts that the Town Council enacted to make up for loss of the tax money. Jensen called for a scaled-down town government--one with a smaller planning department and police budget, and no finance department.
Jensen was on the Town Council from 1964 to 1975. He was mayor during his last year on the council.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, November 6, 1996.
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