Willow Glen Resident

News

With Yeager taking county seat, six vie to fill District 6 opening

By Alicia Upano

The pool of candidates vying for San Jose City Councilman Ken Yeager's District 6 seat swelled to six after the Aug. 11 filing deadline.

Yeager was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in June, leaving his council seat two years before his term expires. The six will be on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The two individuals with the most votes will advance to a March 6 runoff, unless one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes in November.

Candidate Jim Spence, 58, a retired San Jose Police sergeant, is running for a second time. Spence lost to Yeager in 2000. Spence is a second-generation Willow Glen resident who is active on the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board. Prior to retiring, he served for 30 years and has already garnered endorsements from the San Jose Police Officers Association and the Association of Retired San Jose Police & Firefighters. According to city records, he owns a private investigation firm, Corporate Security Concepts, and a pool cleaning and repair company.

Another high-profile neighborhood leader, Clark Williams, 41, is running for the first time. Williams is vice president of the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, a stay-at-home dad and nonprofit consultant. He has years of nonprofit executive experience and serves on several boards, including San Jose Unified School District's Measure F citizens bond oversight committee, the San Jose appeals hearing board and the citizen watchdog committee for the Measure B transportation improvement program.

Like Williams, candidate Steve Tedesco, 52, is a Willow Glen resident and nonprofit executive. Tedesco is the executive director of Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley. He formerly served as an airport commissioner, CEO and president of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and a board trustee with the Campbell Union High School District.

Pierluigi Oliverio, 36, another candidate for Yeager's seat, also resides in Willow Glen. Oliverio is a Willow Glen native and credentialed teacher who now works as an environmental software executive at Foster City-based Arena Solutions and as a bartender at a Los Gatos restaurant, according to city records. He is involved in various organizations, such as Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, San Jose anti-litter program and the council on tax and fiscal policy. He ran in 1992 for city council.

District 6 residents Brad Imamura, 52, and Art Maurice, 44, are the newest faces in the race. Imamura, whose family has lived in District 6 for more than 20 years, has devoted his career to public service. He worked for Santa Clara County for nine years and the city of San Jose for 21. He is now a real-property agent in the San Jose public works department.

Maurice is a neighborhood leader with the Cory Neighborhood Association. By day, he works as a technical recruiter for Sunnyvale-based Infinera and also teaches children and adult gymnastics. In 2004, when Maurice served as the neighborhood association's president, the group received San Jose's Good Neighbor Award.