Election Day is behind us, and there are some results that might be of interest to San Francisco 49ers fans (no other election talk in here, please). The Santa Clara city council had four seats up for grabs on Tuesday, and the results were likely not to the liking of some members of the 49ers organization.
Last month, Mayor Lisa Gillmor and a citizens group alleged people within the 49ers were using a SuperPAC to campaign against city council members who have caused issues with them in the past. 49ers VP of PR Bob Lange stated at the time, “This organization does not make a practice of commenting on political matters and will not begin doing so now in response to unsubstantiated rumors that support the personal agendas of local politicians.”
The city and the 49ers have had a contentious relationship regarding Levi’s Stadium. Lately we have seen Mayor Gillmor accuse the 49ers of improperly using city funds to pay for expenses. There was also the issue between the 49ers and local soccer teams. The list of issues between the two sides only seems to grow.
The SuperPAC to which members of the 49ers were alleged to have contributed is called BLUEPAC. That group sponsored ads against Councilwoman Debi Davis and candidate Tino Silva. The group also provided funding for campaign mail in support of Patty Mahan, Ahmad Rafah, John McLemore, and Mohammed Nadeem.
From that group, Mahan was the only one to secure victory, beating Silva.
It is all allegations, but it certainly would make sense the 49ers would prefer friendlier people on the city council. The organization has millions of dollars on the line with this stadium, and this relationship is not ending any time soon. The 49ers have not done a good job in managing this relationship, and while I think the politicians have not behaved particularly well either, someone needs to be the proverbial “bigger man” and work to mend this dysfunctional relationship. For the time being it’s not going to be due to the 49ers influencing friendlier council-members through the election. We’ll see how it develops in the coming months and years.
Here are the results from the four races (asterisk next to alleged 49ers candidates).
Santa Clara City Council, Seat 3
Debi Davis: 64.55%
John McLemore***: 35.45%
Santa Clara City Council, Seat 4
Patricia Mahan***: 33.90%
Tino Silva: 28.93%
Raj Chahal: 26.04%
Markus Bracamonte: 11.13%
Santa Clara City Council, Seat 6
Kathy Watanabe: 48.89%
Mohammed Nadeem***: 19.65%
Suds Jain: 14.91%
Anthony Becker: 8.50%
Mario Bouza: 8.06%
Santa Clara City Council, Seat 7
Teresa O’Neill: 58.48%
Kevin Park: 30.17%
Ahmad Rafah***: 11.35%