San Leandro City Council incumbents rarely face serious competition in San Leandro. If anyone bothers to run against an incumbent, chances are it will be someone who is doing little more than putting his or her name on the ballot. Serious candidates usually wait until the incumbent is termed out.
School Board President Morgan Mack-Rose and Bal Theater owner Dan Dillman are hoping to beat the odds and become the second candidates in San Leandro history to unseat an incumbent. Reed appears to be seriously concerned that Mack-Rose will.
The three candidates faced each other off at the Chamber of Commerce/League of Women’s Voters debate on September 25th. Candidates for other districts participated as well, answering the exact same questions. Here, I’m are the video clips from the forum, edited to only include the statement and answers from candidates for District 2. You can see those from District 4 here. The questions are not presented in the order they were asked or answered.
Incumbents for City Council seats tend to do better in fora because they know the job better. This didn’t seem to be the case with respect to Ursula Reed who almost invariably had weaker answers that Mack-Rose. Dan Dillman kept true to his platform of “changing the status quo”. Full disclosure: he has my vote.
Opening Statements
“What are your specific proposals for raising revenue in the next four years?”
“What is your position on Measure L?”
“What will you do to help retain businesses?”
“With such high unemployment yet so much construction going on, would you support a program of San Leandro jobs for San Leandro people like Oakland’s recent initiative of Oakland jobs for Oakland people?”
“On police, fire, and employees’ pensions, should there be a top limit of $100,000 or $110,000?”
“What would you do to bring the many communities San Leandro together?”
“As an elected Councilmember, how would you assure that events like tonight have large attendance of students, especially high schools?”
Closing Statements