City Council campaign to be crowded City Council campaign to be crowded (August 17, 2001)

Fourteen people step up to run for five seats

by Bill D'Agostino

Fourteen candidates have applied for the five open spaces up for grabs in this year's Palo Alto City Council elections.

The deadline to apply had been extended from Friday, Aug. 10 to Wednesday, Aug. 15 after Councilwoman Lanie Wheeler, who pledged to not seek office when she took Liz Kniss' seat at the beginning of the year, was ruled to be an incumbent. The council chose Wheeler when Kniss moved to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

There are three current council members -- Jim Burch, Sandy Eakins, and Victor Ojakian -- running for re-election.

The fifth seat is open because Councilman Gary Fazzino also cannot run due to term limits.

The other candidates who filed papers are:

* Paul Forbes, an economist manager for a San Francisco consulting firm

* Hilary Freeman, mother of two and one of the founders of Libraries Now!

* Victor Frost, homeless advocate

* Pria Graves, College Terrace resident and owner of Birkett House Design

* Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer for @Home Corp.

* Yoriko Kishimoto, roundabout proponent and community volunteer

* Edmund Power, a retired tool designer

* Mark Sabin, chair-elect of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors

* Wei Wang, a software engineer and Winter Lodge sound wall opponent

Litsie Indergand, a member of the Human Relations Commission, and John Morton, CSI president, were also expected to be announced as candidates, but as of the Weekly's press time the county had not reported if they had received the requisite 25 signatures on their filed application.

Sabin, Forbes, Indergand and Morton all took advantage of the late deadline by applying this week.

Ojakian has the distinction of being the candidate with the highest number of signatures on his application: 105. Freeman was the only other candidate with more than 100; she had 103.

Frost, Power, and Indergand have all run in council elections before. Forbes, Kelly, and Graves all applied for the spot Liz Kniss vacated earlier in the year.

James L. Welsh had also taken out papers, but did not return them.

E-mail Bill D'Agostino at bdagostino@paweekly.com