I am running for City Council in Mountain View, CA. These have been my stories.
I just looked at the schedule for the next three weeks and decided to write another diary now because there doesn’t look to be much opportunity for a while. As you can guess, the amount of community “forums” (our local word for debate) are heavily skewed toward the beginning of October. We’ve had a few thus far and I think most of the 9 candidates (for three uncontested seats) have found their voices. I’m proud to have picked up some important endorsements recently. One of the last “big” endorsements is the community newspaper. I had my interview last week and am anxiously awaiting their release. I don’t think they will announce, however, until the first week of October. That’s too late for most end-of-campaign marketing literature, but enough time to have it be known around town.
My diary today is titled “Terrorist Threat” because that is what happened to me recently. One of the most annoying things in a local election is the vandalism of yard signs. The City of Mountain View has 11 public sites around town where candidates are allowed to place their signs. Beyond that, I have at least 100 signs around town on private property. At a couple of these locations, the signs are pulled out of the ground quite frequently. I’ve had a few yard signs completely stolen (not just taken from the ground and left aside, but taken away, never to be seen again!) or knocked down and bent, etc. The sign and the post it stands on is approximately $3.5 - $4.5 depending on the quantity ordered. With our spending limit, this is not an expense I want to keep occurring.
At around 3:30pm on September 11, I was near an apartment complex which has agreed to post my yard sign along with the sign of one of my competitors. As is usual in an apartment building, the signs disappear (normally blamed on the gardeners who don’t know to leave them alone) so I have to replace them more frequently. I was driving by my sign just to see if it was still standing. When I arrived and saw it standing there, a young man on the sidewalk just happened to start destroying my opponents sign! I couldn’t believe I was seeing this. I pulled over, rolled down my window and said, “Hey, you can’t do that, that’s illegal.” At this, he stopped and turned toward me. I then said, twice, “Why are you doing that?” He proceeded to swear at me, toss his cigarette to the ground, raise both of his middle fingers at me, and then he turned and walked away. I shouted back, “I’m going to call the police.”
I did a u-turn and proceeded down the road a bit. I rolled down my window and took his photo. He saw me doing this. I asked him again, “I just want to know why you were doing that.” At this point, he was clearly upset. He started swearing at me, calling me names, challenging me to a fight. When I wasn’t about to get out of my car, he threatened my life. He told me that he was going to put a bullet through my head and that he wanted to “cap me”. With this, he took his left hand and opened up his coat pocket. With his right, he made his fingers into the shape of a gun and reached into his left coat pocket. That was my signal to leave. Which I did, post haste.
His choice of location for vandalism was quite poor as the Mountain View police station was only a few blocks away. I pulled over on another street and dialed 9-1-1. When they answered, I saw a patrol car was behind me, so I told the operator that I see a police car, and I hung up. I quickly told the officer what had happened and he radioed it in immediately. Within a few minutes there were patrol cars surrounding the apartment building. While I was talking with the officer, a parking officer came up on his electric cart and said that he just saw the guy (as I described him) a few blocks away. Then he left to go back to parking duties. In the meantime, I had emailed the photo to the police department. Not 5 minutes or so later, the parking officer radioed in that he spotted the suspect on our main street in downtown. All the officers left immediately, sirens on. The officer stayed with me and waited. They found and detained the man. I was asked to do a drive by identification, which I did. They had the suspect looking at the ground - but it was the same guy. He was arrested.
On the way back to my car, I asked the officer what is the penalty for vandalism. He said that that was the least of his [the suspects] concerns as he had threatened my life, which is considered a “terrorist threat.”
While all of this was going on, my adrenaline was flowing and I didn’t feel scared. I didn’t have a chance to call my wife…but I saw her hours later at a kind of “back-to-school” night for our son. We arrived separately. She commented, about 15 minutes into it that I looked “agitated.” I told her that I’d talk to her at home. After I explained what had happened, I started to realize that if the guy had had a gun (we still don’t know, as he may have ditched it before the police got to him), my life was truly in danger.
The newspaper picked up on the story. You can read it here. It adds a few additional details. As a candidate for City Council, I expected certain things to happen…this was not one of them. Time to hunker down, put this behind me, and try and win a seat.
As always, thank you for your support.
Website: www.mountainviewken.com
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