The Town Council will have three council seats up for election on November 3rd. The three seats are:

District 2, represented by Deborah Gordon
District 4, represented by Dave Tanner
District 6, Represented by Carol Ann Hodges

As we have written previously, active citizen participation is the only way to ensure all points of view are herd. Competitive elections provide a great opportunity for COWs to hear a broad range of ideas and policy proposals to improve our Town. Democracy functions best when voters have the broadest array of choices, so please consider throwing your COW bell into the ring.

Council members are elected at large but candidates for Town Council must live and have petitions signed by 20 residents in the District for which they are running. The period for filing nomination papers is July 13th to August 7th. If an incumbent in one of the three Districts up for election decides not to run, the nomination period for that particular District is extended to August 12th. If you might be interested, Janet Koelsch, the Town Clerk, is prepareing a packet of information for Potential Town Council Candidates that will be available the week of June 29th. For more information you can give her a call then at 851-6790. You can check to see which District you live in by going to the Town’s Website here. Also see here for San Mateo County’s calendar and their candidate guide (it is last year’s but has useful information) here.

In recent past history, incumbents have waited until very late in the process to indicate publicly that they were not running for reelection. This practice allows a favored successor to file but does not give those who are not “in the know” a real opportunity to jump in. We urge the Council members up for reelection to let us all know well in advance whether they plan to run or not.

Council members set policy and have responsibility for fiscal management, General Plan changes, land use approvals, issues involving horses, bicycles, roads, historic houses, and the list goes on. Council decisions directly impact our quality of life. So please consider donating your time to help our Cowmunity and running for Cowncil!

Thanks for your June 18th article encouraging Woodside residents to consider running for Town Council. As of today, Aug 6, incumbents Deborah Gordon and Dave Tanner have filed papers seeking re-election and Council Member Hodges has not filed. We would appreciate COW’s assistance in encouraging interested applicants to file for the District 6 seat before the deadline of August 12.
Thank you,
Dave Burow
Town Council