A side-by-side guide to the six candidates and the choices facing Santa Clara. Compare their positions, records, and complete responses.
Dated race context · September 27
A 49ers-sponsored committee received $645,000 to support Gary Ferraris and oppose David Kertes and Kathy Watanabe. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the team’s Santa Clara political spending since 2020 is approaching $10 million. These are independent expenditures and are not evidence of candidate coordination. Read the reporting ↗
Watanabe has called for an independent analysis of Levi’s Stadium’s financial benefit to Santa Clara. The Bay Area Host Committee disputes that the city is falling short and says it has paid 95% of submitted city invoices while awaiting additional information. Read the reporting ↗
Presented alphabetically, with identical treatment.
Ferraris's campaign describes him as a former City of Santa Clara employee, former president of an AFSCME Santa Clara chapter, South Bay Labor Council delegate, and union representative. AFSCME's site records his 2023 resignation as Local 101 president after accepting a promotion to a nonrepresented position.
View candidate profileHardy is the current District 3 councilmember, first elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022, and served as vice mayor in 2020. Her campaign describes more than 20 years of city service, including the Planning, Historical and Landmarks, and Charter Review commissions, as well as an 18-year career teaching mathematics and computer science at Wilcox High School, where she started computer-science and robotics programs.
View candidate profileKertes's campaign presents him as a Santa Clara resident, parent, coach, volunteer, and business executive. Its stated priorities include youth and senior services, public safety, Downtown revitalization, affordable housing, the Related project, and salary cost control.
View candidate profilePark is the current District 4 councilmember and has served on the council since 2020. His campaign describes him as a scientist and engineer with more than 30 years in Silicon Valley technology, including work on Unix systems, startup testing frameworks, Google's enterprise team, and machine-learning production, with engineering degrees from Caltech and Stanford.
View candidate profileWatanabe served eight years on the Santa Clara City Council from 2016 through 2024, including as vice mayor in 2018, and is now a Santa Clara Unified School District trustee. Her campaign also cites eight years on the Library Board of Trustees, three years leading Santa Clara Sister Cities, regional committee service, and a 40-year career in the legal profession.
View candidate profileWiltberger's official candidate statement and public candidate profiles describe him as a longtime Santa Clara resident, scientist, medical-technology entrepreneur, and company founder whose work includes ophthalmic devices. His campaign emphasizes council cohesion, responsive government, fiscal responsibility, Downtown, retail, infrastructure, and balancing Santa Clara's technology identity with its community character.
View candidate profileShort summaries first; full answers are on each candidate page.
The central divide is not whether Santa Clara will add housing, but where it should go, how affordability should be produced, and how much discretion the city should retain.
Supports more market-rate and affordable housing, selective ADUs and duplexes under compatibility standards, greater transit and corridor density, and exceeding state benchmarks where responsible.
Accepts state-required growth and proposes studying a multi-unit cooperative-housing model with lower buy-in costs and the ability for residents to move among unit sizes as their needs change. She says state law has sharply reduced local control over low-density zoning.
Supports market-rate, affordable, and workforce housing, with density downtown, along corridors, near transit, and on suitable undeveloped land. He is cautious about blanket neighborhood upzoning.
Favors project-by-project review, deeper affordability, and local findings on design, parking, infrastructure, welfare, the General Plan, and neighborhood character.
Supports more housing in appropriate locations with infrastructure, financially feasible affordability requirements, and selective missing-middle housing—not blanket upzoning.
Supports more market-rate housing, feasible affordable-housing requirements, exceeding state targets where supportable, and broader permission for duplexes, fourplexes, and small apartments under clear standards.
All six candidates support services, but they give different weight to neighborhood objections and set different thresholds for enforcement.
Supports well-managed interim and supportive housing despite majority opposition, and would clear hazardous encampments after notice, outreach, and reasonable efforts to offer shelter and services.
Points to repeated votes for the family-focused Benton/Lawrence project despite strong opposition. Her response does not establish a specific encampment-clearance threshold.
Supports responsibly managed supportive housing with counseling and security, and would clear encampments only after identifying temporary shelter or another place to go.
Says objections can expose correctable project problems. He opposed the initial 2023 Benton/Lawrence authorization and supported the revised family-focused project in 2024.
Treats siting as project-specific and supports clearance when health, safety, access, infrastructure, or sanitation risks become significant, paired where possible with services.
Would support well-managed interim housing despite majority opposition and clear dangerous encampments immediately, while generally requiring outreach and realistic temporary placement first.
Each supports or hopes to see BART reach Santa Clara, while raising different questions about cost, timing, parking, and the station site.
Supports completion with stronger cost controls, transparency, realistic timelines, and independent oversight. He supports high-rise housing closest to transit, stepping down toward neighborhoods.
Is concerned about cost and delay. She opposed an earlier station-area high-rise proposal because of the site's water well and historic resources.
Supports completion with a firm fiscal ceiling and supports station-area density, while warning that housing may arrive years before BART.
Supports the regional connection and high-density station-area housing with resident-serving retail, subject to airport height and noise constraints.
Supports completion with stronger oversight and high-rise housing near BART and Caltrain when paired with infrastructure, public space, connections, and affordable units.
Supports the goal of BART but wants updated costs, funding, and a credible schedule before new city commitments. He supports high-rise station-area housing with transit, utility, and street planning.
The candidates broadly agree Downtown matters, but differ on the level and form of city participation.
Supports meaningful city investment in public infrastructure, but no arbitrary amount or open-ended subsidy; he would combine city funds with developer contributions, grants, fees, and partnerships.
Says city-owned land may be part of redevelopment, while private land should be developed with private money.
Wants Parcels A and B moved quickly through developer selection and suggests using city property or sale proceeds for infrastructure.
Strongly supports Downtown as a civic and economic center, but did not identify a dollar limit for city participation.
Supports targeted, project-specific participation—including possible fee waivers—with measurable benefits, taxpayer safeguards, and no open-ended subsidy.
Would consider city funding for public infrastructure and shared spaces, with defined costs, private participation, milestones, and a clear public benefit rather than a preset dollar amount.
None argues that every increment of new power should automatically go to data centers, but their level of skepticism differs considerably.
Would evaluate data centers and competing uses case by case based on infrastructure demand, environmental effects, economic benefits, jobs, and overall community value.
Says Santa Clara is near saturation; her campaign promises a day-one moratorium on new data centers and emphasizes strict siting, power, water, and infrastructure conditions.
Is conditionally supportive when capacity exists, residents do not subsidize infrastructure, environmental effects are addressed, and projects stay out of residential areas.
Is strongly skeptical of expansion, citing neighborhood, natural-resource, wildfire, land-use, and residential-rate effects.
Would compare data centers with manufacturing, R&D, housing, and other employers based on jobs, fiscal return, efficiency, infrastructure effects, climate goals, and community value.
Would keep data centers in the economic mix but weigh each approval against housing, other employers, grid reliability, and the value residents receive from scarce power capacity.
Their answers reveal different first moves in a downturn and different ways of balancing competitive pay with city revenue.
Would first reduce nonessential consulting and professional-service contracts. He favors collectively bargained compensation based on regional competitiveness and long-term fiscal capacity.
Points to the pandemic response: seek a wage freeze, postpone deferrable capital spending, and require reductions across departments.
Emphasizes reserves, maintenance, departmental review, and attrition where necessary. He favors performance reviews and merit-linked raises within an affordable pool.
Would defer noncritical projects outside infrastructure and maintenance. He says compensation growth should not exceed revenue growth over time.
Would first reduce outside consultants and discretionary professional-service contracts while protecting core services and avoiding layoffs where possible.
Would first cut or defer nonessential outside consulting studies. He says labor agreements must be affordable over their full term without endangering essential services or future budgets.
The clearest differences concern what the team should do in local politics, whether candidates should publicly engage outside spenders, and how they would build coalitions.
Calls for stronger stadium financial transparency and contractual accountability. He would speak publicly when outside conduct undermines election integrity or trust.
Says the 49ers should stay out of local races and should not charge the Stadium Authority for offsite offices. She says public engagement can amplify independent spending.
Says the 49ers appear to be meeting current obligations; his criticism centers on post-event neighborhood impacts. He would ask a damaging outside spender to stop.
Says the 49ers may support candidates but should not recruit them. He opposes all independent expenditures, wants more resident- and General Fund-benefiting events, and proposes independent professional Stadium Authority management.
Says the General Fund should not bear stadium costs assigned elsewhere under city agreements and Measure J. She would ask a damaging outside spender to stop.
Opposes major 49ers-backed election spending and favors independent, professional stadium oversight. He would ask a damaging outside spender to stop and names Kevin Park as an opponent he would consider for a committee chair.
Go to the source
Each candidate page includes the complete questionnaire response plus clearly separated public-record context.