Would-be Modesto mayors focus on rekindling interest

MODESTO -- The two contestants for the mayor's job in Modesto have ramped up their campaigns in the final stretch of the race.

Former Councilman Garrad Marsh is running on a platform of changing the way the city grows and restoring more accountability at City Hall.

Brad Hawn, another former councilman, wants to reform the pension system for public employees and find ways to maintain services in a tough budget environment.

In the November election, Marsh and Hawn were the top two vote-getters with 44 percent and 31 percent respectively, setting up the vote-by-mail runoff being conducted through Feb. 7. Ballot packets started going out last week to the 95,000 registered voters in Modesto.

Voter turnout in runoff elections has been better than regular city elections. Modesto's last mayoral runoff in 2003 resulted in a 37 percent turnout, with Jim Ridenour defeating Bev Finley. It was a paltry 22 percent in the recent election in November.

But the timing of this runoff is different. The 2010 charter amendment that did away with council runoffs preserved the mayoral one and moved it from before the holidays in December to February.

Hawn and Marsh suspended their campaigns during the holidays and now are faced with trying to rekindle voters' interest.

Marsh cited a lack of trust in government at the local and national levels in a recent mailer that includes a "Contract with the People of Modesto."

He pledges, if elected, to conduct city business with transparency, hold quarterly town hall meetings, keep partisan politics out of City Hall and post expense accounts of the mayor and council members on the city's Web site.

Although City Hall has dealt with controversy in the past year over police brutality claims and its administration of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Marsh said his main concern is the general distrust of elected officials.

"People in general look at our state and national government and the inability to work together to make things better," he said. "I think people here are disillusioned by the inability to make things better in Modesto."

As fellow councilmen, Hawn and Marsh disagreed about putting the three pension-reform measures on the November ballot.

Hawn has caught flak from city employee unions for writing the measures and continues to criticize Marsh for receiving campaign donations from the labor groups.

Criticism countered

Marsh countered that most everyone agrees that pension costs need to be addressed and promised to be firm in negotiations with unions.

He affirmed that his voting was identical to Hawn's on pay and retirement benefit contracts that came before the council.

Last week, Hawn created a stir with a mailer claiming contradictions in Marsh's ambitions to control urban sprawl. It reminded voters that Marsh sold his farmland to developers and subdivided property in the Village I neighborhoods in northwest Modesto.

On top of that, Modesto developer Mike Zagaris volunteered that he and Marsh played a key role in the landowners' election for Village I some 20 years ago, urging the 200-plus residents of the area to support annexation.

Marsh said Friday he plans a response to the mailer. He said he decided his family's 26 acres should be developed, because the annexation was inevitable and he admired the original progressive plan for Village I.

Although Hawn placed a distant second in November, it's believed the runoff could be closer on the theory that Hawn and third-place finisher Bill Zoslocki split the votes from business leaders and conservatives.