Jen Wolosin has raised the most money so far among Menlo Park’s District 3 City Council candidates, according to the latest campaign finance reports due Sept. 24.
The other two candidates, Max Fennell and Chelsea Nguyen, turned in forms reporting each had raised under $2,000.
Candidates who have raised less than $2,000 are not required to submit additional paperwork detailing who contributed to their campaigns or the size of individual donations.
District 3 stretches from Crane Street downtown to Coleman Avenue and from San Francisquito Creek and Willow Road to the Atherton border in the Felton Gables neighborhood.
So far, Wolosin’s campaign has raised $11,179 this year, $500 of which came from her personal contributions. Of the funds raised this year, she received $4,555 in cash contributions and $138 in non-monetary contributions between July 1 and Sept. 19.
Top contributions to Wolosin’s campaign included:
• $500 from Jennifer Burkham, a physician from Woodside
• $500 from Brynn Harrington, a Facebook employee from Menlo Park
• $250 from Joe Simitian, County Supervisor in Santa Clara County
• $250 from Alan Harris, an attorney from Oakland
• $250 from Nancy Magee, superintendent of schools with the San Mateo County Office of Education
• $250 from Sara Schnell, a social worker and therapist from Menlo Park
• $180 from Amy Lit from Menlo Park
• $180 from Mitch Slomiak, chair of the Menlo Spark board and
• $100 from Alison Cormack, a councilwoman from Palo Alto.
Wolosin got a head start in her campaign when she declared her plans to run for the District 3 seat back in January. In contrast, Fennell and Nguyen did not announce their plans to run until July.
Endorsements
Wolosin’s endorsement list is lengthy and includes a number of local government and civic leaders. According to her campaign website, she has been endorsed by the San Mateo County Democratic Party, Sierra Club, San Mateo Labor Council, Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte, Peninsula Young Democrats, DemFems Silicon Valley, Peninsula for Everyone, SEIU Local 521, and BAYMEC, a local political action committee supporting LGBTQ civil rights. She has also been endorsed by local elected and appointed leaders such as state Sen. Jerry Hill; Josh Becker, state senate candidate; local Assemblyman Marc Berman; Don Horsley and Dave Pine, San Mateo County supervisors; Joe Simitian, Santa Clara County supervisor; Drew Combs, Ray Mueller and Betsy Nash, Menlo Park council members; and 27 current or former members of appointed committees and commissions in Menlo Park.
Candidate Max Fennell told The Almanac in an email that he has neither received nor asked for endorsements and is focused instead on reaching out to members of the neighborhood directly for his campaign.
On her campaign blog, candidate Chelsea Nguyen said she decided to delete her endorsements page. “My life and work speak for themselves,” she wrote in a Sept. 19 blog post. “Endorsments (sic) will not define who I am for this election. The Voters will determine who will represent them. I have sent emails to 8 organizations to withdraw all considerations and declined 2. True, it means I won’t get the extra funds for my campaign. I rely on the voters who believe in me,” she wrote in a Sept. 19 post. One person who has spoken in favor of Nguyen’s candidacy is independent blogger and District 3 resident Stu Soffer, who wrote about it in a recent blog post.
This story has been updated since it was originally published to include information about candidate Chelsea Nguyen’s endorsement policy.
