I run a grocery store in Santa Clara, and I can tell you exactly what\u2019s happening to families here. Carts are smaller. Shoppers are putting items back at the register. People are choosing between filling the gas tank and filling the fridge.<\/p>\n
At Arteaga\u2019s<\/a>, we\u2019ve built our business around this community, serving many Latino and Asian families who have called District 2 home for generations. We\u2019ve fought to keep costs low, pushed back on statewide legislation that would raise prices, and given back to the neighborhood, because a grocery store is part of the fabric of a community. That\u2019s why I\u2019m speaking up about what\u2019s happening in our local election.<\/p>\n The Forty Niners Football Company, LLC has launched an independent expenditure campaign<\/a> in the District 2 City Council race<\/a> with $753,411 as of Sept. 25 to boost Kimberley Williams and attack Yvonne Inciarte, the candidate who actually stands up for working families.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t new. Since 2020, political committees funded by team owner Jed York have spent more than $10 million<\/a> trying to handpick who sits on the Santa Clara City Council. The team calls itself an economic driver for this region. Its spending says otherwise.<\/p>\n The current amount of $753, 411 could cover a year of groceries for dozens of District 2 families, or fund rent relief and small business grants. Instead, it\u2019s paying for mailers and attack ads to install a favored candidate at City Hall. That\u2019s not economic development. That\u2019s a corporation buying a council seat at our expense.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear: This is an outside football team deciding it knows better than District 2 residents who should represent them, and outspending our entire community to make sure of it.<\/p>\n It crowds out local voices with corporate money and tells Santa Clarans their vote matters less than a corporation\u2019s checkbook. Santa Clara may have balanced this year\u2019s budget, but the city is facing an infrastructure crisis with a bond measure that is short by $224 million<\/a>, on top of economic uncertainty from Washington.<\/p>\n This is exactly the moment we need leaders who answer to residents, not to the NFL team that just spent more than three quarters of a million dollars trying to install them.<\/p>\n