Longtime Los Gatos councilmember and newly sworn-in Mayor Rob Rennie announced Dec. 23 that he is delaying his campaign for county supervisor after the redrawn districts forced him out of contention in District 1.
In a letter to supporters, Rennie said he plans to run for the District 5 seat in 2024, which is the new district that represents Los Gatos beginning in January.
“While this is disappointing, it does give me a great head-start on a District 5 campaign,” he wrote. “Over the past year, I have learned a tremendous amount and developed strong support from all of you. I will carry this forward to my campaign for the new district seat.”
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Dec. 7 and 14 to approve the “Yellow Map,” which was advanced by a coalition of local civil rights and labor groups. Supervisors Mike Wasserman and Joe Simitian dissented.
The endorsed map also has a deviation of 4.1 percent, which means it has relatively the same amount of people living in each of the county’s five districts.
It removes Los Gatos and Almaden Valley from District 1 and places them in District 5, which encompasses the northwestern portion of the county, including Mountain View and Cupertino.
Rennie, who was sworn in as mayor on Dec. 14, said the campaign delay allows him to give Los Gatos his “full and undivided attention over the next year as mayor.”
Rennie, who has served on various boards before being elected to the Town Council in 2014, previously served as mayor in 2018. He said his “areas of focus” for his next term as mayor include emergency preparedness, business and community vitality, seniors and seniors’ services, environmental issues, financial sustainability and traffic.
“I am looking forward to serving as Los Gatos mayor for the second time,” he wrote. “My door is always open and I look forward to all we can do together to continue all the excellent progress we are making in many areas.”
