49ers have already spent nearly $700K to pick Santa Clara’s next mayor

The San Francisco 49ers aren’t just back on the field this month. They are also back pouring major cash into Santa Clara elections. 

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Last week, as 49ers owner Jed York dealt with the fallout from his arrest in a prostitution sting operation in Ohio, the team created two new political action committees for elections in Santa Clara, for the mayoral race and for the District 2 City Council seat, according to filings reviewed by SFGATE.

In the six-candidate mayor’s race, the 49ers are supporting Gary Ferraris and explicitly opposing two candidates: David Kertes and Kathy Watanabe. On Thursday, the team dropped $645,000 into the committee for the mayor’s race, with chief legal officer Jihad Beauchman listed as the person representing the team in the contribution.

In the City Council race, the 49ers are supporting Kimberley Williams and opposing Yvonne Inciarte, dropping $335,000 on Tuesday into that race. That’s $980,000 total spent in August, more than two months before Election Day on Nov. 3.

The committees, which are sponsored by Forty Niners Football Company LLC, are called “Affordable Santa Clara.” Ellie Caple, the team’s vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, is listed as the treasurer for both committees.

The 49ers have become major political players in Santa Clara ever since Levi’s Stadium opened in the South Bay city in 2014. The most prominent attempt came during the 2022 mayoral election, when the 49ers spent more than $2.5 million trying to oust incumbent Lisa Gillmor and backing Anthony Becker.

The race was not only unsuccessful for the 49ers, as Gillmor won narrowly, but it came as a civil grand jury was looking into the team’s spending on city politics. The draft of a grand jury report, titled “,” was leaked days before it was published, and Becker was found to be responsible for the leak. Becker also lied under oath to the grand jury, which got him arrested, tried and found guilty of a felony.

Despite the scandal surrounding Becker, the 49ers have continued to pour cash into the local elections — it was up to $13.1 million as of 2023, per Bay Area News Group, and there has been more since — and have helped get as many as five of the seven members of the Santa Clara City Council elected. The 2022 grand jury report alleged that those City Council members “engage in unethical behavior, lack transparency in their governance, and govern as if the City Council owes a fiduciary duty to the 49ers as opposed to the City, which they were elected to lead.”

Since the 49ers have gotten a pro-team council majority in 2020, the City Council has fired a city manager who criticized team President Al Guido and a city attorney who alleged team officials violated conflict-of-interest laws. The team also attempted to get Santa Clara to change the police chief and city clerk from elected to appointed positions, though the measure failed.

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Ferraris, the mayoral candidate the 49ers are backing, is a longtime city maintenance worker and labor representative who now works for Council 57 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. 

In an interview with the San Jose Spotlight, Ferraris said the political tension on the City Council is one of the biggest problems in Santa Clara and wants to prioritize improving relationships. His campaign website also says he believes “political insiders” are an issue in the city.

Watanabe is a previous City Council member who frequently voted alongside Gillmor against the team’s wishes before she was termed out of office in 2024. Watanabe told the San Jose Spotlight she had already met with Guido this year in an attempt to improve the city’s relationship with the team — though that was before the team’s committee expressly said it was opposing her candidacy. 

Kertes is a longtime Santa Clara resident who is a sales director at Novanta, a biohealth tech company. A longtime community advocate, he’s sat on multiple city seats and coached youth sports for years — including in soccer, a sport the 49ers and city have had fights over because of a youth sports park next to Levi’s Stadium. On his website, Kertes says he is an “avid” fan of the 49ers, though the team is now directly opposing his candidacy. 

When it comes to the District 2 City Council race, the 49ers are backing Williams, who has worked in education for years, including currently serving on the state’s Parent Teacher Association Board of Managers. She told San Jose Spotlight she wants to repair the relationship with the 49ers: “Nobody on either side of that relationship should be rooting for it to fail.”

Inciarte, the candidate the Niners are opposing in that race, served as the director of intergovernmental strategy for Congressman Ro Khanna, the South Bay’s representative in the House. Inciarte’s campaign website says she wants to bring “transparent, accountable, and forward-thinking leadership” to Santa Clara.

In response to an SFGATE request for comment on the new round of contributions, Caple sent a statement on behalf of the team: “We are proud to support a diverse slate of candidates running for city leadership – consensus builders who will tackle the affordability crisis, and manage the city’s finances responsibly while investing in the city’s future.”