By Khalida Sarwari
About two dozen female supporters of Pierluigi Oliverio — among them San Jose Councilwoman Dev Davis — on Friday defended the candidate for Santa Clara County supervisor and denounced local labor groups for linking him to the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore in recent campaign mailers.
Davis accused the unions of trying to “derail the campaign of a good man” by equating the allegations against Oliverio with those leveled against the scandalized Hollywood figure and failed Senate candidate.
“Disgusting,” said Davis. “It was a below-the-belt tactic and it diminishes the hardships and the experiences that the women and children endured at the hands of those two men.”
Davis rebuked Oliverio’s opponents for maintaining their silence amid the labor unions’ tactics.
Oliverio — who is seeking to replace termed out Supervisor Ken Yeager on the Board of Supervisors — has denied the allegations that he verbally abused and sexually harassed his chief of staff Denelle Fedor while he was a sitting San Jose Councilman five years ago. Fedor later dropped Oliverio from the lawsuit and settled with the city of San Jose for $10,000.
His supporters dismissed the recent rehashing of these allegations as “just union trumped-up charges.”
“They are very desperate because they do not want Pierluigi on the Board of Supervisors, because I know that he would favor taxpayers over lining the pockets of the unions,” said Jan Soule.
The press conference, held in the backyard of a Oliverio family friend’s home in the Willow Glen neighborhood where Oliverio also lives, was an amalgam of friends, supporters and family, including his partner, Khristina, and mother, Matilde Oliverio. A handful of them testified about his character.
Introducing herself as a “private person by nature,” Khristina said she felt compelled to speak up because she could not continue to “watch the assassination of the character of the man that I love.”
Others accused the unions of leveraging the suffering endured by the victims of Weinstein, Moore and Dominic Caserta to discredit Oliverio’s reputation. A candidate in the race up until this week, Caserta suspended his campaign and resigned from his seat on the Santa Clara City Council in the wake of ongoing sexual harassment and verbal abuse allegations brought forward by his students and campaign staffers.
Addressing reporters, Oliverio sounded a warning about such campaign tactics driving away independent voices.
“I’m so very thankful that women and men are speaking up because dirty politics is dirty pool,” he said. “If we let ourselves succumb to this then no one is ever going to seek public office and you’ll only have people that run that are beholden to interest groups like labor and that is not fair to our society.”
In this latest campaign ad, which appears to have been funded by the Silicon Valley Public Health and Safety Coalition and SEIU Local 521, Oliverio’s mug is depicted alongside Weinstein and Moore’s with the caption: “Weinstein. Moore. Oliverio. Three of a kind. ALL WRONG for Santa Clara County.”
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