October 6, 2022
By Braden Cartwright
Daily Post Staff Writer
Gary Kremen of Palo Alto has given $272,440 of his own money to his campaign for re-election to the Valley Water board, giving him a massive war chest against challenger Rebecca Eisenberg, a lawyer from Palo Alto.
Of that, $101,000 came in a personal loan to his current campaign, and another $162,440 was left over from his campaign for Santa Clara County Assessor, which he self-funded. Kremen quit that race in March after a former employee came across a picture of Kremen’s girlfriend breastfeeding while looking through his photos.
Stepped down Kremen also stepped down as chair of the Valley Water board, but he is still trying to hold onto his seat in District 7, which includes the cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos.
Eisenberg has loaned her campaign $20,000 and brought in $7,978 in donations. Over half of her donations ($4,950) came from John Witchel, an entrepreneur who lives in southwest Colorado, according to campaign finance forms.
Eisenberg is endorsed by two of Kremen’s fellow board members, retired Judge LaDoris Cordell and Assessor Larry Stone, who Kremen was attempting to unseat.
She is a fierce critic of Palo Alto City Council, and she speaks at almost every meeting to accuse council members of bending to developers, reducing transparency and more.
Kremen made his fortune as the founder of match.com and by registering and selling domains such as sex.com, housing.com and autos.com in the 1990s. He listed his occupation as the chief financial officer of bidlist.io. Kremen is under investigation at his own request.
In February, a woman who worked for his campaign for assessor told the news site San Jose Spotlight that she came across partially nude photos of him and his girlfriend. Kremen said he didn’t know the photos were in there.
Kremen and Eisenberg are scheduled to debate tonight at 7 p.m., in an online forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Southwest Santa Clara Valley