Community members in Los Gatos are raising concern after fake campaign flyers were seen popping up across the town.
"Inflammatory" and "disgusting" were among the words residents used to describe flyers found along downtown Los Gatos, with phrases like "no more rainbow sidewalks" and "no more forced acceptance." All of them were aimed specifically at Town Council candidate Rob Moore.
"I was really upset when I first saw these flyers. I was definitely surprised. I wasn’t expecting to see my name plastered all around downtown," Moore said.
About 50 of the flyers were taped on poles along Santa Cruz Avenue Tuesday morning. But they didn’t stay up for long. Several community members who saw them stepped in and started taking them down.
"Someone reached out to me and said that they were posting these, and they reached out to me while it was happening. And that person said 'Stop you can’t be doing this!' and the people called her a 'pedophile' and really got in her face and scared her," Moore said.
NBC Bay Area’s Stephanie Magallon showed the flyer to several people walking along downtown Thursday, and many people said they couldn’t believe what was written. Local business owner Gary Shepcaro believes the people behind the flyers were among the same group who harassed him in 2019 for his political views.
“Yeah, they harassed us and harassed lots of other people -- I think the former mayor’s husband,” he said.
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Both Shepcaro and Moore describe the group as agitators who they say a few months ago were interrupting Town Council meetings and attacking former Mayor Marico Sayoc.
“She was slandered racially. She was slandered for being a woman, she was slandered for who her children were. This group has really come after folks that are not white,” Moore said.
But others NBC Bay Area spoke with on Thursday believe the flyers are a clear example of community members tired of agendas being forced onto them.
“People just want to live their life, do what they want to do without big government telling them this is what they can or can’t do. I think it’s gotten a little out of hand,” said Mitch Timko, who works in Los Gatos.
