Steve Tedesco fired first, charging that Pierluigi Oliverio fluffed up his image in his campaign literature. Tedesco pointed to a mailer in which Oliverio posed with a woman and three children, implying they were his family. Oliverio is not married and has no children.

“I think there’s a lot of misleading portrayals,” Tedesco said.

But Oliverio countered that Tedesco also was misrepresenting himself, because his civic experience came as a paid lobbyist rather than as a volunteer.

“I am not paid by my employer to be involved,” said Oliverio, an executive for software maker Arena Solutions.

Tedesco, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley, fired back: “You should have looked at the non-profit world.”

WGx isn’t sure what that meant. Was Tedesco suggesting Pierluigi should become a non-profit executive before running for office?

WGx had intended to provide coverage, but was unavoidably detained. Maybe next time.

You could forgive the 200 District 6 residents who packed a Wednesday night candidate forum if they had a little trouble telling apart the two men hoping to fill Ken Yeager’s seat on the San Jose City Council.

Pierluigi Oliverio and Steve Tedesco both want to save industrial lands for tax-producing jobs, not more homes. They both want the city to do everything it can to acquire 17 acres of state-owned land near the Valley Fair mall for a park. They both want BART to come downtown, but question the high cost of the current subway design.

Harry Miller, 63, of the West San Carlos Street Neighborhood Business Association hoped the forum would help him decide how to vote. But he left still undecided.

“It’s really going to be tough, because they both are very similar on most articles,” Miller said. “They both are very qualified, as far as I’m concerned.”

From the Merc: “Runoff comes down to personality, résumé“