The City Council majority
pushed back against suggestions made by the Civil Grand Jury about some council
members' connection to the 49ers.
It was almost
paint-by-numbers during a Santa Clara City Council meeting responding to
findings of the civil grand jury report that alleged the Council majority are
puppets for the 49ers.
In a special meeting
Wednesday, Nov. 16, the Santa Clara City Council picked apart a scathing grand
jury report released in October. Less than a month before the midterm election,
the report questioned the ethics of the so-called “49er Five,” a derisive
nickname for Council Members Kevin Park, Karen Hardy, Raj Chahal, Anthony
Becker and Vice Mayor Suds Jain.
Becker narrowly lost his
vie against Mayor Lisa Gillmor in the election, and Hardy and Chahal won their
re-elections. Not surprisingly, the meeting was essentially a rehashing of old
feuds and issues between the Council majority and minority.
The report detailed
several ways the City could improve what the grand jury saw as major issues
stemming from the Council majority’s relationship with the 49ers. Those accused
denied wrongdoing while Gillmor and political ally, Council Member Kathy
Watanabe, maintained their positions that, essentially, the other five council
members are in the team’s pocket.
City Attorney Steve Ngo
said he will aggregate the responses, which boiled down to agreeing or
disagreeing with each of a dozen findings and providing direction on 19
recommendations. Ngo asked each speaker to select whether they believe the
recommendation has already been put in place, should be put in place, needed
further analysis before it could be put in place or will not be put in place.
Both Gillmor and Watanabe
agreed with every finding and suggested putting nearly every recommendation
into practice. While far from unanimous, the remainder of the Council
frequently voted to not put the grand jury’s recommendations in place.
Among the report’s
findings and recommendations, a few themes emerged, both in how the jurors
characterized the Council majority and also in how the council members
responded to that characterization.
Chahal repeatedly called
out jurors for “cherry picking” information that fit a preconceived notion, one
that unfairly put him and his fellow council members under the gun. For
instance, he returned to the idea that the grand jury singled out the 49ers as
lobbyists, acting as though jurors’ observations were unique to the 49ers when
they apply to any lobbyist.
Others, notably Hardy and
Jain, repeatedly criticized the report’s vague language. All of those accused
took issue with the characterization that they are a voting bloc, designed to
act in unison.
“At some point, we need to
understand that because people are voting the same way doesn’t make them a
bloc,” Becker said. “There is no substantiation of the claim.”
For their part, Gillmor
and Watanabe continually referred to the “optics” — i.e., politician-speak for
something looking bad — of the Council majority taking operational tours,
meeting with the 49ers and firing former City Manager Deanna Santana.
The Council majority
poo-pooed recommendations that would see the City hiring an ethics consultant
and establishing an independent ethics commission. Jain repeatedly said such
measures are redundant since the City already has a governance and ethics
committee, which has not met since June because of budgetary issues brought on
by the pandemic.
Gillmor iterated statements
made previously about how the Council “cannot police itself.” The governance
and ethics committee is made up of Jain, Gillmor and Chahal.
Frequently throughout the
meeting, the accused were chagrined by the lack of evidence provided in the
report.
“Facts are substantial,
which means you have evidence and proof,” Becker said. “Assumptions, concerns,
suspicions are not facts. Facts are facts. You cannot mix facts up with
assumptions.”
Many also pointed to
inconsistencies in the grand jury report, such as its claim that those that
took operational tours of Levi’s Stadium broke the City’s rules regarding such
tours, only to later recommend that the City put a policy in place. The Federal
Fair Political Practices Commission has received a complaint but has not
started an investigation into whether the tours broke the law.
In a Kafkaesque moment,
Watanabe agreed with a recommendation that council members appear in the
Council Chambers or be visible on camera during meetings.
“This has to be required,”
she said. “The public is there to see
you. In an effort to be open and honest, the best way to do that is to be
visible, and if you can’t be visible in person, there in the chambers, at least
be visible on camera, where people can see you and observe you.”
While fellow council
members said they could see Watanabe on camera, she was not publicly visible
for most of the meeting, claiming she was having “camera issues.”
Public comments were
limited, but old guard Council gadfly Deborah Bress phoned in to lambast
Gillmor, telling her she should be “ashamed of herself,” calling her a
“hypocrite,” more crooked than “a barrel full of fishhooks,” asking her who she
“paid off” to get the grand jury report published and calling Watanabe her
“handmaiden.”
“These people didn’t do
anything wrong. They are trying to clean up your mess from when you were the
head cheerleader,” Bress said.
Ngo said he will
incorporate the comments into responses to the grand jury, which the Council
had 90 days to do from Oct. 8. The Council will review the responses at its
Dec. 6 meeting, with a possible followup meeting Dec. 8 should discussion spill
over.
The Silicon Valley Voice
David Alexander
November 18, 2022
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