The San Jose City Council reconvenes Tuesday for its first meeting of the 2013-14 fiscal year. While there will be plenty of new business to discuss, much of the talk on the 18th floor could revolve around the race to replace Mayor Chuck Reed.
Pete Constant became the second councilmember to file forms that he intends to run for mayor of San Jose in 2014, joining Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, who quietly filed papers in December. Constant, however, filed not just a candidate intention statement, he also filed a Form 410, which sets up the organization of a committee. While candidates can start spending their own money to establish a campaign, they are prohibited from raising funds until December.
Downtown Councilmember Sam Liccardo is also expected to file papers today, while District 6 Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio will likely soon do the same some time in the next few weeks.
County Supervisor Dave Cortese is expected to run by many, but he has yet to announce any decision.
Others who have filed papers of intent to run for mayor next year include Bill Chew, Andrew Abe Diaz, Louis Garza, Susan Marsland and Mark Pham, Larry Rouse and David Wall.
With a little bad luck in the courts, the mayoralty of Chuck Reed will be in shreds by the end of this year so good luck to all of the candidates.
Reed played the “spend more” card when he could have worked against excess even during his two terms on the City Council…to the contrary, no one could have been more of a cheerleader for borrowing commercial paper, abusing RDA money, and bromancing developers scheming to fill every open space area in San Jose with low tax revenues development (compared with industry & commercial).
We need a “pothole-fixing” mayor who will take a deep interest in both downtown and the neighborhoods, and who lacks the instinct for pyramid-building. Reed was never a “pothole-fixing” council member, and never helped his district solve physical problem. And he’s stayed true to that trend line.
His problem is hubris, so let’s find a plain-spoken more-or-less honest woman or man who will relieve us of the high-flying developer-worshiping ways that Reed has foisted on us.
May the horrible memories of his mayoralty be his legacy.
> … so let’s find a plain-spoken more-or-less honest woman or man …
ME! ME!
Over here!
ME!
Dumb and Dumber… Neither qualified. Be more of same. Attacking the police and fire fighters, higher crime, hiding money in reserve accounts. While they both get their photo ops. Anyone running that is not Narcissistic?
The good news is…if there is good news…we will find out who’s nose is further up the a$$ of Chuck Reed when he endorses his chosen one. Constant, Licardo, Oliverio, Nguyen are all in there sniffing away. It will be a fun cat fight to watch. The best thing a voter can do is vote for a candidate who is NOT currently on the city council.
God help us if Constant or Oliverio win.
Does Constant actually think he could win a general election? He’s such a hypocrite, attacking the very system from which he derives his living.
Constant needs a continuing income once his councilman term is up. I don’t think he will win this election and I agree with you “God help us….”. If the tax payers have been paying close attention, they will be very foolish if they vote any one of the posse into office. Wonder what Pete is going to do when his well runs dry?
Can you please elaborate more on the Form 410 you bring up? Is that filed so a committee can start raising money for the candidate before the candidate actually can in December? And is the candidate prohibited from donating their own money to said committee?
Marie,
A Form 410 establishes a committee so that candidates, if they choose, can start spending their own money. At this stage, that usually consists of infrastructure costs, such as a candidate website. Candidates cannot begin collecting contributions until Dec. 5, according to the City Clerk’s office. (That doesn’t mean candidates aren’t lining them up already.) A full list of important dates and spending limits for the 2014 mayor and council races should be posted to the clerk’s webpage sometime next week.
Thanks for reading,
JK
All of the mayoral candidates from the city council are exactly what San Jose does not need now – divisive and polarizing personalities. Hopefully, some other candidate emerges who can guide this city through collaboration and bridging differences, totally unlike this elitist and ethically challenged group of candidates.
I think it’s a mistake to believe that Cindy Chavez’s victory was a victory for labor. It would have been if Alvarado had made pension reform an issue. Pension reform was never made an issue, because Alvarado didn’t want to piss off labor.
Every candidate for mayor will have to take a position on Measure B. I think that any candidate that says that Measure B was a big mistake won’t make the runoff.
Maybe, maybe not. The pending court case against Measure B will have hopefully been decided by the time the heat of the race is on.
It will be very interesting to see how the candidates try to mend fences with the employees of San Jose. Maybe none of them will, however.
Measure B was a Massive Mistake , But real , legal , negotiated Pension reform is Not . Pension Reform is still needed and San Jose’s work force has always been ready to “Openly Negotiate” ( Mayor Reed refused any kind of Open or Honest negotiations)
None of Mayor Reed’s Posse is fit to “Feed fish at Petco” . They are only concerned with remaining employed and increasing their own (Unaffected Pensions) Heaven Help us if San Jose does not get any real candidates for Mayor
I can see in posts here daily that the police feel like they got screwed by Mayor Reed and the Council. The other unions don’t seem to be quite as angry. Is that accurate? If so why is that?
S Randall, Maybe because the Mayor has been caught in so many lies??? Remember he was caught by NBC Bay Area for saying the city was 650million short. They actually had a 10 m surplus… Reed had no stats and just said that all over the nation to make people think things are bad. The cops believed it too they agreed to 10% cut on pay on promise no lay offs.. the there were 66 layoffs… another lie. Reed Liccardo Constant Oliverio have been attacking the police and fire for 3 years now on their pensions, health, sick time, vacation time, the list is endless. The SJPD are the lowest paid in the state now.. they seem pretty unhappy … 600 have quit…even some of new ones hired a few months ago have quit for better pay… mostly a corrupt city hall… cops do not want to work for organized crime..
S Randall. Don’t be fooled. Employees are fleeing City Hall in ALL departments. From higher ups to the wee ones who have not made even 5 years. So much talent and experience down the drain. It is so bad that employees are doing the work of 2-3 people in some areas, for their ONE salary. Many gripe about the salaries but they have no idea how much and how hard the employees have to work to earn it. There is always some smart crack about “lazy government employees”. Those people are just following the heard and repeating what they hear others say, but they just have no idea how it really is. Believe me, the City gets their money’s worth. The reason you don’t hear about or observe the anger in the other areas is because police and fire are public safety and it’s all out front and about them. People tend to forget about the rest of the employees so the anger is not as prominent or vocal.
S Randall,
It’s not only what ET Smokey bear said. It also has to do with his unprofessional and disrespectful comments he has made to the police officers of SJPD. That so call mayor made a comment that police have been riding the “the gravy train”. This is disrespectful not only to the officers currently working but for the officers who gave their lives for the people of San Jose and their families, he crossed the line. Not only that he sits there and tells the community what a great job we are doing with the limited resources we have, and behind everyone’s back the police have nothing coming. The mayor is a two face liar and SJPD employees are tired of it!
Correcting a word. Meant to write “herd”, not “heard”.
It is safe to say that city employees (except maybe Tam Truong) feel the same way as police. For any number of reasons they don’t express their feelings on the matter.
Maybe they have a skill set that is in demand in both the private and public sectors and remaining with CSJ was costing them money anyway.
WHat nobody seems to understand is that the Police REQUIRE/DEMAND a huge variety of skills some of which are laid out in state and federal law and require training on a regular basis to maintain a “License” to do the job.
Police work is quite a bit different than secretarial, library, parks, street maintenance, electrical (some of which also require licenses) none of those job classifications require the mind and ability to lawfully deny someone their constitutionally protected rights to liberty and in some cases their life.
Every comedian out there only see’s the “cop in the donut shop” or sitting in his/her car “doing nothing” what nobody gets is that you don’t pay the police “to be doing something” with every possible moment in their shift – what you DO pay the police for is what you “expect them to do” when you need them to do it – everything else is irrelevant.
AND YES!!!! you have every right (AND SHOULD DEMAND) to expect the Police to respond to your 911 call about the neighbor’s loud TV, music, kids…. about your car and house getting broken into…. to courteously sign off the “fix-it” ticket you got (from the lazy cop who should have been out hunting the rapists and murderers instead of hassling you the law abiding taxpayer) because you didn’t maintain YOUR car to the universally accepted legal standard…
BUT, you also have to understand that the officers who do all of the above in the patrol division at SJPD currently number about 415 – down from 592 just 3 years ago. The police response that was feasible 3 years ago is simply not possible today. Response times are through the roof for calls that the police have a moral and ethical responsibility to respond too – SO unfortunately music, party neighbor disturbance alls just have to wait -even if it means the caller is loosing precious sleep needed for the big debate at the corporate snack bar the next day….
Remember Reed told you that you needed to vote for Measure B, V and W in order to “protect jobs and preserve essential city services.” Voters “overwhelmingly” agreed EVEN though the police (and fire and every other City Job Class) told you Reed would still lay off, services would suffer and more employees would leave City Employment than it would be able to hire if any of those ballot measures passed.
The public poo-poo’d it, Oliverio said 2000-3000 would line up for every job available and the public is now paying for believing Reed and CO.
Many think a minimum wage police officer is the solution to all public financial problems … many think “anyone could do that job…” many have no clue.
See Reed also called the city employees cancer. Bet that went over well. And asked
The cops to work til 65. Sure a 65 against a 22
Year old Parolee. Stupid Idea Mr Reed
Lets see the fire department is understaffed and Laccardo wanted to stop them from responding to medical emergencies (not to smart). City council has caused the police department to shrink the patrol division next shift because of low staffing (another great decision). Constant medically retires from police department due to a medical condition, but is on you tube wrestling a kid (scam). I would vote for a monkey before I vote for any of these city council candidates. For all of you who thought response times for public safety were bad, wait till next shift when (police) teams are being restructured (shrunk) due to severe staffing problems. This is definelty the fault of city leaders. You can’t expect public safety command staff to work with the tools the city has provided. That’s why police are leaving faster then they can hire people. This city is a mess!
Wow, not much to choose from. I can’t wait to see which one of these turds will start the mud slinging first. You know it’s going to happen. I can’t wait because the flood gates will really open up and more of the Mayors dirty secrets will start coming out.
It’s all about politics now and we all know it is a very dirty game. Not one of these three; Constant, Nguyen and Laccardo can afford to run a non mud slinging campaign. I CANT WAIT!
Every time I hear the current list of candidates I can’t help but wonder if or when the industry candidates are going to show up. I mean why are we stuck with these city hall flunkies? There is a lot of business talent in this valley. Surely one of them would try to do a Meg Whitman and sweep aside these fools.
What bothers me the most about how our public safety servants are being treated/compensated is this:
Elected officials should NOT be receiving more money, pensions, and perks then people who put their lives on the line for us everyday.
We tax payers bailed out banks and the rich, but we have left our public safety servants to lose their homes, their retirement money, etc.
We have treated our public safety servants with disrespect, and have required them to make outrageous contributions to their benefits, while we continue to give raises to politicians, and ignore the tax evasion of the rich.
This is just wrong! Period~
Thank You Kathleen.
Sadly, Mayor Reed and those wishing to ride his coat tails (Liccardo, Constant, Oliverio and Nguyen) and an “overwhelming” number of SJ Voters disagree.
I for one welcome our new empty condominium developer overlords.