San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo miffed some of his colleagues earlier this week by suggesting that the city rein in public officials’ travel. The proposal arose out of frustration that five of 11 City Council members left the country for a sister city junket to Japan, which interrupted or delayed official business back home.
Council members Raul Peralez and Lan Diep took offense at timing and tenor of Liccardo’s memo. They said it downplayed the importance of diplomatic travel and failed to mention the fact that the mayor voted to approve their trips more than a month ago.
Peralez called the memo self-righteous, ill-timed and misleading.
Hours after San Jose Inside reported on the backlash, the mayor shot back, calling Peralez’s response “puzzling” and explaining that the requests for travel approval came in piecemeal over a four-week span. It was only later that Liccardo said he realized so many people would be gone at once.
“Only after council votes were taken in successive weeks did it become clear to me, and others, that so many council members were traveling that it would become necessary to cancel and rearrange meetings,” Liccardo said through a spokesman. “At that time, I reached out to several of them, including ... Peralez, to express my concerns and to encourage them to reconsider their plans. When that proved unsuccessful, I determined that the council must consider changes to the sister city travel policy to reduce the size of the city delegation for future trips.”
All told, 34 people joined this week’s jaunt to Okayama, Japan, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the international alliance. That includes five council members—Peralez, Diep, Sylvia Arenas, Sergio Jimenez and Johnny Khamis—as well as five council aides and one City Hall staffer. Only Khamis pledged to pay his own way.
How much this will cost taxpayers remains to be seen, since they have to first turn in their receipts for reimbursement.
The mayor said he wants to clamp down on travel approvals to avoid having his council colleagues leave en masse like they did this week, which forced the city to cancel one meeting and table another.
Liccardo has come under scrutiny for skipping council meetings to accommodate his relatively frequent flying before. But he defended his trips as vital to the public interest—a justification required by city policy.
“I have limited my public-funded travel to trips that help us secure more funding and key strategic partnerships to advance initiatives important to San Jose residents, and to advocate in Washington and Sacramento for city priorities with our legislatures,” he said. “I do not use public funding for travel on sister city delegations. For international travel, I will continue to rely on sponsorships from foundations and non-profits that dramatically reduce costs to the taxpayers.”
Since taking office, the mayor has publicly reported that he took 23 trips for city business, which cost taxpayers $31,507.83.
As for the timing of the memo, the mayor said he wasn’t trying to ambush anyone by circulating it when they were gone. He said he actually submitted it last week after unsuccessfully trying to convince the sister city participants to rethink their travel plans.
On Tuesday, Peralez said he plans to cover the cost of his sister city trip with campaign cash he won’t need because he’s not facing a challenger this year. He also noted that not all of the city’s elected officials could afford to pay out of pocket to travel for public business, and that trips shouldn’t be reserved for the financially privileged.
“The mayor may not be in agreement on the value or benefit from our sister city relationships, and I look forward to a conversation with him on that, but for him to propose that somehow only independently wealthy enough council members should be allowed to travel and represent the city of San Jose is absurd,” the downtown councilman wrote on Facebook. “It’s demeaning to people like myself, a renter in San Jose, who represents the working families and diverse constituencies of our great city. I appreciate that my colleague Councilmember Khamis decided to pay his own way, but I believe the people of San Jose aren’t interested in a monolithic representation of our city as we send delegates on the many trips that we all, including the mayor, participate in.”
Jimenez echoed that sentiment.
“Contrary to other suggestions, city business-related travel should not be funded only by special interests or available exclusively to independently wealthy individuals,” he wrote in an email to constituents on Wednesday.
According to previous news reports, the mayor has outspent his counterparts in San Francisco and Oakland when it comes to city-funded travel. In the past, conservatives on the council turned down trips to avoid even the appearance of wasteful spending.
Former Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio notably spent just $30 in public funds on city travel during his decade on the dais. And former Mayor Chuck Reed, who led the city through a crippling recession, took only one trip in his eight years at the helm.
Diep, a Republican who professes fiscally conservative values, defended jet-setting to Japan on the public dime as a way to elevate San Jose as a world-class city.
But with the city asking residents to approve tax hikes to cover core city services, the mayor said it’s important to have a serious discussion about how these out-of-town trips actually serve the public. If residents don’t trust the council to manage their money well, it could jeopardize future efforts to pass tax measures like the ones voters supported in 2016, Liccardo cautioned.
I for one will not be voting for yet another tax increase to fund capital expenditures.
Liccardo is a tool, but I hate to say it……He is right for once. Oh goodness just a little bit of vomit came up when i said that.
Odd how none of this came up when he was councilman and going on his junkets (bike tour of the Netherlands). Why didn’t he voice his objections when voting to approve….because he gets more headlines this way. This guy knows how to play the political game and he will throw his “colleagues” under the bus if need be.
https://twitter.com/dyuliharris/status/884443374920622082
So it seems like Mayor Liccardo has no management skills. If can’t manage to track just 10 colleagues’ travel requests that HE voted to approve, what does that say about his capabilities?
This is what it is all really about:
“it could jeopardize future efforts to pass tax measures like the ones voters supported in 2016, Liccardo cautioned”
Sam just wants to tax, tax, tax, so he can continue to mask the financial disaster that he has helped put San Jose in.
According to Governing magazine, San Jose has the 2nd highest level of spending on debt service (31.5% of budget) of all large cities (Detroit is #6 and Chicago #9).
Truth in Accounting looked at the fiscal health of the nation’s 75 most populous cities and San Jose earned a solid D grade, with a taxpayer burden of $10,600 (the amount each taxpayer would have to pay to leave the city free of excessive debt), earning it the label of a “Sinkhole City.”
Yes, even Detroit ranked better!
Lan defended his travel on Twitter and I decided to respond to express frustration with his decision to take this trip, which I consider a taxpayer-funded vacation. And he responded by blocking me! A politician should have thick skin and be willing to accept the criticism of his constituents! I did not even attack him personally, except to say that he was behaving like a typical politician. Well, a typical politician would be secure enough in their decisions not to block people who disagree with them. He cannot look a constituent in the eye because his face is buried in the public trough!
Interesting. As a public officials, he’s actually not supposed to block you. Check it out: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/07/28/federal_court_rules_public_officials_cannot_block_social_media_users.html
Jenn- Council Member Tam Nguyen blocked me on FB because I kept asking him to translate his posts into English so I could read them. Everything he posted was in Vietnamese ONLY.
Kudos to former councilman Perluigi Oliverio for spending only $30 of taxpayer dollars over ten years on public travel. Khamis paying his own travel to Japan before anyone caught wind of the junket – that is admirable as well. These elected officials actually walking the walk on fiscal restraint is refreshing. Spending the public dollar frugally as if it were coming from their own wallet is both rare + virtuous.
I feel like he’s doing this because he’s up for reelection. But he’s right here. But how does our city council traveling to Japan benefit San Jose?
So did they bring back any collectible souvenirs for their constituents or was this just another joy ride paid with taxpayer dollars? How can I sign up for one of these free rides?
Isn’t it lovely that the council members who went on this trip (and their staffers apparently) get to travel internationally on MY dime. Shame on the council who are whining about getting called out on this bad, greedy behavior (and even blocking communication from their constituents). There should be, at most, two representatives of the council (NO staffers) on any junket like this. Perhaps San Jose council and staff is taking a page out of EPA director Scott Pruitt’s book?!
It should be easy for any residents with more questions to request a detailed accounting of what was spent using public funds on this trip for travel, meals, accommodations, gifts, entertainment, etc. Perhaps that would give further insight about the importance and priority of this trip at this point in time, when the City of San Jose is facing a crisis of blight, small businesses closing, homeless living on the streets, crime in all neighborhoods with insufficient police personnel and response, and general neglect of roads & parks, just to list a few. As an act of faith in our elected officials and in full transparency, I make this request of Mayor Liccardo and I trust San Jose Inside will print the expense account in its entirety in a follow up article.
I agree with Bobbi, but much more than a detailed accounting, how about a detailed overview (documented in a report to the Council) of what was gained, and what insight was garnered that could be transferred from their city to ours?
My CIty Council person has failed to serve the constituents in my District, and is in most cases, unavailable and unresponsive. My hope is that knowledge gained from this trip will have taught this Councilperson to be more present while serving San Jose.
These clowns are traveling to Japan on an unnecessary taxpayer-funded boondoggle that accomplishes absolutely nothing except engaging in some copious alcohol toasts and seeing the sights and some costly, exquisite dining at public expense.