190,000 Keys to City Go Missing

Feared to Be in the Hands of Gadflies and Former Politicians and in Denny’s Chili

According to a scathing report from San Jose’s Government Accountability Office (GAO), the city has lost track of approximately 190,000 Keys to the City.

The Key to the City is an award used by municipalities in which an ornamental key is given to honor esteemed visitors, local residents, or organizations of note in a ceremonial presentation. The award carries no formal privileges or distinctions but symbolizes honor, power and the ability to break certain rules without fear of humiliation or prosecution. Former Mayor Gonzales is rumored to have hundreds of them.

“Although these aren’t AK-47 assault rifles lost to municipal insurgents,” said Mayor Reed, “it is still embarrassing.”

Joseph A. Christoff, a busy man as the GAO’s director responsible for tracking all things nonsensical in city government, says in his report that these keys are feared to be in the possession of evildoers.

“Several times last week, veteran council gadfly William Garbett was silenced during public debate at a council meeting because his time ran out,” he explained, “but when he whipped out a key to the city, jaws dropped, and he was instantly accorded more time for his blathering. It was chilling.”

Trinket expert Trini Adams says there is no telling how these items will be used or if the thieves were able to secure any other meaningless items such as city-crested tie clips, official flags, and mayoral insignia pens, but warns that the items may find their way onto eBay.

“Just think what Emilio Maschino could have done with that stuff,” she pondered.

4 Comments

  1. Hope I can raise a topic that doesn’t quite fit the mold set by the above blog.

    Reed and Ajlouny have decided to try to place a former aide to Reed on the board of the Berryessa Union School Board, and she did make the cut for inclusion in the final 8 or 9 applications forwarded to the existing board to fill the Kansen Chu vacancy on Tuesday.

    Her name is Dawn Wright and her candidacy is sponsored by Reed and Ajlouny. It is interesting on several counts.

    1) Chuck has always maintained a tight grip on the BUSD school board, seeing it as a springboard to higher office. Chuck never bothered to run for the school board, but he and Ajlouny maintain a very close watch on the makeup of the board.

    2) Chuck has suffered two recent stinging defeats in his attempts to control local Berryessa politics. He picked Hon Lien to run for the school board in November 2006, and then to run for his own Council seat in March 2007.

    3) Now he appears to be making a third attempt, considerably under the radar, to re-establish his hegemony over the board with Dawn Wright’s camapign to replace Chu on the school board. The existing board wll vote on Wright’s application on Tuesday evening, August 14.

    It’ll be interesting to see if he can get his way on this third attempt locally.

    I know most readers here are interested in San Jose politics and governance generally, but because the Mercury News will not cover local politics, I thought I’d let the cognoscenti of San Jose know of this latest development.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *