Breaking News
Charges have been dropped against the former mayor and his aide by the Santa Clara County District Court judge hearing the case. You can read the story in the Mercury News here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6123426
A PDF file of the ruling can be found here:
http://bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/mn/news/gonzales_courtruling_061307.pdf
What do our bloggers think of this development?
It was no surprise and very predicable that Gonzales – Guerra charges were dropped
Only complete fools, very naive or those lying to us thought otherwise
How can anyone who claims to be ” insider ” not know that San Jose does NOT have and has never had adequate ethics, elections or accountability laws or policies to prevent another Gonzales – Guerra scandal
San Jose cannot legally hold accountable elected officials, city staff, City Manager, City Attorney or department heads for unethical, dishonest or what most public consider illegal behavior
San Jose have very many ethical and honest elected officials and city staff but good people are badly tarnished and public rightfully holds them responsible
Council and staff went along with city government bad behavior, ignore it and when know delayed or do not insist that very few dishonest and unethical be punished or thrown out
Recalling elected officials or City Manager is very weak solution since recall is difficult and time consuming and only occurs after unethical behavior damage has been done and only if enough time remains in their term or if they do not quickly leave as former City Manager and Director Environmental Services did to avoid being fired or indicted
Anyone also advocating the solution is for public to always elect ethical and qualified people is at best naive, a fool or being dishonest – take your pick and recent city actions and elections prove my point
Fools and very naive are quickly are parted from their or public’s money
San Jose public with dozens of examples has been clearly shown that our politicians and city staff frequently write ethics, election laws and policies that are unenforceable with many built in loopholes or they ignore laws which City Attorney helped them write or knows are inadequate so insiders will never been held accountability unless they really dumb like Gregory and Garza
Anyone believing San Jose has strong ethics, public accountability or enforcement laws are now considered complete fools or very naive after seeing what has occurred
Can he just pay a $508 million fine?
Is there a statute of limitations on political corruption?
Ron Gonzales should be investigated for an apparent backroom deal made to keep the Reid-Hillview Airport open back when Gonzales was a county supervisor.
“Before the public hearing, many private informational meetings were held with key supervisors to persuade them of the merits of keeping the airport open. The public meeting was essentially a formality……”
http://www.calpilots.org/www.calpilots.org/cpanew/prior/dec96/victory.htm
He’s still guilty. He can’t erase the damage he did to the city or the mess he left for others to clean up. Too bad he won’t get his day in court, but in the court of public opinion there is no question about his guilt.
In reading the court’s ruling I couldn’t help but notice the great irony of it all: here was a judge, a paid servant of the people, making public his reasoning in deciding a very complex case—a case that owed its existence to the failure of another paid servant of the people to do the same. Had Ron Gonzales conducted his official duties openly and honestly when handling the NorCal contract this whole mess would never have occurred. And now I await Irony, part II, “Gonzo Strikes Back,” which I’m sure will occur today when Ron Gonzales will celebrate his great victory with the public, while the judge—an official who actually did his duty—will no doubt spend his day unheralded, taking care of business as usual.
Despite the court’s ruling, I am of the opinion that Julius Finkelstein is deserving of praise for taking on a daunting but necessary task. Forced to put together a case using the odds and ends of the law, Finkelstein was obliged to explain to the Grand Jury each odd and each end, and how it all fits together into an indictment—a process that left his case alarmingly vulnerable to lawyering. As is made clear in the ruling, this case failed not for its lack of the stench of arrogance and illegality, but for the law’s necessary tolerance of such foul odors in the political arena. Gonzo walked not because of his innocence of guilt or quality of character, but because his misfeasance occurred in that shadowy area where secret deals are skullduggery are all but indistinguishable from free speech and the legitimate business of politics.
Neither the main story or Herhold’s column emphasized the fact that the Gonzales Administration was also inept. The former mayor, wanting to run for higher office, used the city to build his resume. He failed, and we all will be paying the price for that failure for decades. The city’s financial future was mortgaged on “make work projects” to promote the former mayor’s profile and to award his political supporters and donors. We were told that San Jose lacked what only the Gonzales Administration could provide. But what always offended me the most, was the way that the former mayor and his administration pushed people around. The will of the people was viewed by that crew as a hurdle to their program.
I believe that the Gonzales Administration is a case study for political science majors at every school in the nation. Where can you find a better example of how to screw things up? Consider: we live in one of the wealthiest areas on the planet…how then, did we arrive at budget deficits? Yes, it was “The Midas Touch” in reverse…everything they touched turned to debt!
The entire city hall complex should be named for former mayor Gonzales. Let everyone know that he was the one most responsible for directing public money towards the construction of a ceremonial structure instead of investing it in programs that help people.
Pete Campbell
finfan,
You have some good points but San Jose still does not have effective and enforceable ethics, election and other appropriate behavior laws or public disclosure policies
Elected officials and senior staff do not want them based on their actions, opposition to changes or inability to develop effective rules
Look at the ineffective election rules, Reed Reforms and all the other loopholes passed off to public as ethics laws and reforms
The charges were dropped because Joe Guerra and Ron Gonzales are innocent. Reed and Co. tried to do a political lynching of the former mayor. Ron Gonzales did more to restore honor and ethics to the Mayor’s Office than anyone in the last 75 years. Mr. Gonzales put people to work and brought us back from the dot com meltdown. Remember, our local economy lost more jobs than Houston/oil, Pittsburgh/steel, Detroit/automotive and Seattle/Aerospace disasters. By the time Mr. Gonzales left office our economy was running smoothly again. Of course, Mayor Reed will take all the credit.
Because our political system was designed with checks and balances, and because our legal system puts a premium on protecting the accused from the government, we have a system that fails the public sometimes in individual cases (read OJ) in favor of protecting the public and the accused from government bullying. Thus, our system allows guilty people to go free to prevent as many innocent people as possible from being convicted. The system fails from time to time on both counts; but that is the price we pay for what remains the fairest judicial system in the history of the planet.
Mr. Finkelstein is a very able lawyer; but as I read the opinion, he crossed over the line in an attempt to put a malefactor in jail…and perhaps to end his career on a high note. One must also remember that Judge Herlihy is a former prosecutor himself, a former colleague of Mr. Finkelstein. Thus, we can disabuse ourselves of the notion that some soft-on-crime judge gave Gonzo, Guerra, and Norcal a break.
I disagree with several conclusions Judge Herlihy drew when he opined that because of the prosecution’s misstatements of the law the grand jury MIGHT HAVE ruled differently had they been given correct information, and therefore the charges must be dismissed. I consider some of his conclusions as speculative at best. Judge Herlihy cannot possibly know what the grand jury would have done had Mr. Finkelstein’s presentation been more in line with his view of the law on the subject. Thus, he is purely speculating when he “concludes” that the grand jury would have acted differently had Judge Herlihy’s reading of the law had been presented to it.
That said, in the final analysis what Judge Herlihy had to decide was whether under existing state law (statutes and court precedents) as he understand it, what Gonzo/Guerra did was a crime, as opposed to a moral or ethical lapse.
Courts don’t try morality or ethics, they try violations of law. That is why CH Insider’s comments are naive yet true; why Mad Hatter’s comment expresses what most of us believe (the same as OJ’s guilt); why I disagree with FinFan, because I believe Mr. Finkelstein was shooting for the fence when a base hit would have done just as well, indeed better under the circumstances; and why More Scandals perhaps does not grasp the difference between moral or ethical lapses and criminal conduct.
As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I am no fan of Gonzo/Guerra. I think they are the worst thing to happen to SJ in memory. But that is far different from being guilty of the crimes charged.
As Judge Herlihy stated in his opinion at page 15, what Gonzo did “…is not bribery. This is politics.” That makes More Scandals #8’s & Mad Hatter #3’s and some of CH Insider #4’s comments frightfully valid.
As a result of Gonzo’s shenanigans with Norcal, my garbage/recycling bill has gone up almost 100% in three years. This despite the fact that I couldn’t fill my garbage can more than twice in a year. I recycle almsot everyting, and most of the rest goes down the garbage disposer. We PAY to have the city recycle. Recycling should be at least free. Businesses still pay for bottles, cans, etc; yet we pay someone else to haul away something that they get paid to sell. HHmm.
Judge Herlihy concluded by saying: ” There is no question that Norcal, Defendant Guerra, and Defendant Gonzales were delinquent in their responsibility to be open and to fully disclose their knowledge, actions, and policies.” I would have preferred that statement to have been the OPENING line of his opinion.
WOW!!!! I hope no-one ever slips me whatever mind-altering drugs Everett # 8 is on.
JMOC – It is not mind-altering drugs, it is clear vision. Before the Irish, Spanish, Mexicans, Ohlones, Vietnamese, Chinese, Germans and Russians were in this valley, I could run with the mountain lions. You used to be able to pet a mountain lion, swim with the salmons, stand with the oaks, fly with the eagles and scurry with the squirrels. Mayor Gonzales and I are the only ones who seem to understand this.
I remain optimistic.
Everett
Sounds like peyote to me, Everett #11.
You can only convict elected officials if you have well written laws and politician written state and federal are not but——
San Jose is a charter city and therefore can write it’s own effective ethics, elections and appropriate behavior for elected officials and city employees laws if it wants to under state law to address as long city’s laws and policies do not violate state or federal law since charter cities have wide legal authority in local laws
It is not a matter of IF we will have more scandals but WHEN and how BAD
San Jose city government does not have political will to write good local ethics, elections and appropriate city behavior laws
Look at the San Jose Financing Authority for next big financial scandal especially if audit is not completed or they outsource managing city funds – remember $ 60 million lost last time we outsourced
JMOC,
My admiration for Mr. Finkelstein’s efforts in this case are not based on his legal interpretations, but instead on his professional courage, hard work, and commitment to checking the mayor’s abuse of power. Prior to the investigation and indictment, we the public had been left unprotected by the elected and appointed officials responsible for providing the necessary checks and balances on the mayor’s activities. Were it up to me, the city would sue Mr. Borgsdorf in an attempt to recover some of the costs we incurred in this mess.
But back to Mr. Finkelstein: I thought from the start that the heart of this matter was political capital (and posted that opinion here long before any charges were brought), and was disappointed that this theory was deployed only after the cash-under-the-table theory began to crumble. Mayor Gonzales was in bed with the Teamsters long before the Norcal deal, and in the ruling that fact was interpreted in the mayor’s favor, completely ignoring the reality of such sinister relationships, that being that an unlawful transaction is far more likely to be part of an ongoing affair than it is to be a one-night stand. Norcal was all about an ongoing affair with unions in general and the Teamsters in particular, and Gonzales was banking capital that I suspect he intended to spend in the future at the state or national level.
If the political capital theory is not supported by existing law, so be it. If you’re saying that Mr. Finkelstein should’ve realized this, then I will take notice of your professional opinion just as I have the opinion of the judge. But in the end, I have to accept that Mr. Finkelstein believed in his case (for whatever reason), and knew full well the risks involved. I give him points for being a swashbuckler. My only criticism of him is that it appears that had he, as the judge pointed out, charged the mayor with 115 PC, the controversy over the falsification of records (documents Gonzales provided concealing the secret payment) would not have occurred, and a conviction would’ve been there for the taking.
# 14 f f
I could not agree more. For what it is worth, Finckelstein well deserves the reputation he has earned over his decades of service. Had he not followed his heart, judgment and feelings about the legitamacy of this case, San Jose might well have continued down the path of mortgaging it’s future on the hedonistic want and fiscal irresponsibility.
For what it’s worth, Finckelstein may well have provided the catalyst to put this City back on sound footing and fiscal responsibility.
Win – loose or draw, this one may have blown up in his face; but like many heros of this country’s history, he did what he thought was the right thing. In my humble opinion, by keeping the spotlight on “fast-n-easy” back room deals and a love for lobbyists, he may have saved San Jose from financial destruction.
Loose the battle, win the war.
#8
By the time Mr. Gonzales left office our economy was running smoothly again… on a stolen credit card waaaay over its limit.
What? Nothing from the San Jose Inside calling for the immediate resignation of an ethically bankrupt city official? C’mon, where are the rants about “screw due process” and “this guys is a crook and needs to go!”. I guess since his last name isn’t Gonzales, Chavez, Gregory or Garza and since he is the president of the rotary club with Chuck Reed and Tom McEnery he gets a free pass. Must be nice to part of the good ol’ boys club!
Ron Gonzales was once the toast of San Jose, a bright former businessman who was the first Latino since statehood to be mayor of California’s third-largest city, the hub of the Silicon Valley.
Then he fell from grace, indicted for bribery in a scandal involving the awarding of a city garbage contract. With months remaining on his final term in office, the San Jose City Council urged him to resign to save any further embarrassment caused by his continued presence at City Hall.
But Gonzales refused, insisting he would not quit early, because he had committed no crime.
Turns out he was right.
Last week, a judge dismissed all charges against Gonzales, ruling that prosecutors had used a twisted reading of the law to mislead the grand jury that indicted him.
“This is not bribery,” wrote Superior Court Judge John Herlihy. “This is politics.”
It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference in a system that forces candidates for public office to rely on private contributions. You can’t blame voters for concluding that something is amiss when a politician does a favor for one of his or her supporters—especially when the losers in every political battle seem to cry “scandal” if they don’t get their way.
But last week’s court ruling in San Jose illustrates the limits of that cynicism. Politicians, the judge ruled, can do favors for their supporters. In fact, we expect them to. Our system wouldn’t really work otherwise. As long as there is no quid pro quo, no agreement to trade financial contributions for a specific action, no crime is committed.
The Gonzales case stemmed from San Jose’s awarding of a contract to haul its residents’ garbage from their homes to the dump. The contract was set to go to NorCal Waste Management Systems, and it included the responsibility for sorting the city’s recylables.
That’s a job that is even grimier than politics. Workers stand at conveyor belts for hours on end as our trash passes by. They pick out the bottles, the cans, the paper and throw them onto separate belts that deliver them to their proper bins.
In San Jose, those workers had been represented by the Teamsters Union. But as NorCal prepared to take over the waste hauling, it was going to subcontract the recycling job to another firm that was doing the same thing in Oakland. And in Oakland, the workers were represented by a different union, the Longshoremen.
The Teamsters were concerned. They didn’t want to lose 43 members. Plus, the San Jose workers were being paid $3 per hour more than their counterparts in Oakland. NorCal was willing to accommodate them, but doing so would cost more money than the firm had included in its bid to the city, about $2 million more per year on a multiyear contract.
That’s when Gonzales stepped in. At a private meeting in October 2000, just before the City Council approved the garbage contract, the mayor urged NorCal executives to retain the Teamsters, according to the indictment filed against him. And Gonzales told NorCal that the city would come up with the money to make the company whole.
That was it. That was the extent of his alleged crime. Gonzales neither asked for nor received any money from anyone in exchange for his action, at least none that the prosecutors ever uncovered or alleged. And while the mayor enjoyed the support of the Teamsters before and after that meeting, union officials were not present and, it appears, did not even know that Gonzales had made a specific commitment to resolve their complaint.
Where was the bribe? The district attorney alleged that it was “indirect” and assumed. Gonzales acted on the union’s behalf, the prosecutors said, hoping that the Teamsters would reward him with their support in the future. To make his intervention seem even more sinister, the prosecutors also incorrectly told the grand jury that it was wrong for Gonzales to get involved in the labor dispute, which they said, was the sole purview of federal regulators. Gonzales was not blameless. He should not have negotiated with NorCal in secret, and the extra costs to which he committed the city should have been disclosed up front before the council voted on the contract. But those were management mistakes, not crimes. Gonzales deserved criticism, not criminal prosecution.
Judge Herlihy noted that the prosecution’s theory, if allowed to stand, would criminalize pretty much everything politicians do for their supporters. “Almost any effort by a public official to solve a problem of a constituent,” he wrote, “could then be regarded as a potential bribe, provided that the constituent continues to politically support the public official.”
That would create the perverse situation in which the only people who could contribute or even actively support a politician would be people who would never ask that politician to do anything on their behalf. As Herlihy suggested, such a policy probably violates the public’s First Amendment rights to express their support for candidates by donating money or committing to volunteer in campaigns. Herlihy was right to set Gonzales free. He also freed our political system from some shackling it didn’t need.
Gonzo for Governor. DeAnza Baseball team to the Hall of Fame. Keep the Bars open till dawn!Don’t wake me! I know I am dreaming.
This is the worst nightmare of the decade. Can’t wait for the next big revelation from the DA’s office.
The alter boys, were, Hell, never mind!
Some body do something. Please!!!!!
D.O.A.