Carl Eugene Salas, a 73-year-old engineer and founder of the Salas O’Brien engineering firm, was selected as the temporary District 3 San Jose City Council member early this evening.
The council made its choice from among four finalists on its second ballot, after changing its rules to allow a simple majority to determine the appointment to the temporary seat.
The appointment, which will take effect Feb. 2, will continue until the results of an April 8 special election – or until after June 24, if a runoff is required.
Carl Salas, San Jose engineer and new San Jose City Council member
Salas is a 50-year resident of San Jose, and built a solid reputation for his work promoting civic projects, leading the downtown Rotary Club. During the council debate, he was supported by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and Vice Mayor Pam Foley.
On the first ballot, Salas was favored by five council members, one vote more than Jahmal Williams, director of DEI Partnerships and the university-community liaison at San Jose State University. On the second ballot, a majority of six council members supported Salas.
Councilmember Domingo Candelas urged his colleagues to pick Williams, who is Black, to add “a diverse perspective that we’re lacking.”
The final vote came after the council, at Mahan’s urging, reversed itself and allowed a simple majority of six, to pick the new council member.
A third applicant, Danielle Christian, a former aide to Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, received one vote. The fourth applicant for the temporary post, developer Robert Staedler, failed to get any council support.
The selection adds a moderate businessperson to the council, and could tilt – if only temporarily – the council in Mahan’s favor as he heads into a tough budget fight.
Salas, in answering council questions in the round-robin interview format, avoided committing to any priorities in the looming budget debate. He praised city parks and praised San Jose police who he said serve with “empathy, dedication and tenacity.”
He said that in his brief council tenure, he hoped to restore public trust and improve communication in City Hall.
The five applicants for the appointed position were selected from 11 men and women who applied earlier this month, in secret voting last week by the current council members and Mayor Matt Mahan. One candidate, Balthazar Lopez, government and community affairs officer for CalTrain, withdrew before Tuesday’s vote, according to City Clerk Toni Taber.
The District 3 council chair has been empty since Oct. 1, when former Councilmember Omar Torres went into seclusion after revelations of sexual impropriety in a police affidavit related to a search warrant. Torres was arrested Nov. 5 on felony child molestation charges, hours after submitting his resignation to city officials, effective Nov. 27. He is case is still pending.
Seven candidates qualified as candidates for the April special election. The council had decided that no person could seek election to the coveted downtown council seat if they also sought appointment to the interim seat. The winner of the special election will serve the remainder of the District 3 term through 2026.
I was there. I watched the city council rig the seating. Load the questions based on the seating. Then change the rules in the middle of the session to secure a fraudulent appointment.
They literally held an appointment hours before in the same room to “appoint” a vice mayor
They motioned with a nomination. . Seconded and voted. That’s how an appointment works.
Salas was never nominated – then they change the rules to meet their desire. you call it a reversal.
I was disqualified for not pdf filing my form 700. Even though I did submit it to the ruling body.
A form 700 is for elected officials not candidates.
Making it a requirement is illegal. The only requirement for candidates is to disclose convictions. And this entire process was a fraud on the people in district three.
I heard Salas take credit for the 7-11 complex. He bought a building but Chris Esparza led the fixing up of it. He Mentioned the photo shop murder which was forty years ago. Not even relevant. He is a land grabbing land lord. The hot dog shack is vacant. The garage is not even close to when Louis ran it. Typical gas bag.
I sat next to the D3 staff. They knew Carl was going to be chosen. I would ask if he got the questions before they asked them?? Pretty sure they gave them to him.
Depressing to watch this city on life support. Depressing to see this geriatric narcissist get the spot when some white lady cried Jamal had too many people there speaking for him.
All I can say is do resuscitate.
There’s a reason we’ve never had a black male on the city council. Hmmmm
Nothing changed today.
The Rotary Club of San Jose collaborated with the City of San Jose (including Mahan and Foley) to ban the unjabbed and unboosted from the Rotary Summit Center atop the Fourth Street Garage — a City owned building. This was done to coerce experimental medical treatment in violation of the Nuremberg Code, promulgated in the aftermath of the Nazis.
San Jose Rotary provided free code enforcement of the outrageous vax mandate ordinance by policing its own members to exclude those disapproved by the authorities. It did this by demanding its members reveal their vax papers and by affixing colored dots on member badges to mark those for discrimination — akin to what the Nazis did to Jews in the 1930s as a prelude to concentration camps and mass murder. (Rotary clubs in Nazi Germany banished their Jews, just as San Jose’s Rotary excluded the unjabbed).
San Jose Rotary officials, including then-president Steve Borkenhagen and executive director Leslee Hamilton saw nothing untoward about this behavior, even after I called it to their attention and resigned in protest. I don’t know if Carl Salas was on the Rotary board at the time (September 2021), but if I could see the profound moral problem, he should have as well. He did not resign, nor has he disavowed the discrimination, to my knowledge.
Used to think Carl Salas was a good guy, but Rotary is comprised of bootlickers. It seems that’s why the authoritarian San Jose mayor wanted him.
“Wins appointment” is an oxymoron.
It never ceases to amaze me how the camp of “Democracy is on the Ballot” appoint so many into elected positions.
No integrity, no credibility.