After a unanimous vote supporting his publicly funded election proposal, and perhaps feeling a confidence he hasn’t felt since his reelection, Mayor Ron Gonzales made a bold bid for the national spotlight Wednesday by joining with several retired generals in demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
He made the announcement during his weekly appearance on the Larry King Show. “We need to continue to fight the global war on terror,” he said, “but I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to do it, based on his absolute incompetence.”
But not everyone is buying the new statesmanlike Gonzales. “I think this is a desperate power grab by an embattled politician—plain and simple,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome. “He is entering my stage and I will inflict a mighty pain to any man that comes between me and my Vanity Fair spread.”
SJSU Political Science Professor Terry Christensen says that the mayor’s stunt, although courageous, will hurt his chances to be appointed to the Bush cabinet when his term ends in December. “I contacted several Washington insiders, very close friends of mine, who said they predicted Gonzales would go as high as press secretary. This vociferous and direct criticism will obviously drop him down a few spots.”
The mayor seemed to shed a little light on his motives the next day by admitting to Anderson Cooper on CNN, “I don’t know a thing about foreign policy, Andy, but it sure feels good to shoot the wounded.”
Hey GM
Don’t pad the numbers. There were only 19 people there. And 18 of them were lobbyist!
Is the Mayor of San Jose welcoming the President of the United States to San Jose at Cisco?
Does anyone else find it ironic that the Mayor was censured mishandling a garbage contract and the President of the United States who mishandled a war, is responsible for thousands of unwarranted deaths, has put this country on the road to bankruptsy, has ruined the image of the United States as a free and caring nation is not even being investigated?
It it the Twilight Zone episode that was never aired.
Gonzales & his long goodbye…are we there yet, or will the next months seem like a lifetime. RG, resignation & give up!!!
Gotta agree with you on this one, Rich.
Mayor Gonzales would make a great radio personality after his term in office. In fact we could do a tandem show.
800 people showed up to hear the Big 5 debate at the historic California Theater. Cindy didn”t answere questions or even use her rebuttal cards to defend herself against accusations of her lack of leadership , vision and ability to understand complex land use issues. The very next week the next round of the Big 5 debates was held at the beautiful Le Petite Trianon Theater. This also should have given Cindy home field advantage . Less than 150 people showed to see her avoid questions. By the way over 200 citizens attended ‘THE FRUIT COCKTAIL CLUB” event the week before, at the same Theater ,to eat fruitcocktail and Spam. What does that say for the lack of substance in the candidates answeres. Pandori was the only one that gave us anything to chew on.
Dear San Jose:
With all of this chatter about Sunshine Ordinances and public financing of elections, perhaps its now time to take a look at the way we elect our city representatives. I believe that it’s time to move back to at-large elections. The council districts would remain, but one would not be required to reside in the district that they represent. In the old days, it was thought that each area had “special” needs that only someone from that area had the knowledge or ability to address. The potholes on the West side are as deep as the potholes on the East side!
The fact is, there are too many mediocre performers on the present city council. I would rather have a Rich DeLarosa or a Linda Nguyen than half of the current office holders. These are two bright and capable people who could have effectively represnted and worked for the residents of any part of our city. Perhaps they would both be on the council today if they were allowed to challenge one or more of the current so-called “leaders.”
Pete Campbell
p.s. Someday, perhaps the Mercury News will print a full transcript of some of the comments and ideas expressed by members of the council. What is said, is at times, utterly amazing.
A lobbyist attempting to take the ethical and moral highground?
SJI readers don’t despair.
It’s just another brief episode of “The Robinson Zone”.
Pete—at large elections of city councilpeople are terrible idea. As reportedly happened before we went to district elections, most if not all of our councilpeople would be elected from the same well-heeled enclaves of Rose Garden and Willow Glen, who could care less about the more underprivileged neighborhoods downtown and on the East side.
As a consequence of at large elections, no councilperson would be directly answerable for “fixing the potholes”—or dealing with raw sewage in the streets, which was a problem in at least one SNI neighborhood on the East side until recently rectified by federal CDBG funding which East side neighborhood leaders had to beg and scream for from our city officials (who would have preferred to back-fill featherbedded city positions with the money).
If anything, instead of 10 localized council representatives, we need 20. As it is now, each councilmember represents roughly 100,000 people, a population larger than the entire City of San Jose only a few decades ago. They are “mini-mayors” only because they must be answerable to so many folks. You want to curtail their empires, divide them up, and make them directly answerable to fewer folks.
Sure, all our councilpeople should have the entire city’s interest at heart, as well as the entire county’s, and the entire region’s, the entire state’s, the entire country’s, and the good of mankind generally. But, at bottom, I want the buck to stop at one person who is answerable to me and my neighbors about the meth lab operating out of a house on my street; I don’t want to have to canvass the whole council to take their respective temperatures on how they feel about meth labs. (Maybe you don’t have those in District 1, Pete, but my guess is that the folks in your district agree with me.)
Some of us always take the high ethical and moral highground, despite the labels others try to use to discredit our opinions.
But as a Novice, you might not be able to recognize that simple fact.
Roger Hedgecock Show, Mon – Fri 3pm – 6pm
on KOGO 600 AM in San Diego.
http://www.kogo.com
GM and SJI talkers who believe can fix San Jose’s problems remember you have to get majority of people to agree which you can’t even on SJI
Do it – rather than sitting and talking about
what you would do but ….. or could do but …….
I agree with Richard that politics are not easy but complex that you talkers oversimplify, spread rumors, propose unworkable solutions Now let’s see you do something other than talk
Pete – I’m in 100% agreement with Don.
So much so in fact, that I’d like to know if there’s any chance that a district can secede from San Jose.
Anyone by chance know where you can find out how much of the tax dollars taken from a district are spent in that district?
The one great reform that took place in politics, done by the people was district elections.
Those who remember the gang of four, Al Garza, David Runyon et al, will quickly dismiss the merits of an at large system.
However, I think we can reduce the number of districts from 10 to 7 or 5. The County Supervisors works well with just 5 districts—despite the protestations of some on this board.
Idon’t know the ins and outs of running an election but has it become more about name recognition than substance? Why do they need so much money? I like the idea of public financing.But why so much money? Could they televise all the debates on the public access chanel,provide a sight like this for their exchange of ideas, and equal time for T.V. radio and newspaper spots? A budget for lawn sings,mailers and that would be it. Why not 50 k each ? I know usually there are no simple answeres to complex problems and again I have no experience in campaigns. I would like some insights.
The district election idea is one whose time has come and gone. District elections do nothing to prevent a Gang of Four (it certainly didn’t do anything to stop a Terry Gregory.) It has served its purpose and now it is detrimental to the city at large. We certainly don’t need more than the current 10 + 1. A cohesive, at-large council would once again look out at what is best for the entire city instead of the mess we have now. Certainly there would be some trade-offs, but I would much prefer a council that had a vision for the whole city to one that has a vision for a small piece of the city regardless if it best for the city at-large or not.
Sorry, Rich, but district elections balkanize the city and give us one trick ponies like Chirco, Pyle, Campos, Gregory (oops, a no trick pony). Can you think of a more worthless bunch?
We need to amend the City of San Jose Charter to reflect the following:
The city council shall consist of ten (10) members elected at the times and in the manner provided in this charter, each of whom, including the Mayor, shall serve a term of four (4) years. The term of each member shall begin following such election, at the first regularly scheduled meeting of the city council following certification of election results, and each shall serve except as otherwise provided for in this charter, until his or her successor is elected and qualified. Each office of councilmember shall be a separate office and, except for the mayor, one (1) of such offices shall be assigned to each of the districts of the city. Candidates for each office of councilmember other than the mayor shall be nominated from such district by the electors of such district and candidates for mayor shall be nominated by electors of the city at large, but all councilmembers shall be elected by the vote of the electors of the city at large.
#13
I am doing something about it, I’m not voting for an incompetent incumbent!
And I’m not spreading any rumors that is what exactly what they said last night; sometimes the truth hurts doesn’t it?
Love,
GM
My friend and I sat in the third roll of Last’s night forum, I wondered to myself is this it? Is this the answer to fix all of San Jose’s problems in front of me, the so-called big 5?
As I looked around me I could see the depressing and lost look in the faces of the 20-25 people that were there, the fact that nobody showed up except a few supporters who by the way didn’t really seem to want to be there in the first place and they couldn’t wait to leave was the most embarrassing part of the whole night!
I thought to myself this is the first time that I’m going to vote for a Mayor here in San Jose and these are my choices?
God save San Jose!
Nobody cares about these candidates and this election; the message was the same bla, bla, bla.
When Cindy Chavez said, “she saw someone cutting down a city neighborhood tree on Easter and all she did was make a phone call to the city and leave a message”
I almost fell off my chair! This is someone who is running for Mayor for God sake!
She should of lied, and said that she took the chain saw out of the man’s hands and called the police! Isn’t she the Vice Mayor of San Jose?
Then there’s Chuck Reed who wants to call district 7 little Saigon to attract tourist! I thought to myself, what about the rest of the ethnic groups of people who live in that district? What an insult!
No one gave straight answer to the questions that were being asked!
When my friend and me left, I felt cheated, like we went to go see a fight at the HP arena and main contenders didn’t show showed up!
I may be only 20, but come on now, these candidates are so out of touch of how to get San Jose out of the mess it’s in! It looks to me that they just want to collect a fat check for the next 4 years!
Disappointed,
GM
Don G’s suggestion that SJ increase council representation from 10 to 20 districts will do nothing to improve government. The logistics of it will be a nightmare alone:
1). Can the current city hall accomodate another 10 councilmembers?
2). Where will they have their offices?
3). How much more money will this cost? Let’s see – 10 more councilmembers and how many more staffers all coming up with more ideas on how to spend more of the public’s money.
4). If you think city politics are balkanized now just you wait until you double the number of people sitting on the city council!
Griping, bitching and pissing and moaning about everything under the sun.
Oh what a grand idea!!!
Here’s another idea – if you think it’s such a great idea to have so many more city council members, why not go for the whole magilla – just dissolve the city of San Jose and incorporate each of the 10 current districts as their own city.
Don you have some good ideas but not this time. As you have stated that you as a neighborhood rep. have been able to get the ear of Cindy. Let’s say on issues like preserving the historic character of your neighborhood. That has worked well for you and for your small area. What happens when the same problem comes up in other areas where an individual of your influence is not present? Did she vote for principles or persnality? Take for example she voted to destroy the Del Monte cannery rather than convert the more historic and unique portions to low cost housing for artists. Preserving the most important cultural resource in my neighborhood would have been the right thing to do, for my neighborhood and city. We need council reps to apply the same standards to all the city, not just their back yard. We need reps. accountable to the good of the whole not just the chosen few.
#24. Amen. Everyone should read your comments.
Hey! Don Gagliardi has a great idea – let’s vote in more incompetant sleazeballs so that our city can be taken hostage a lot easier – and maybe we can enlist them ALL to play soccer for the newly formed San Jose Nightclubbers. That will get us national attention!
Why not require each council person to live in the district they rep. for one year, yet elect them by the city at large.
To Don G. #10: I’ve struggled to find a nice or politically correct way to respond to your idea about expanding San Ohaze city govt. to 20 councilmembers;all I can come up with is that it’s the stupidest idea I have heard in a number of years.
Just what we need—more councilmembers with more staff, with need for a Taj Gonzal Annex to hold them all.
If we went national with it, what would that mean? Twenty four thousand Congresspeople and several hundred Senators?!!!
shees.
In response to #24: Regarding the razing of the Del Monte cannery, I was opposed to that, as was Preservation Action Council of San Jose (PAC*SJ), of which I am a member and was a former board member. I suspect adaptive re-use of certain of the buildings for housing could have been possible without compromising the overall project. PAC*SJ made the case eloquently, and their failure to carry the day was not for lack of access to the political process. Moreover, the fact that city staff and the city council thought otherwise does nor represent a sacrifice of principle, merely good faith disagreement among reasonable people concerning the relative importance of various policy goals.
In short, getting heard in a meaningful way at a meaningful point in the process doesn’t mean you win the day.
Mark #22,
No problem. We’ll just build a new City Hall.
There’s a big empty building at N. 1st & Mission that might work.
Don #27
Isn,t P.A.C.S.J. the grass roots organization that sued the city over the Fox Bld. on 4th St.?Didn’t the city lose in court? Didn’t the city also lose some other suits to them? If I am not mistaken the councils failure to listen cost us millions of dollars. Sounds like your group may have access to the legal process and the judges ear but not our councils ear. Thanks for your efforts to make the mayor and council follow the law but ,wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper and smarter if your group could get them to listen? I would like to hear more about these cases and how the mayor and council members voted. Maybe if the council had to pay with their own money they might listen?
The City’s arrogance is likewise on a roll again with the area where the supposed stadium is to be located (as indicated on a previous post). Under the pre-text of assembling and preparing the land for public use, this whole section of the city is going to be taken down (by eminent domain if necessary) and then demolished and handed over to a single big housing developer. Like Del Monte on Auzerais, this – rush to build – a characteristic of the current City Council, will cause the loss of historic buildings as well as a whole 1920s neighborhood at Autumn Court. In the 1950s this was called “Urban Renewal” – a process curtailed throughout the US because it is not a really good way to renew our urban areas. High density housing near Cahill Station (oops, I mean Diridon Station) is a great idea if the Council can do this as true mixed development, mixing both small and big properties owners, old and new buildings, high and low density housing. Make it a nice place to live rather than your typical high-density park-and-sleep housing projects popping up all over the valley.
The city’s arrogance and refusal to work out an acceptable solution cost them $3 million+. Had they listened and not submitted an inadequate EIR they could have saved $3 million+. Had they dealt in good faith they could have reached a satisfactory solution that would have saved them $3 million+. If they had a real vision for San Jose they would have saved the historic building and revised the plans for the garage—instead they did none of the above and it cost them $3 million+ and over a year delay in completing the garage. Basically, everybody lost thanks to the “leadership” on the council. Cindy takes the biggest hit on this because it was in her district and what the district mayor wants the district mayor gets.
31 Cindy Chavez also stated she would be willing to throw out the Historic Design Guidelines, she recently approved ,pertaining to our Nationally recognised Downtown Historic Commercial District. She also voted to destroy the I.B.M. Building #25. It also qualifies as a national landmark. We only have a handful that qualify at that level. It is vital that we save what defines S.J. and makes it unique . To Cindy’s defence I believe she grew up in Freemont before moving here prior to running for council . Or was that Sunnyvale where she worked for Ron G. ? Perhaps she is active saving her heritage there.
In response to #29, Frustrated Citizen: Not sure about the specific outcome of the litigation over the Fox-Markovitz Bldg. (I believe that’s the one being referred to), but in practical terms the city was able to raze the circa 1919 structure to make way for an employee parking garage for the new city hall which is being erected right now. I doubt there was substantial cost to the city arising out of that litigation.
The Grand Fix,The Grand Fix!
Inside the Hall you are the Man,You ARE the Man? or is that YOU ARE THE WOMAN! You knew all along.Just think you were giving us insights before the Mercury. The citizens of S.J. have a mole in City Hall. Are you Less White ? The Great hispanic,asain,black,white and all the rest’s hope for an honest and open government? I’m glad you are back.
Thats just the first round. There are a few more balls in the bag!
Cindy, where is Reality Bites when you need him / her
This is not a time to be proud of the fact that “I told you so.” I have tried to inform so folks could make an educated decision. Many of you choose to stay uneducated—not much I can do about that. I will continue to provide the truth, both from first hand experience and from those whom I trust. You can choose to do with the info what you will. I, for one, will continue my distrust of the neighborhood icon and will work to rid city hall of those who cannot be trusted. Disagreement is one thing, distrust is another.