Move Seen as First Step in Winning Back City Hall
Following the successful city council vote in Oakland limiting the amount of dogs allowed in a household, the San Jose City Council sent a strong signal on Tuesday night when they voted unanimously to limit the number of elected officials that individual lobbyists could own.
“We wanted to send a clear message that we can’t be bought,” said councilman Ken Yeager. “Unless of course you don’t own any of us already, then you can purchase away!”
The lobbyists’ lobbying arm went into immediate action by renting a commercial kitchen in downtown San Jose and baking several hundred moon cakes set for delivery to the 18th floor on Monday.
“This is patently absurd…we categorically deny…this is an egregious case of hypocrisy… these are ludicrous presumptions…we stand unanimously in vehement opposition,” blathered a furious Manny Diaz, a lobbyist associated with Silicon Valley Advisors. “How do they expect anything to get done?”
Several council members said that common sense dictates that no lobbyist should own more than a majority of the council members of any city, although legal precedent has shown that an ordinance like this is very hard to enforce.
“What about renting a council member, or adopting one from a pound, or saving one from incarceration,” pondered city attorney Rick Doyle. “And how do we purchase back the one’s already owned? I’m sure there will be legal challenges that I may not be able to defend.”
The whole controversy was put into perspective by Judy Nadler, Senior Fellow in Government Ethics at Santa Clara University, “You can’t own people.”
Leasing has always been a good option. It feels like “ownership”, reduces the pinch on cash flow, and may even have positive tax consequences. Our Council members are open to any kind of feedback from “constituents.” The results have been rather amazing so far..
I found it very interesting that to become a teacher I had to pass a US Constitution Test that had a study guide that talked about our political process. In that study guide they defined lobbyists as people who more or less “put politician in their pockets with the offer of goods and services”. How pathetic is that?
San Jose’s lobbists responded to Judy Nadler’s comment with
While “you can’t own people”, you can come pretty darn close with ambitious career politicians who have no values or goals except to get elected to their next office and need your campaign contributions.
We need their votes to approve our client’s tax subsidies, tax credits for private development projects, delays in implementing public policies they don’t like, sweet heart construction and service contracts, and public policy or general plan exceptions that give us and our clients very large profits.
Our politicians friends and their loyal staffers will do what they are told to do or make it clear to city / county employees what is necessary while telling the public it is good public policy since the public and the press never looks closely at what is actually happening and who profits anyway.
We don’t need to own them, we just rent them when we need their votes to make more profits
Campign contributions has it’s rewards
Welcome to San Jose—the best Council that money can buy. Time for a change people?? What are we going to do about it besides griping about it here. Start demanding that we have qualified candidates for Council—people that will serve us, not the professional hired guns. Demand accountability in our government—demand leadership, for a change. If it is truly our government, shouldn’t we start taking it back???
What are you going to do?
Can we have Nascar-like jackets made up for the council to wear so that we can see who they’re “sponsored” by?
Novice,
Great idea but the sponsorship patches will have to be really small if you’re going to fit them all on the jacket. In fact, several of our “leaders” may need an overcoat.
In related news….
The South Bay Labor Council is gathering signatures to increase the number of city council members to 11. Yesterday, in front of the newly constructed San Jose City Hall Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins explained to on-lookers that, “This increase in council members is critical to the financial health of our organization. The discounts that we would receive by purchasing our sponsorship jackets in quantities of a dozen at a time will be tremendous.”
Ellis-Lamkins proudly showed a prototype of the new NASCAR style jackets, which blazenly display, “Strings pulled by South Bay labor Council” in 3 inch letters on the back.
A: “Teacher” expresses outrage at the truth? Of course “goods and services” (especially services) are part of the trade off for votes.
B: As long as candidates are subjected to the BS of the press and others, why would an honest, qualified person WANT to run without the protection of a political party and or the labor council? Today it is impossible to get an Ernie Renzel or a George Starbird!
C When did we stop having non-partisan elections for the city council and board of supervisors? When did the local elections become partisan?
D: Maybe we need a SLATE of “good government” or “honest government” candidates to run against ALL of the rascals! But, is that possible with the districts now in place instead of at large candidates?
Gunner
I think a lot of the problem is council compensation – salaries need to be higher so that we can attract more candidates with a diversity of qualifications and skill levels.
As it stands, whenever council salaries are considered, it is such a political hot-potato, that the incumbents can’t vote yes for fear it will look selfish and hurt them in their re-election bids. Thus, salaries stay low and limit the ability to attract candidates.
The way around the dilema is to vote for increases that are retroactive 2,3, or 4 years from the vote – this isn’t a short term solution, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction for the future of San Jose.
JMcE
Dear San Jose;
Hey, somebody at city hall better take Madison Nguyen aside and explain to her how things work in San Jose! She had the nerve to vote with the people after listening to public testimony the other night at the city council meeting where the council agreed to lift the ban on alcohol sales at gas stations. The police chief didn’t want it, nor did a lot of people from the neighborhoods. She actually sided with the people!
We can’t have city council members follow the will of the people…democracy might break out!
Pete Campbell
Pete- Don’t worry about Madison. If she ever wants to get a pothole fixed in District 7 she will soon get in line. How else could a politically unpopular but “strong” Mayor keep the majority of the council living in fear?
G.M.-A slate of candidates may be the only way to clean up the current mess. It would take good coordination from the various neighborhood groups, and don’t think it’s not possible. People are pissed!
All – Did you catch the story in today’s Merc about the plans to “shrink” the “expansion” of the airport? It looks like somebody actually did the math this time. Maybe the same person could take a look at the BART equation.
A. Coordinating a slate is difficult. A non-partisan group such as Rotary could do it: just find an honest person from each district, that is the real difficulty.
B. Raise the councils’ pay? Wow! They get too mych now! The best councils that we have had worked for $50 per meeting! If a council person needs the salary and bennis, then that person shouldn’t be there in my perfectworld!
#12
$50/meeting would be great if they only had to attend meetings, but the council job has evolved into a 60+ hour week. Good people need to be paid enough to at least afford a residence in the city. At th 60+ hours a week, they make about $24/hr. If you adjust for 1.5x on overtime hours its $20.40/hr.
I agree the pay should be at a professional level. Or maybe we should return to a part-time city council?
Post #9, Riya Reynolds said:
“I think a lot of the problem is council compensation – salaries need to be higher so that we can attract more candidates with a diversity of qualifications and skill levels. “
On one hand I agree. There is an element of truth that you get what you pay for. However, because of the nature of politics very few really qualified individuals will even bother with the job. This country is based on the idea that we are all equal, and government is supposed to be composed of and represent the common person. Yet, the common person has flaws. Nobody is perfect.
However, when it comes to politics all we ever hear anymore are the blowhard complainers who constantly bitch that politicians must be held to a higher standard, that character (which only means whatever that person wants it to mean) is what counts, and all other sorts of nonsense.
No normal person can meet the holier-than-thou standards these people advocate, nor should they. The ones that do meet their ridiculous standards are just good at hiding their skeletons, or they are robots. No wonder talented individuals say to hell with politics. Why put up with the stupid people for only a slightly better than average salary.
Rather than making politics better the complainers (look at many of the usual posters to this blog for examples) are just making it worse.
The Mercury News reports the San Jose mayor’s race began in a small conference room in a Scotts Valley hotel at a planning retreat for the valley’s most powerful lobbying group.
All three candidates must be completely tone deaf to the message this sends to San Jose residents who have little faith in the office of the mayor after revelations of backroom deals in the garbage contract. There are no Ronald Reagan’s in this group.
My ideal candidate would have insisted on making the opening act of the mayor’s race a public event open to all, held in San Jose at the new city hall or even the center for the performing arts. The candidate would know that many San Jose residents are busy so the entire event would have been recorded and video taped, placed on a web site for all to see.
Unfortunately all we got was a small article in the Mercury News that tells us little about differences between candidates, continuing a trend from the recent district seven election coverage. If the Mercury News is unwilling to do the job, we (starting with the San Jose Inside community) should work together to acquire audio recordings of all the candidate events. We could place the recordings on a web site and work to provide an index of where each question starts in the audio track. This would be a start in helping us decide who is the best person to lead our city for the next eight years.
I know I’m a bit off topic here but… When are we going to see a blog entry about Christine Silva Burnett? I’m dying to see the comments on that one!
City Hall Chick:
I ranted against the suspension WITH PAY of Ms. Burnett on a couple of other blogs; but got little response. It seems it’s underneath most peoples’ radar, including bloggers here.
I have heard no information about why she did it, however; i.e., is she falling on someone else’s sword?
The question of how much to pay a councilperson and the mayor elicits all kinds of responses—we need big pay to attract quality people or we need citizen politicians who work on the cheap for the good of all. Both views and many in between are begging the question.
We will always have pork and bullshit as long as politicians run the show. Their main goal is re-election, since most of them could not make it in the private sector. So they pander to special interests in order to raise money to get re-elected. They’ll say “X” to one group, and tomorow will say “anything but X” to an opposing group, all to raise money to get re-elected so they don’t actually have to produce. Term limits just made them go from job to job, instead of being councilmembers forever, like some Southern U.S. Senators, but don’t let me forget the non-Southern Ted Kennedy.
The mayor and council should set policy in very broad terms, and professionals should implement it. Professionals should be neither elected nor appointed; but neither they nor their staffs should have the guarantees now granted to civil “servants”, who are many times neither civil nor servants of the people.
The bureaucracy should be subject to the same performance standards as private employees, and should never be subject to the whims of the politicians for either hiring or job retention.
If I could figure out how to accomplish that, I’d get a Nobel Prize for something. How do we get a professional staff to implement the broad policy goals of the political leaders, without getting mired in the ridiculous work rules that allow government workers to not work very hard and get away with it?
CalTrans is a joke. As we drive down the highway, what do we see? A whole bunch of guys standing around while a couple of poor shmucks shovel some dirt. No wonder we can’t build roads—the Fat dominates the meat and the bone. L.A. got it’s roads rebuilt in no time after their earthquake (with a private contractor who had an early finish incentive), and we’re still farting around with the Bay Bridge retrofit DESIGN—let alone actual construction—16 years later!! Wassup with that?
It ain’t just SanHozay. The system is truly broken, BIG TIME. It’s time for another Boston Tea Party.
#17: JMO, I haven’t heard much more than the public has heard. We did know about her being caught on camera (at least by strong rumor) before it was made public.
The “with pay” thing is ridiculous. Of course IMHO Avo Makdessian shouldn’t still be working for the Mayor, but he is! (You probably already remember this but he was the one who sent inappropriate emails from his office to one of the Tropicana owners… Yes he’s still working here.)
The Mayor’s staff simply follows his example of do whatever you can get away with. There are a number of people who shouldn’t still be employed in the Mayor’s office but you can’t expect him to do the right thing. Welcome to the Mayor’s office of double standards.
City Hall Chick, #19,
The issue with Avo is that he was probably telling the truth about Tropicana. That place is still a dump. A basic business principle is keep expenses down to increase profit. Fixing up Tropicana is an expense, so the longer it can be deferred, the more money can be made.