Art, Antiques, and Yu-Gi-Oh Cards Found in Break Room
Just days after councilwoman Nora Campos’ chief of staff turned herself in to authorities in connection with the disappearance of a briefcase, FBI agents made a routine inspection of all city hall offices and found several million dollars worth of stolen booty.
“This building is like a fully loaded pirate’s ship after a successful pillaging on the high-seas,” said one employee.
The items that were confiscated included an original Warhol, a handwritten manuscript of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a flintlock musket from the Revolutionary War, and several rare Yu-Gi-Oh cards that included a mint Gravekeepers Chief only found in certain regions of Japan.
“Of course we are flabbergasted,” said a clearly shaken Mayor Ron Gonzales. “Many of us have never even seen Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They have such snazzy graphics and interesting creatures.”
According to the FBI report, there seems to have been no effort to conceal the stolen items, most of which were on a table in an 18th floor break room mixed in with piles of subpoenas, lawsuits, South Bay labor Council missives, and muffins.
One FBI agent admitted that in all her years she had never seen such a brash disregard of sensibility. “The Warhol was hanging right next to some proclamation, and the East of Eden manuscript was on an end table mixed in with past issues of Redbook and Highlights Magazine. I mean who reads those anymore?”
Best column yet!
Right on!!!
The whole brief case incident left me wondering about the caliber of folks working at City hall. How is it that a chief of staff would do something like that? Do they not run background checks? This lady sounded a little off. I guess we should be thankful that the rest of the folks working at city hall are better at covering up their antics.
NOT.
If I go to the City Hall dedication tomorrow I hope nobody minds if I leave my briefcase at home.
You forgot to mention, that among other items found were sealed copies of the Brown Act. Investigators said it appeared they had never been opened and were stamped with “Not For Public View.”
Good stuff, Gumby!
This is funny but damn embarrassing. It would be good if the mayor as figurative head of the city would come out and say something is wrong. But we all know he can’t. He has low morals and standards, He gets caught having an affair with a staffer. Then, his staff sends e-mails that are racist and no one gets fired.
A fish rots from the head first. At City Hall, we’ve been rotting for sometime.
A new election can’t come soon enough. But if the vice mayor gets elected I’m not sure anything will change. Cindy Chavez was appointed by Ron Gonzales afterall. And to top it off Chris Burnett used to work for her, too.
Look for Cindy to break from Ron in the next few months in some high profile way. She wants to be mayor so badly she won’t hesitate to throw him under a bus. But that’s Ron’s m.o. so he shouldn’t be surprised. It may be painful for him, but what goes around comes around.
Cindy is already distancing herself from him in private conversations around town. She’s no dummy. She’s a smart politician. By the way, she canned Chris Burnett. Then, Nora was dumb enough to hire her.
Dear San Jose:
I am counting the days until the next mayoral election. I can’t wait to get our city back!
P.S. We all read about the extra $350,000 that will be needed to “plant” fake trees at the 880/Coleman interchange. I’d rather take the $350,000 and keep the lunch program going at the Alma Senior Center. (City plans to shove the seniors to another location because there isn’t enough money to staff both locations). -What a bunch of elitists we are if we can’t afford to keep a neighborhood senior center open, but we can afford to plant faux trees!-
Pete Campbell
It’s too late for Cindy to distance herself. She has been his lackey all this time and now she wants us to believe a Chavez administration would be different from a Gonzo one? Too late. She might be telling people otherwise but that has been her m.o. Tell people what they want to hear and then do whatever you want.
As the song goes, “…we won’t get fooled again.”
Pete has a good idea. Lets have a San Jose Inside contest for
Top 10 – Better Uses for San Jose airport’s $350,000
1. Lunch program for the Alma Senior Center
2. Keep open 2-3 of the 18 Community Center that will be closed due to lack of budget funds
3. Additional Code Enforcement – which is currently underfunded / staffed
4. Repairing sidewalks, streets and street lights in the older neighborhoods
5. Improving the usability of San Jose’s city web site so residents can find information
6. Add 3-4 more Police / Fire department officers
More suggestions ?
Top 10 – Ways to waste San Jose public tax money
1) Ethics Training for City Employees – if the Mayor, “silent majority” City Council and City managers do not set an ethical examples and take action how can you expect ethical city government
2) Having dozens of public and social event openings – Guadalupe River Park, City Hall when we can not maintain normal city services and facilities
3) Building more parks, community centers and other projects when we have no money or any ideas about when maontannace money will come from to maintain them
More suggestions ?
Fed Up
What makes you think
How about $350,00 in on-going savings by unloading half of the staff in the “City Managers” office. You don’t need half a dozen or more people spending all week making coffee for the Mayor’s Office and thinking of ways to write memos to the rest of the City Council that blurs/hides the facts about serious public policy issues.
I agree with #8. However, if Vice-Mayor Chavez does not start directing the bus towards Ronzales after the release investigator’s report on Norcal, her shot at Mayor will evaporate. The Norcal report will be a major opportunity to make a political statement about ethics at City Hall and the standards expected of the next Mayor, and hopefully, next City Manager.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking to hope that we might not get fooled again. We have to constantly raise the critical issues—on this site, at public forums where the mayoral candidates appear, letters to the editor, at our neighborhood associations, etc. Anywhere and everywhere that we can get a dialog going.
Maybe part of the $350,000 could be used to better inform the public about what is really happening at City Hall.
Refresh my memory – what was the racist email?
Did Cindy really can Burnett? You never can really fire anyone anymore, can you? Not unless they steal or something….
I don’t think that Cindy is doing the distancing that she should but since she has labor on her side, she doesn’t need to.
SJ Downtowner-
You don’t even get fired for stealing anymore – you get sent home on full pay!
OK San Jose, let’s try it on for size:
Mayor Cindy Chavez.
Hmm…it doesn’t seem to fit. It reminds us too much of the ill-fitting, stained suit we no longer want to be seen wearing.
Classic Article! Something that ludicrious at City Hall deserves this article!
Is no one afraid of getting caught at City Hall?
Years ago I worked as a county employee at
Valley Medical & no one could be fired for be-
ing incompetent, only for stealing!!! My, my how things have changed.
At the present it seems impossible to stay
honest in the political arena.
The cops that kicked the s*#@ out of the retired teacher in N’awlins got suspended WITHOUT pay. What is it about California that suspends obviously guilty people WITH pay? Geez. I screwed up, I got caught, and now I get a paid vacation for my trouble. Such a deal!! Remember, the presumption of innocence applies only in the court system.
SJ Downtowner: Did I miss something? You asked about Cindy not canning Burnett. Didn’t Burnett work for Campos?
So, who’s minding the fiscal store?? We have a ten year backlog on fixing potholes, but the BOZOS from S Jay authorize an extra $400k or so just for a PLAN to plant fake trees @ Cloeman & 880.
It’s time for another Boston Tea Party!!!
Elect an ethical and honest Mayor as San Jose’ Political Leader
The cost to San Jose of having electing an unethical career politician Mayor and many questionable staffers is tens/hundreds of millions of tax dollars in unnecessary expenses and the lost of respect for the Mayor’s actions and the many continuing scandals
1 San Jose could save a lot of money by having an ethical Mayor and city government that was fiscally responsible since we would not having to pay for unnecessary lawsuits, legal settlements like Tropicanna – $6 million, investigators to review the Mayor and his staffers actions in directing the city manager & department staff to do questionable contracts ( Cisco / Norcal etc ) – estimated savings – $6-25 million maybe more
2 Reduce Mayor’s staff who have caused many of our problems and violate the city charter in directing city department staff to do questionable / unethical actions – estimated savings $1-3 million
3 If the Mayor / his staff were ethical, we could also
– reduce City Attorney’s staff who work overtime to make up legal excuses / justifications,
– reduce outside lawyers / investigators to defend the city questionable actions
– reduce city department management and staff expenses in meeting and documentation expenses to justify the Mayor’s directed actions and working with the investigators
probably $30-50 million or more during the smelly Gonzales – Guerra administration, who will be remembered for their back room Garbage deal and many smelly scandals –
San Jose’s smelly G administration
Great stuff…really embarrassing! Amazing how things can get to this level.
OK, I’ll play. I was hoping to pass on this weeks Stuff, BUT, The Plastic Prune Trees really got to me.
What the hell, we got 1/2 million dollar Plastic Snakes, Mexican Heritage Corp failing.Signs the size of light rail cars, on building down town, fake trees, theft at the highest of place 18th( floor), Pellier Park, county/city fueding. Be my guests, add your own!
And some Bcrat is concerned about graffitti, & skate boards,
Got any fake Illigal plastic Prune Pickers in that box of stupid ideas.
What concerns me at time such as this is that I see many blogs that resemble a bunch of folks standing away from the issues, throwing rocks, and their disquised as well.
So what’s the point OH Exalted Ones. Are you comming in to the ring hooking and jabbing or staying out in the booing crowd.
Today the Gods spoke , and spoke loudly. I tried to fanthom the significance of such a storming message, thunder lightning, wind and rain! Oh, that’s right, the TajGonzal was being blessed by the children today! Why not, they’re going to pay for it!
There can be no other explanation but to understand that The curse of Queztalcoatl is upon us. How else can you explane Toney Santana Row, Dot com/ Dot gon, Norcal garbage, Cisco phones, GI Forum, Gonzo/Guerra, R2 D2 Pavilion @ San Jose .
Quetzalcoatl had a need for frequent human sacrefice, according to the Vatican. By all indications (nameless bloggers) there will be several taking place soon!!!!
This deity of wind, fire and light must be appeased, before it’s too late. This deity distroyed the world at the end of the 2nd mythological era.
Hey! Dad, are we there yet?
The Village Black Smith/ Gil Hernandez
JohnMichael – #8 Insider posted that Cindy got rid of Burnett and Campos picked her up…
I wasn’t sure if I remembered hearing that before so I wanted some more info.
There have been so many “scandalous” things going on in the current administration that it probably didn’t get any notice
Pandori for Mayor! He called the council the worst in SJ history!
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SJ Downtowner #24—Thanks for the 4-1-1 on the thief.