There are some at City Hall that seem to think that not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth. Such fine distinctions seem to be very much in vogue these days - from top management to the Council Chambers - from Cisco to Norcal to the Coyote Valley, there is much sophistry. Special investigators and grand juries and DA’s are now the staple of almost every story out of City Hall.
The Mayor and Council continue to reel and react. They delay, attack the charges, and rely on the basic prosperity and positive attitudes of San Jose’s citizens to save the day. How do you explain the justification of such positions coming out of the highest officials in the city? It is a desperate situation when you consider the budget and election issues that are now on the agenda.
The current situation where city employees only say “yes” is dangerous and has added to the crisis; they are belatedly beginning to learn this long known fact. And, as for the city manager and city attorney, they are ultimately responsible to the citizens of San Jose, not the mayor and council. This is a fact for them to reflect upon.
But it is the Council members who have primary responsibility in this situation and they should know the proper course for our city. At long last, it is time for them to forget their narrow political agendas and thin rationales. Honesty is the only salvation in the midst of this darkening crisis. Fairness must be observed but in such critical times we only have time for the truth. The citizens of San Jose must know where the City Council stands – or if they can stand at all.
It certainly doesn’t seem that the coucil has the backbone to do anything. These problems have been going on for a long time now and no one has really stepped forward. Where is the business ommunity and the leaders, non elected, in this city. We have problems that need attention. This north San Jose idea is terrible for everyone not just Santa Clara and Milpitas. There is plenty of room in the real downtown for all of the businesses that need expanding or start ups.
A re-post from the garbage-gate blog:
“Let’s start blogging on the ideal quallities of the next Mayor, including our own short list of favorites for the job.”
It’s not just the mayor – it’s the council members as well. As the NAACP has pointed out: we are not a strong mayor form of government. The council members have a lot of influence, especially in this time of ‘mini-mayors’
As a city, we have to wake up and realize that while the council members represent a district, their actions affect the entire city.
I agree with New Blood: “Maybe we should start a posting about who’s throwing their hat in and how it might be possible to instigate some real change!”
We must avoid tunnel vision and only look at the mayors race – he’s only one vote, its a mjority of council members that can instigate real change. A new mayor with the same type of council means absolutely no change!
“But it is the Council members who have primary responsibility in this situation and they should know the proper course for our city. At long last, it is time for them to forget their narrow political agendas and thin rationales. Honesty is the only salvation in the midst of this darkening crisis. Fairness must be observed but in such critical times we only have time for the truth. The citizens of San Jose must know where the City Council stands – or if they can stand at all.”
We need council people that stand for their own, independent ideas. We need real representatives – not fronts for organized labor.
I must agree with all of the postings here. Clearly,
change is needed (yesterday) at the mayoral as well
as city council level in San Jose.
However, when We the People in San Jose choose _not_ to get involved, nothing changes. Blogging about what a good elected official should be is
needed. At Election Day, it becomes useless when
only half or fewer of the city’s registered voters
bother to vote that day. This is really bad
when the incubent ends up winning the election –
particularly to higher office. Imagine Cindy
Chavez being elected to succeed the termed-out
Ron Gonzales as San Jose Mayor for a moment…
Do what I have done and start asking your
neighbors and friends this simple question:
“What needs to happen for you to get involved
in changing how San Jose is run?” In the end,
We the People cannot allow historians to write
how apathy won on Election Day when some
if not all of the incumbents on City Council
retained their seats.
Eugene Bradley
Founder, Santa Clara VTA Riders Union
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/
Lying and cheating and deceit’s in fashion, folks. What other than a pack of lies has been used to condone George Bush’s homicidal flimflammery in Iraq? What other than conspiratorial deceit allowed Ken Lay to bilk his stockholders, employees and the public? What strange set of mores allows an evangelical preacher to pilfer money from collection plates to pay for romps with whores, or motivates a priest to sexually abuse young boys? What strange and deceitful mindset caused the closet-gay mayor of Spokane to turn homophobic? Just how shocked can any of us truly be when Gonzo tries to kick sand over the mounds of manure he’s left behind? Ain’t that the American way?
I could not agree more. The pols have shunned the truth and those who seek to reveal it. Let every one not forget the former vice-mayor/councilwoman Dando (who quietly slipped out of town to run some other high paid public trough job) since she voted in favor of most of these disceptive programs. Along with a host of other deceptions perpetrated in her own District 10.
No one is accountable and the media is silent (for the most part).
I would really like to know what deceptions Dando perpetrated in D-10. She was nothing but a loyal representative of her constituents who worked tirelessly to represent them and meet their needs.
I can hardly say the same for Pyle. She may be new, but has done little, if anything, to really address her community’s needs. She is not even fighting to keep a youth center open or strive to ensure that roads paved or pay attention to the little details like potholes, graffiti, etc. that Dando did.
Dando may have voted for the Norcal thing, but did so based on the information presented to her & the other councilmembers at the time that we all now know Ron hid from them.
Lets look at Chavez or Cortese and all the times they decieved their constituents and this city.
Arturo has nailed it. We are all so jaded and numbed, and also overwhelmed by the task of cleaning house from San Jose to Sacramento (and I don’t mean Arnold’s style of housecleaning that is for darn sure) to DC that we throw up our hands and feel there’s nothing we can do to stop the corporate raiding and the corruption in government. This abuse of power thing has gotten way out of control but maybe the likes of jokers from Bush to Gonzo are going to push the electorate over the edge and into action and spark a much needed voter revolt. Think globally, act locally. Let’s start here at home and work our way to DC everybody.
Will BART stop at Elmwood? I may want to visit my city leaders.
There has been an attitude in the city council since at least 1986 that has led us to the position we are in today.
Councilmembers have been more interested in going along and maintaining friendly relations among themselves, being collegial, if you will, than anything else. That attitude has evolved into the mini-mayor debacle we have today, where every councilmember goes along with anything a particular councilmember plans for her/his district (no matter how bad an idea it may be) in exchange for the same treatment for their respective pork barrel issues.
I ran for council in the 1988 election in District 6—basically Willow Glen at that time. It was later gerrymandered a bit to get Ms. Hammer into District 2, but that’s another story.
Sensing that I would not be a “good German” and go along with everything he proposed, Mayor McEnery convinced his good freind Ken Machado to enter the race. Ken was and is a pleasant and intelligent guy, but he clearly had no stomach for the job. His wife Patty would have been a far better candidate. Neither Ken nor I won.
Actually, I was in favor of 85%+ of Tom’s agenda; but since I wouldn’t go along with EVERYTHING in lockstep, I was considered a potential liability if elected. Even then most of the councilmembers had a policy of going along.
The Murky News came to essentially the same conclusion, opining in print that I was perhaps not collegial enough to succeed in the political arena that was the city council in 1988. They were right about one thing—I would not necessarily go along; I would speak my mind and vote my conscience.
Compromise is of course required in any political arena. However, that concept has morphed into collective back scratching by politicians at all levels of government. Politicians have taken over the bureaucrat’s agenda of preserving their respective jobs at ALL costs. Career politicians spend all their time raising money to get re-elected.
The go-along-to-get-along gene has replicated in the council since 1988. Going along to get along is now the number one priority, with few notable exceptions. So what we end up with is a majority of spineless permanent politicians on the council making damn sure they don’t piss of any other councilmember or the mayor. How else explain the extraordinarily long time to kick Terry Gregory off? He should have been bounced in a couple of weeks after it became clear he was a low rent Mayor Daly, the Elder.
“Process” is more important than substance to most politicians and all bureaucrats.
It’s an extension of the political correctness that pervades coastal California, particularly the Bay Area. No-one wants to rock the boat. As a result, no-one governs. As a result of no-one governing on the state level, we have a proliferation of initiatives and referenda on the ballot.
The council as a body is so full of weak spines that they cannot even act on the cheezy little garbagegate scandal. Instead, they’ll debate for weeks—maybe months since they take July off to attend junkets throughout the USA, and indeed the world.
Meanwhile, our streets crumble and services decline.
For example, the records division of SJPD has been so depleted of personnel that it recently took me from February to June to get a simple traffic accident report. You can’t get them at the counter any longer. You have to send a check and a letter and wait four months for the report.
So, the council will spend weeks debating what kind of a second investigation to authorize, when we already have the grand jury report. All that really needs to be done is to determine the approriate sanction for the Gonzales-Guerra moves, if any. We don’t need to divert more money from cops, firefighters, librarians, etc. to pay somebody to re-investigate what the civil grand jury investigated already. But a council majority would never choose that alternitive, since it might step on a toe or two.
My son left San Jose well over a decade ago to move to Oregon, where the state legislature meets only January-May, every OTHER year. They get to work, pass what needs to be passed, and go back to their real jobs. Here what we get is position trading as the response to term limits, so we’re stuck with the same old hacks—for the most part—just in different posts.
So, perhaps like Watergate, a cheezy little nothing scandal may bring down a mayor who wilfully deceived the grand jury, and will spend lots of energy covering up and obfuscating. To mix metaphors, it depends on what the definition of “is” is.
John Michael O’Connor
Mark T:
You’ve got a job ahead of you, buddy.
District 7 had a low rent John Daly, the Elder, who essentially got thrown out and only 7,000 people showed up to vote for his succesor.
There’s a whole lot of apathy out there, but who cares?
John Michael O’Connor
Mal:
Dream on. No-one will do a day over garbagegate.
But we’ll spend six figures on process to re-investigate what the civil grand jury already investigated. And in the end…nothing.
John Michael O’Connor
I’m saddened by Arturo’s observations.
The only effective way to improve San Jose is to change its form of government. We, as San Jose voters, need to sponsor an initiative to (1) convert highly paid and ineffective Councilmembers to part-time, unpaid members of the City Council, (2) allow the Council majority to appoint a Mayor to conduct City Council meetings, and (3) designate the City Manager as the appointed executive to run the business of serving the residents of our great City.
It’s not the downtown buildings, the public places (and palaces) that make us great, it’s the political value of good, clean and responsive government.
We need a ballot measure in June of 2006 to reform, transform, San Jose’s form of government. It’s our duty to regain control of government at all levels. Let’s start here at home….
OhYeah – The City Manager is the appointed executive to run the business of serving the residents of our great City. I just don’t do it—I mean he just doesn’t do the job. He only follows orders from General Lame Duck. If we had a City Manager that did the job as outlined in the City Charter we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today.
If we had a City Council that followed the Charter we would not be in the mess we have today. If Councilmembers acted on what was best for the entire City and not just a portion of their district or a special interest we would not have the mess we have.
It is past time for a change. Previous contributors have listed which Councilmembers will be termed-out or up for re-election. There are good people out there who could do a great job as a Councilmember but they have to step up to the plate and those of us who are so disilluisioned have to support them. If Labor can organize to elect mediocre candidates, certainly the rest of us can organize and get outstanding people elected.
After looking up all the big words, let me see if I understand this. The Gonzales administration is a pack of liars. No duh. The city manager and attorney do what they say. No duh. The city council must change this. Ugggh.
Tom McE writes: “And, as for the city manager and city attorney, they are ultimately responsible to the citizens of San Jose, not the mayor and council. This is a fact for them to reflect upon.”
When is San Jose’s City Manager going to show some strength? All we get out of his office is spin, butt covering and a bunker mentality.
No wonder Gonzales does backroom deals. Who’s going to call him on it? The City Manager? Not likely.
As each new tidbit comes out about Gonzo and his shady dealings, it just makes me thing he is bold and shady because no one will make him ultimately pay for his wrongdoings. He is arrogant that he won’t get caught or he won’t suffer the consequences. Who will change that so that he is accountable?
Downtown Gal, I think DC is setting the example for Gonzo these days.