By Guest Blogger Les White
I have been thinking about the current state of city government in San Jose. While I have not been close to the activities other than to talk to a few “insiders” and to follow media coverage, I have read and heard enough that it has caused me to reflect on the past and what worked for me while I was City Manager of San Jose in the post-Measure J era some dozen or so years ago.
As one would expect, I was never a fan of Measure J which diluted the power of the manager and put it in the mayor’s hands. I worked in the City from 1984 to 1995 during the transition from a Council-Manager form to the Measure J hybrid of a stronger mayor, a weaker manager and a diffusion of authority among several Council appointees. Despite my personal feelings with respect to this “new” governance structure we (the Mayor, Council, City Manager, and other Council appointees) made it work and for the most part it worked quite well.
First, we made it work because we understood that at the core of any organization’s values is integrity. With virtually no exceptions we had a very ethical group of top elected and appointed officials. While I may have disagreed, at times, with Tom McEnery and his staff and Susan Hammer and her staff I always found them honest and forthright. While Tom and Susan had agendas that they advocated for the City, I was always free to disagree and to take independent stands on City issues which I did and felt comfortable in so doing..
Second, while individual Council members and staff from the Mayor’s office might push to influence an administrative matter on occasion, it was rare—-as it should always be! I knew and the Mayor and Council accepted that the City Manager ran the day to day operations of the City. It was also very clear that the City Manager was accountable for the successes, failures, omissions, and related actions of department heads and other immediate staff reporting to him. City managers throughout the local government profession understand that what he or she knows or doesn’t know in no way diminishes his or her accountability for the actions of the organization. This is a core value of any first-rate organization.
So, in those “good old days”, there was a high level of ethics among city leaders, a deep regard and sense of “caring” about the City, strong accountability of the City Manager to the Mayor and Council, and still a relatively clear separation of administrative and policy roles so that one knew who to hold accountable and for what.
The current situation has a tone and “feel” that some of these important ethical and administrative cornerstones of local government have temporarily lapsed—-I hope and trust that I am wrong about that, but I doubt it. It looks like an organization in need of restoration of high ethical conduct, openness to taking responsibility for one’s actions and thereby being more accountable to the public for open, honest and forthright governance in the City.
Les White
Former city manager of San Jose
Editor’s Note: Les White served as assistant city manager from 1984-1989, and then as manager. He was singularly responsible for rescuing the city from the shameful bond loss of 1984. He is currently a consultant to local government.
My oh my how things have changed!
Les White is demonstrating something that’s missing from city hall these days. That’s real leadership. Integrity is part of leadership.
Everyone can see that Gonzales is served by a weak city manager and weak staff. But he can’t see it or is afraid to make changes.
Good leaders need to understand what they’re not good at and then hire people who are good. Gonzales doesn’t appear to be good at many things. So it’s really important that he hire top notch talent. It’s time to get rid of Borgsdorf and Guerra so a weak mayor can get some strong help.
Les White was an excellent city manager not just because of the experience he brought to the job, and not just because of his sound intellect and impeccable values, but also because he had fortitude. Les always confronted political bullying, particularly if it threatened to lead his city down the wrong path. Les also stood by his management team, and his staff felt safe to do the right thing because of it. Too bad Gonzo hasn’t had a Les White to keep him in line. Even more sad is the fact that the direction of politics in San Jose will likely keep professionals like Les White from applying for the city manager position when the job soon becomes vacant.
I hate to admit it, because Les has some very legitimate points and has contributed well to the discussion on SJI, but I think these issues are mute. As bad as things are in this administration, Gonzales will just stall this thing out, until his term is up, and just go back to being a low -to – mid level bureaucrat at some company he has tried to court like EBay, Norcal, or Cisco…
“With virtually no exceptions we had a very ethical group of top elected and appointed officials. “
How sad that such a sentence describing San Jose’s leadership must be read in the past tense.
How refreshing to hear from Les. We are so far removed from having a Les White in SJ that it is shameful. Anyone who voted once for Gonzo is partially responsible for this debacle. Anybody who voted twice for Gonzo should apologize to the rest of for what you have allowed to happen to our city.
JNAT – Gonzo knows full well he has a weak City Manager. That’s exactly what he wanted and the gutless Council gave it to him. If he wanted a leader, and one who had local roots and an institutional memory, he would have hired Deb Figone. Instead, he hired an out-of-towner with no connection to SJ and loyalty only to the Mayor and look at the mess we have now.
Maybe Les will come back to SJ and clean house.
“So, in those “good old days”, there was a high level of ethics among city leaders, a deep regard and sense of “caring” about the City…”
—Les White
Mr. White’s ability to look back upon those “good old days” as a time of high ethics and deep caring about the city is made possible by his—and his generation of government professionals’—particular values and beliefs. Those beliefs deserve, as do all systems capable of making a wrong seem right, careful and objective examination.
Fifty some odd years ago, the civic leaders the South were also convinced of their particular values and beliefs. They believed in the segregation of the races. These people were not ogres; they were for the most part law-abiding people raised and educated to believe that in the granting of rights and privileges, race must be considered. They were, in applying their values and beliefs, willing to inflict a great deal of pain and suffering on innocent black people. And for that, history has rightly condemned them.
There is little doubt that history will someday bring down its gavel of condemnation on the values and beliefs of Mr. White’s administration, for crimes not at all dissimilar to those committed in the Deep South. For, just as did the segregationists we now condemn, City Manager White believed that in the granting of rights and privileges, race should be considered. Under Mr. White’s administration, innocent city employees, almost all of them white men, were denied the jobs and promotions they rightly earned, simply for the crime of not belonging to one of the Protected Classes of his belief system. You see, in Mr. White’s mind, it was perfectly ethical to inflict harm on an individual for his version of the the community good.
The sight of stunned and injured young men, many of them the sons of the working class, writhing in agony on the cold hard floor of affirmative action moved Les White’s administration no more than did resentful and defeated black faces impact those cold-hearted segregationists of the Jim Crow South. Such is the conscience-cleansing, blinding power inherent in the unexamined value system.
Unlike those who practiced discrimination in old Dixie, Les White’s particular brand of ethics emerged after the Civil Rights Act—after the nation had spoken, after the entire country had been put on notice regarding the use of race in granting rights and privileges. In that regard, his was the more frightening incarnation, for his had the brand of progressivism, the good seal of social justice, the blessing of the enlightened.
Les White went ahead and employed racial discrimination because it was as politically popular with his crowd as segregation had been in Bull Connor’s powerful circle. And in doing so, what he demonstrated in this matter wasn’t ethics at a “high level.” it was, at best, numbskull social engineering, at worst, strong-arm politics. Whatever it was, it was inexcusable, weak, and immoral.
And so was the community that tolerated it.
One of the lingering mysteries in city hall is why the Parkland Trust Fund is in such bad shape. The Parkland Trust Fund receives the funds from developers who pay in lieu fees when they refuse to develop appropriate parks (3 acres per 1,000 new residents) on new developments.
So far as I know, the first payments began in 1988, and millions of dollars have passed through this fund.
Today the Parkland Trust Fund is a real accounting nightmare. The parks department director promised a complete report on its historical holdings and payments in February, and promised to have it ready by mid-August. Now the date of giving the public this information has been pushed out to December.
Please, Mr. White, share with us what you know about the Parkland Trust Fund if it existed during your administration between 1988 and 1995. Thank you very much.
Has Les White thought about running for mayor?
finfan….. put your name on your comments. Les White did.
God Grief! In the 43 years I’ve lived here, finfan’s history re-write is the most duplicitous yet.
And yes, put your name on your comments as Mr.White did.
Why do those who offer no contradictions believe they have the right to make demands?
Finfan – When you provide something factual maybe there will be some contradictions.
So how did it come to pass that we live in a place:
– where illegal aliens pay in-state college tuition rates and US citizens from other states pay out of state tuition?
– where until very, very recently race trumped achievement on college admissions?
– etc ad nauseum
What’s your take on how we got here Carl and Kathleen? Is this institutionalized racism ok in your book?
To finfan: you’ve got to be kidding! Are your racial rants an argument to support Gonzo’s style of government? You seem to believe that past Mayor’s and City Councils, and their many achievements, were produced by unfair hiring practices! San Jose’s local government enjoyed an exceptional reputation for decades before Gonzo. Your support of the current “strong” Mayor is laughable…
Novice: Please set up a San Jose “State” Inside blog. You’re mudding the waters….
Les White was a great City Manager and he always performed his job with integrity.
Look at the non-existent leadership that San Jose has now. Del Borgsdorf leaves his staff hanging out to dry. He has no loyalty to anyone except himself.
Look at Borgsdorf and then contrast him with Les White and Deb Figone. Terry Roberts and Ed Shikada vs. Darryl Dearborne as Deputy City Managers. Katy Allen as opposed to Ralph Qualls and Rajeev Batra leading the Public Works Department. The list goes on and on.
This administration is composed of hacks who care nothing about San Jose. They are rejects from lesser cities whose main qualification is their ability to obey orders without question.
The saddest thing about the new regime is not only are they lacking in integrity, they lack competence to even perform their jobs.
Couple that with the fact that most of them are not even from this County or even Northern California. This was a recipe for disaster.
How many years will it take to recover from the brain drain of all the competent staffers who left San Jose employment during the Gonzo years? We’ve lost so many talented professionals and we’ve replaced them with pod people.
Dr. No-
While I agree that San Jose should have a competent City Manager, an absolute requirement for the job is the ability to build consensus and work with the Mayor, council, staff and community. While Les White did this quite effectively Deb Figone, who should have been a shoo-in, was likely rejected for exactly these reasons. While she is a competent administrator, many felt that her abrasive style and “my way or else” style of management worked to her detriment. Frankly I can’t blame any mayor, under Measure J, for not wanting these qualities in a City Manager.
Perhaps that’s why she has moved over to a small town like Los Gatos, where the biggest issue is repaving a few downtown streets and the part-time City Council is happy to let the manager and staff make many of the important decisions.
Like it or not, San Jose’s Measure J creates a strong Mayor form of government. A strong-willed City Manager would be a bad fit. What is needed is a smart, creative and impeccably honest administrator who can oversee the administrative function of government and work with the elected officials while providing checks and balances along with oversight.
Hey Grunt,
Sorry I’m not more familiar with everyone on the payroll at CH, but are you saying Darryl Dearborne is a good guy or a bad guy?
If this is the guy I’m thinking you mean, he sold his place in the Rosegarden several years ago and used the potential for a lot split as a selling point. This guy was thinking only of himself and not the neighborhood, and as a result of his sales pitch, there was indeed an attempt to split the lot and put a monster home on a postage stamp lot. Darryl is nobody I’d want managing my city, at the deputy level or otherwise.
And Finfan, you just keep posting here under whatever name you please because your input is some of the best and most insightful stuff this blog receives.
For “Non in the Union”
That you and others question the existence of a race-based hiring and promotion policy before, during, and after the Les White era proves my contention that the liberals’ brand of discrimination is a far more dangerous type than was the blatant racism under Jim Crow. No one, not a single adult citizen living in the segregationist South, was unaware of the racism practiced by the government. But here, where the city government prides itself on its openness and the newspaper has no interest in the rights of white males, the citizens remain largely ignorant of the dirty little business that occurs every time a hiring or promotional list is set upon by the diversity-crazed bureaucrats. Those in power can literally do anything necessary to appease the local power brokers.
I would be extrememly surprised if there exists even a single fire or police promotional list during the last three decades that did not reveal the unmistakeable, hurtful footprints of anti-white bias. Talented, accomplished men with unblemished records bypassed in mass for those less qualified, the mediocre, and even the malcontent, all under the banner of what liberals call justice. If you doubt me, check the personnel records or, easier still, check with the public safety labor leaders. They can probably recite for you discrimination’s victims, by name, rank, and serial number.
Those of you who honor, or see no harm, in allowing the government to define, protect, and elevate according to its favored race or gender need to brush up on your history and reexamine your value system.
Mr. T – Don’t know who you are talking about, but you’ve got the wrong guy. Darrell was, and is, definitely one of the good guys. That’s why he’s gone. Most of the good guys have left because they couldn’t compromise their integrity to work in this city anymore.
Hey No. 20,
For our information, Darrell Dearborn was a talented, dedicated, and highly ethical professional administrator, and I am apalled at your audacity to cite falsehoods as facts. Why, you don’t even know how to spell his name correctly. Shame on you.
On, by the way, he lived in Willow Glen on a single family lot.
Right on, Aline!!
Mr. Dearborn, and many City Hall executives and managers were the best in the businees during Susan Hammer’s time. Gonzo and his personal “City Manager” have tarnished the reputation of what was at one time an ethical and highly professional organization.
Finfan,
If your latest rants are so accurate; take a look at the make up of the city employees leadership, the police leadership, and the fire department leadership. Its a collection of stupid white men!
Those posts are all controlled and run my idiots. And most of them are white males.
Yeah, he moved to Willow Glen after selling his Rosegarden property using the lot split pitch—so don’t be accusing me of making false statements. I have been good friends with his former next door neighbors, who led the fight against the lot split attempt by the new owners, for over 40 years. He also used his inside track at CH to get the last of the remaining poplar trees from the turn-of-the-century “Poplar City” development removed from his parking strip and added insult to injury by not replacing them with anything. This lot splitting/monster home issue ought to be near and dear to Willow Glen residents so what’s the deal? This guy’s nose-thumbing at his former neighborhood is acceptable?
I am glad to hear, however that he was one of the good guys at CH. Too bad he didn’t exercise that same level of ethics when he sold his Rosegarden property.
Sorry to mess with your altar boy image, Al & Al. Things aren’t always what they seem.
“Mr. Dearborn, and many City Hall executives and managers were the best in the businees during Susan Hammer’s time.”
Then why is this city such a pathetic joke?!
They must of laid really impressive groundwork; yeah right!
Mr T – What you allege may have happened but you’ve still attached the actions to the wrong guy. Nice try, though.
F. Dearborn – You show quite a lack of understanding just what a good job this Mayor has done of dismantling what was once a well run city. The groundwork is only as good as the current custodian and he has seen fit to destroy any groundwork that was put in place by anyone other than himself. The good work of many people has been tossed on the wreckage heap that this Mayor has so expertly constructed.
I will stand corrected when someone from Mr. D’s fan base can actually provide solid proof that I am referring to the wrong guy.
Just a thought, but shouldn’t the burden of proof be on the accuser?
First off, this is ridiculously out of hand and I would think that living a stone’s throw from this guy and knowing he worked for the City should be enough to match things up. His kids were way younger than I was so there was no socializing, or maybe I could provide intimate details for the skeptics.
Everybody has a skeleton or two in their closet and this guy is no exception. His tactics were a slap in the face to the neighborhood, and especially to his immediate neighbors who were on completely friendly terms.
This is the last entry on this thread I’m going to make on this subject. Everyone is entitled to express his or her opinion. That’s why this blog was created in the first place.
I apologize for being so misinformed and bringing such a petty issue to the attention of the whole world.
Mark T.
Having lived in that house and on that block twenty-five years, and knowing Darrell Dearborn for sixty years, your postings have the tone of someone more inclined to whine and rant than expend effort to understand the truth or be concerned about their credibility. Apology accepted.
And your real name… neighbor?
David Dearborn
Sincere apologies to Darryl
Number 33, you are stooping pretty low by attaching my name to your personal opinion. Get a spine implant and start identifying yourself.
Regarding the comments in #17, the writer must not be talking about the Deb Figone that I, hundreds of city employees, council members, and former mayors know. The real Deb Figone is renowned for her consensus-building, creativity and problem-solving in presenting alternatives, empowerment of staff, integrity and respect for others. I am confident that I could find many, many others who agree with my comments. On the other hand, I think the writer of #17 would be hard pressed to find many others who agree with his (?) comments. The reason #17 gave for Deb not being selected for the city manager job is far from the truth.
So, how do we repair all the damage done by The Gonzo/Guerra/Borgsdorf axis of evil?
We have three declared mayoral candidates. Cortese posted his melancholy musings about San Jose, and then apparently didn’t check for comments for weeks.
Reed posted, got even more comments, but still hasn’t got back to us.
Chavez hasn’t bothered with us at all.
How will we know what these people stand for? Only when we get the carefully crafted expensive hit pieces. I’d like to see all three candidates on this blog with extensive postings of how they intend to reverse (except for Cindy, who’ll just ask Phaedra what to do on any issue) the Gonzo era.
Obviously a certain individual that posted a previous comment has had little interaction with the Town of Los Gatos. Running any type of organization requires a strong leader that values the input of his or her employees and superiors—otherwise the organization is likely to fall apart. I was in Los Gatos last evening and can report that it is, in fact, still standing. Whether it is re-paving a road or any other seemingly “simple task,” when the needs and wants of numerous businesses and citizens are factored into the equation, these tasks are no longer so simple. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not follow politics like many of my fellow CaIifornians, but I encourage us all to think about the day-to-day issues that our leaders are faced with—and all of the different factors of the equation. Only then can we make judgements about the efficiency, leadership styles, and the importance of our public officials’ roles.
Having worked for the City over 25 years, I can speak with certainty that Deb Figone stands out as the best City Manager (even if she was only “acting” ) that I have worked with. She came up through the ranks and understood city employees and the residents that they serve. She has integrity and worked with everyone to come to a consensus. Yes she has a mind of her own because she wants to do what was right, that’s why Gonzo didn’t want her…she was not a “yes” person.
I am surprised with San Jose and the Stated facing a ridiculous and costly special election, many of you have time to complain about a person who served San Jose well. Darrell was committed to the growth of San Jose and dedicated many years toward improving our city. Shame on you for focusing on Mr. Dearborn when we are faced with a incompetent president, our children dying in Iraq, and damage from Katrina. Get a Life.