The actions of the City Council are moving from mysterious to indecipherable. A majority refused to send the Ron Gonzales-backed response on the garbage scandal to the Grand Jury; they opted to wait. This is, of course, the Council who according to the Grand Jury report of early summer was “duped” by Gonzales while he made a side agreement with Norcal, the garbage service provider. Cindy Chavez, Judy Chirco and Nancy Pyle joined the early critics Dave Cortese, Chuck Reed and Linda Lezotte in refusing to rubber stamp the document authored by Gonzales with the city’s Manager and Attorney. Also, the ethically tardy Ken Yeager has refused to sign on to the report while telling confidants that he is fearful of the Gonzales’ reaction to his late blossoming of concern on this issue. Of such stuff is San Jose’s “Profiles in Courage” made.
Yesterday we saw distinctly how the individual Council members treated the Gonzales-authored response when it was given short attention. But on a 10-1 vote they sent Dave Cortese’s pointed memo on to the Grand Jury, emphasizing how clearly they ignored the Gonzales response to death. The responsibility of the Attorney and Manager is sure to be a topic in the future and Lezotte and Cortese made critical comments in that direction. Now all await the work of the independent investigator who was also approved at the same meeting.
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT – AND A RAILROAD TOO.
The opening of the Guadalupe Park last Saturday was an unmitigated success; a day that we could all be proud to be citizens of San Jose. The vision of thousands no longer with us, like the much missed Alden Campen, and many thankfully still with us, like Ron James and the redoubtable Leonard McKay, it was open to an admiring crowd of parkgoers last weekend. Joan Corsiglia, Gloria Duffy, and its Executive Director, Kathy Muller, all deserve heaps of praise. Chris Panoupolos was there, a truly generous man who always believed. David Pandori, the most silent, was mostly responsible for the genesis of the Guadalupe River Park in the eighties. As my assistant and later as a Council member, he nurtured the idea of this great Central Park for our people. The Friends of Guadaupe Park, led by many fine leaders, including Shirley Lewis, were exemplary. Now we all get to enjoy their work and their collective dream.
Just one thing: we failed to get that “damn railroad” to immediately cede the land over for the right-of-way. We had the opportunity when the majority of the Coleman loop land was sold for the Cousins Shopping Center. It was an incredible missed opportunity quite familiar for the current denizens of City Hall – the municipal gang that can’t shoot straight.
Yet no one can deny: it was a glorious day for our city.
The beings that are Gonzdorf are the lamest of lame ducks. Although Gonzo probably will survive enough to stay in office, his days of vindictive rule are over. His days as a public official are also over. He will have to move far, far away from here to ever be able to run for public office again. His trail of slime and destruction will follow him wherever he goes and many of us will be around to warn potential voters of the damage they will bring to their governments if this guy is ever elected again.
As for Borgsdorf, he’s probably got resume’s being printed as we speak. He may be lame but he is not stupid. The only reason he is here is because of Gonzo and a gutless Council. Now that Gonzo is weakened and the Council is finally starting to awaken, his days are numered—too bad it took this many years.
Hey Tom,
Pretty strong stuff you’ve been writing on this blog. But if you really want to make a difference why don’t you write a letter to the Mercury asking Gonzales to resign. That would be real news. Former mayor asks current mayor to resign. You’d probably get on CNN. I like this site, but let’s face it you don’t have the reach or power of the Mercury.
Remember, Jim Cunneen had the guts to ask Terry Gregory to resign. That got the ball rolling. Then, even Big Labor had to abandon him. Talk about Profiles in Courage.
I’d ask you to consider running for mayor again, but you probably got a pretty nice life. So if you won’t do that at least you can help us get rid of the San Jose’s biggest embarassment—Gonzales.
tj
We now need to focus all of our attention and resources to connecting to the Los Gatos Creek trail!
Mayor Tom,
TJ is correct in his assesment of Gonzo’s situation. Ronzales is hanging on for dear life. The Council is frozen in place when it comes to tough decisions about the Mayor and the “City Manager.” Once a community and business leader speak out about this pitiful situation, the press will follow.
The Council will wait for the unions to bail on the Mayor before it acts. We either wait 15 months for term limits to do the job, wait another several weeks for the report to hit the Council, or act now. In all three cases Ron is out, but the harm of not acting now or soon, and letting term limits make the decision, is significant. The public will feel that community leaders can’t tackle tough issues. The typical citizen will assume that none of the current Council has shown any guts. The future Mayor, if it’s a current Council mamber, will be considerd Phase II of the current administration.
Community leaders need to push the Council to act. Tom, you can take it from here….
Here’s a reminder TJ: when Jim Cunneen called for Terry Gregory’s resignation, where did Jim turn to get his message out? It seems to me that maybe, just maybe, it might have been San Jose Inside. A fact you seem to have conveniently forgotten. Maybe this blog has a greater reach than you think.
MJ
Man, MJ, you sure sucked the air out of this conversation…
Well I’m, once again, really confused about the goins-on at City Hall.
This morning I heard some Councilpeople on KLIV saying they were shocked, SHOCKED that Mayor FlimFlam wrote such “drivel” in his response to the Grand Jury. In fact they were so shocked that they voted 9-1 to tell the Grand Jury, in effect, “Uh, we’ll get back to you on this…we’re not quite sure what we think.”
Perhaps there’s a subparagraph in the City Charter that requires this sort of institutional paralysis?
Meanwhile, here’s a tip to Mole and his/her buddies at City Hall: If the place catches fire don’t wait for the Council to call 911.
So, does anyone believe that Gonzales, Doyle or Borgsdorf will get anything beyond a slap on the back of the hand?
I guess the good news is that we won’t soon have ‘da Mayor up in Sacramento representing us in the State Legislature.
Now if only we take care of the mightily ineffective Borgsdorf.
It is almost painful to watch these people on the Council sit back and watch Ronny G take this city down and ruin any good standing the mayor might have with his citizens.
And the MERCURY should be calling for his head on a silver platter if they had any “huevos” at all.
What a gutless council we have. There is no poll to guide them, so they are lost in the wilderness without a compass. They need to spend another $100k of our tax money to have a lawyer from Palo Alto tell them what they should do.
Scott Herhold is partly right—let both Nguyens on the council and vote one of them off the isalnd. They should all be voted off the island.
Even though this is yesterday’s post by Tom, Scott Herhold really nails it with today’s column.
I can’t remember a more spineless bunch of losers on the council than what we have today. We need to get some people elected who actually want to DO something, who want to ACT, not consult and review ad nauseum at the taxpayers’ expense.
These indecisive wimps don’t belong on a panel that is all about making decisions. A serious case of square pegs. Cut the crap and demonstrate some gutsy leadership, people!
Mark T:
Rough draft of a memo found in a City Hall wastebasket:
Dear Mr. T:
We, the City Council, wish to formally acknowledge receipt of your findings that we are “a spineless bunch of losers.”
We also want you to know that we are taking decisive action on your recommendation that we “cut the crap” and “DO something.” We have hired a Special Investigator to look into various crap-cutting strategies and to explore various ways in which “something” might be “done.”
However, until the Investigator issues his report (we estimate that this process will take about three months) we feel that it would be imprudent to take further action at this time. Besides, maybe by then it will all just go away.
The San Jose City Council
Scott Herhold might also want to check with the editorial board to see how many of the councilmembers he complains about were endorsed by the Mercury News.
The Nguyens may be smart but I never read in the Mercury News what either was planning to do to clean up city hall if elected.
Dear San Jose
PLAN A: Tom McEnery calls a press conference and is joined by Cortese and Reed who all call for the resignation of Gonzales.
The citizens of San Jose might actually wake from their slumber and join the chorus.
The corruption would end, and we could take our city back from the political machine that has hijacked it for far too long.
PLAN B: Do nothing, and continue to watch our city’s future be sold to the lowest bidder.
Pete Campbell
Mat Content:
You forgot to put the price tag on The Special Investigator the spineless bunch of wimps (oh, excuse me, the San Jose City Council) put on the study—$100k minimum.
I must modify an earlier opinion I had expressed on another of these blogs regarding putting both Nguyens on the council, as Scott Herhold suggested.
Last night I heard Madison Nguyen on the radio wax effusively about how gratified she was by the greatly increased turnout for the run-off vs. the primary. I actually believed her. Stupid me.
Today I read in The Murky News that the runoff turnout was 8,702 vs. the primary turnout of 7,490—hardly a massive endorsement or a significant increase where I learned math.
So now we have a thirty-something councilperson who already speaks of a mandate where none exists. She learned politico-talk way too quickly. We may still be in big trouble. No, actually, I think it’s a sure thing that we’re still in big trouble. One more person on the council completely divorced from reality.
JMC-
It wasn’t an oversight.
After the $45Million dollar City Hall cost overrun I’ve stopped trusting their numbers.
Mal
I like plan B by post 14 give it to the lowest bidder. Then the lowest bidder will come back and say they need more money and we will find out that Gonzo has promised them more and they end up getting it for the most not the lowest.
Get rid of all these people if none of them have the courage to call for his resignation. This is a joke and the City Manager and Attorney should also go and right now.