This scandal doesn’t involve Ron Gonzales or Joe Guerra. There’s no IT director or cost overruns or grand jury or even a garbage company in the story. It’s hard to imagine, but yes it happened in San Jose.
Last Sunday’s lead front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle (link) by veteran political reporter Carla Marinucci tells us more about how Governor Schwarzenegger filled a fake pothole in the Capitol of Silicon Valley a few months ago.
Okay, it may never rise to the level where we’ll refer to it as Pothole-gate, but any story involving a governor wearing white pants and using a “really nice shovel” is worth a read.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Yet it doesn’t appear that any expenses were paid by the governor’s campaign committee. Instead, the cost was underwritten by the nonprofit committee, which doesn’t have to report its contributors and which has helped pay for many of the governor’s campaign events. In addition, the city of San Jose—which involved 31 city employees in the event at one time or another—lumped in its expenses with its daily operating budget. “
And more:
“A tally sheet showed that the hourlong appearance by the governor involved the time of 31 San Jose city staffers—laborers, officials and administrators—who clocked a total of 68 hours discussing, planning and preparing the work to be done on Laguna Seca Way.
“Among them, a city memo notes: ‘One of our pavement staff will be giving the governor a lesson on how to operate the equipment.’
“In addition, there were materials needed: a dump truck, flatbed truck, three-axle dump truck, trailer-paving machine, tandem-axle trailer, rented Bobcat, oil-path truck, tool truck and grinder, and a ton of asphalt. The bill was not broken out, city officials said, because these materials are used for regular road repairs anyway.”
Finally, there’s a reference to my favorite late night show:
“Isn’t personally filling a pothole beneath the governor?’’ sniffed Samantha Bee of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,’’ which recently aired a spoof on the event. “We’re talking about the star of ‘Jingle All the Way’ and ‘Kindergarten Cop.’
“A stunt like that might work for ... Gray Davis,’’ she sniffed, “but not the Terminator.’’
Note: I’m managing the Westly for Governor campaign. I promise that if Steve Westly fills any fake potholes, he will absolutely not do it while wearing white pants.
I live on the street. There was no problem before Arnold arrived.
I voted for him in the recall but count me out now. This clown has to go. Too much Hollywood. Not enough reality.
The only news fit to watch.
San Jose “fake” pothole makes “fake” news show. How appropriate. Great supporting role by Phillip Bump.
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/samantha_bee/index.jhtml
Hey Jude (catchy)
You’re foolish to assume Gonzales and Guerra were not involved. They have fingerprints on all the city hall snafus.
Hello Grand Jury …
31 city employees, 68 hours, 1 pothole—not bad for government work.
What no payjob Cops for that whinning little snot at the Mercury News to write about…what a shanme!!!!!!
You can make fun of this situation but it points to a serious matter. The Gonzales administration does this type of stuff all the time. It’s on a smaller scale. But it happens. His state of the city speech is one big commercial for him and involves a lot more city staff and resources than Governor Arnold used for filling a pothole. The city hall culture has changed. This never would have happened in the McEnery or Hammer years. It’s a very, very political organization now. Gonzales and his staff don’t make policy decisions. They don’t have any expertise. Ask any department head if they respect any of Gonzales staff. They don’t. From the Chief of Staff down, they are not really bright and don’t understand good government or policy. It’s one big political show. That’s why it was so easy for Governor Arnold to take advantage of this situation.
VOS is right on target. Good government and good public policy are concepts that have been banned by Gonzo and lackey staff. While many would like nothing more than to see this guy and his followers leave as quickly as possible, we are also saddened at what has happened to our city. There was a time when professional staff provided valuable information and critical analysis so the Mayor and City Council could make an informed decision. Now, the Manager and his staff routinely withhold information from the Council, the Mayor and Manager direct staff not so speak at City Council meetings, and the Mayor and his staff believe they are experts at everything and don’t need any professional input to make a decision. It is a sad time in SJ.
In a comment to the Jerry Estruth #8 blog from yesterday from a “Measure J”
He has many of the personality traits of Richard “ Tricky Dick “ Nixon and will be remembered as San Jose’s “Richard Nixon” for his many personal and city scandals not for the good projects and policies he brought to San Jose.
Political ambition makes potentially good people do questionable and bad things and then lie about what they did in an effort to coverup as they consistently compromise their values to further their political careers.
So “Measure J” is talking about Gonzales, but if we substitute the word California for San Jose, we could be talking about Arnold. Right?
“We need a message.” Howard Dean 8/7/2005
Hey Jude – I think Unkie Howard needs your help too.
So many losers – what will you do? What will you do?
The Next Scandal: His “honor” pressured City staff and the Council to unnecessarily give the police union a pay increase prior to his re-election. Once the binding arbitration on this increase is completed, all of the other public employee unions will rebel. It is expected that the arbitrator will give the police union the increase, triggering more demands for higher wages by other unions. Gonzo is costing us millions!!
Going back to Jude’s latest San Jose scandal involving the Governator filling a pothole that was never there in the first place:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/07/MNG9TE4DOF1.DTL&hw=san+jose+pothole&sn=001&sc=1000
I am surprised there has not been a formal investigation
by the State AG on whether or not the committee responsible for staging this political stunt was ever registered as a political committee. If handled correctly with the proper results it could put Bill Lockyear in a position to make a run for Governor.
Better still, where is the write-in campaign for concerned citizens to write to Lockyear to investigate who knew what and when?
While I support the Governator’s reform initiatives and will vote to approve some of them in November, I find myself more relieved I voted for the Green Party candidate in the reform election and not the Governator. This incident is another example on why one should never elect ex-actors to represent us in government.
Shovel-gate? Formal investigation?
What did the city pothole inspector know and when did he know it?
Yep, rest assured, you guys got it all over those red-state morons.
I have just left my goat cart from the small village of Santa Clara and walked into the cooling mist of Byzantium on East Santa Clara Street, known as City Hall. To be frank, I am quite impressed with the sincere desire of the Mayor and City Council, to really make this building the true captial of San Jose. They did a marvelous job in capturing the pride of the city, and they did make a very honest and very earnest attempt to give the building character.
May only honest councillors of the city inhabit the glass and steel of the city hall, for I believe it is a monument to civic transperancy. At least Howard Roark would agree the building is true to its architecture. Now for the blogging members of the Banner and the Wynands of San Jose, will they so enjoy it as well. I am sure many employees have found Washington Square to retreat to at the noon hour.
There is nothing wrong in political manuvering with respect to elections and working to favor one faction or another with respect to electioneering. But there is a thin line between electioneering and governing. Jockeying one photo opportunity over another with regards to relays and speeches is part of the game, but using city staff, arranging commission appointments of people without much qualification for a mayoral campaign is a poor mission for people in a city of missions.
I predict the next great San Jose scandal will involve VTA in regards to the (beloved) BART extension down here.
Specifically, according to the feds back in February, the extension’s cost is currently $6.2 BILLION, not the $4.1/4.2 Billion claimed by VTA/City of San Jose/SVLG. Their figure is based on a 2003 estimate which is obviously no good in the middle of 2005.
Want proof? Here is the link from the February 9 edition of the Chron:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/09/BAGS3B86ET1.DTL
That Congressman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) had to insert language in the federal transportation bill at the last minute that waived BART to San Jose from federal cost-effectiveness requirements serves as a warning. He knew the project is currently nearly double it’s original estimated cost of $3.7 billion from the 2000 Measure A “BART Tax.” That the feds twice refused to touch the project and ranked it dead last amongst 27 other transit projects in the nation is telling how much of a boondoggle it is.
The triumvirate of VTA/Ron Gonzales/Carl Guardino always claim thru their (flawed) polls that 70% of the people voted tto have BART here and that they are willing to sacrifice other projects just to have it here. I doubt any of those who answered even know about BART’s long history of cost overruns and exaggerated ridership. Perfect example is the extension to SFO. Originally billed at $600 million in 1996, its final cost turned out to be $1.5 BILLION. Ridership is under half of what was predicted, and things are to the point that BART wants to skip stations from Daly City and have direct service to SFO and Millbrae since SamTrans cannot afford the $10+ million payments to run the extension.
This is one of the prime reasons why VTA/Ron Gonzales, and the Silicon Valley Leadership group are pushing for yet another 1/2-cent or 1/4-cent transportation sales tax for the November 2006 ballot. They know the 1/2-cent sales tax effective 4/1/2006 won’t be enough to pay for it all. They already know about BART to San Jose’s cost overruns. If the public ever knew what was really going on with the extension, and the deception behind it, lots of heads at VTA, City of San Jose, and the SVLG would rol…
I know someone on Arnold’s staff. This person worked closely with him promoting his movies and was hired on—with a significant paycut—by his administration after much arm-twisting. This person doesn’t share his political views and has stated that if he runs for re-election, he’ll be receiving a resignation letter as the circus he’s running has become too much to stomach, and the film industry pays much better than the state does anyway. Considering the very close relationship these two have enjoyed over the years, this speaks volumes about the job he’s doing and what’s really going on in Sacramento.
Blogger jazz fans:
With all this well-deserved criticism of HizRonner, we must be sure to boycott “TheMayor’s Circle” at this wekends Jazz Festival.
JohnMichael O’Connor
Hey Jude,
Someone is lying.
“Actually, the Laguna Seca Way project the article referred to was a legit city project, and the “pothole” was actually a 10-by-15-foot stretch of road that was being worked on.”
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.10.05/fly-0532.html
But why should the journalissimos at the Merc or the Chronicle let facts that don’t square with their agenda spike a good “story”?
Viva la “Fake but accurate”!!
Jude, Tom:
There is a serious problem with your site that should be corrected.
If someone—like me—starts in with a comment on the blog and forgets to type in his/her name, a box pops up after you hit submit that says a user name is required. When you hit “back” it goes back allright, but it eliminates what you have so laboriously typed; i.e. your content is gone.
Someone needs to re-write9or patch) the software so your comment remains while you type in your name,.
Thanks.
John Michael O’Connor
How about people sticking to the real issues in the state govt and not wasting time talking about potholes? Did anyone catch the editorial of how Arnold has made significant improvement to the horrendous workers comp costs? He has made some mistakes but also has cut through a lot of the bull@#$%
The papers are constantly full of the good and the bad about Arnold. It’s just that he has so much more of the bad to offer us that what little good he has done pales by comparison. The sooner he is gone the better our state will be.
Editorial?
About Arnold cutting worker comp costs?
That’s a good thing right? And it was in the paper?
That in itself is a shocking turn of events.