A former Santa Clara City Council candidate wants to clear his name.
In the November election, David Kertes challenged incumbent Suds Jain for the District 5 council seat. But Kertes said his involvement in a Florida lawsuit hurt his campaign.
The lawsuit filed in Broward County, Florida stemmed from Kertes’ time with former employer MicroTechnologies. In late November, the company settled the lawsuit for $60,000.
Kertes secured pressure transducer equipment at a discount from vendor Thomas Nguyen, with whom Kertes had a good relationship. Then, the company claimed the equipment was not what it asked for and refused to pay the balance after Kertes left the company.
Then, Kertes said, MicroTechnologies CEO and President Micheal Tucci tried to throw him “under the bus” because “he was mad” that Kertes left the company, alleging that he and Nguyen colluded to dump useless equipment on the company.
“I was just shocked when they said I colluded,” Kertes said. “This is what he does; he tries to get out of stuff … He got $750,000 equipment for $175,000 which is a helluva deal. When you’ve bought equipment, it is yours.”
Although the company simply made an allegation, one it didn’t substantiate, Kertes said he was astonished how much his political opponents latched onto the story. In particular, the 49ers took the perception of wrongdoing and “ran with it,” weaponizing the allegation against him during his campaign.
“The Niners should have just stayed out of it,” Kertes said. “They had nothing on me. They had garbage.”
Kertes isn’t the only politico to have a legal allegation tarnish his reputation. Many members of the public called for the resignation of former Vice Mayor Anthony Becker as soon as he was accused of perjury. Becker’s saga ended with a jury convicting him, but the playbook was similar to the one employed against Kertes.
The experience was “eye-opening,” Kertes said. He said he was unprepared for how much the situation ballooned and how ugly things got. Since he intends to mount another bid for public office, Kertes said he wants to correct the record.
Thank You David Alexander.
I don’t think Kertes is surprised this type of thing happens in politics; he just thought it would only happen to his opponent instead of him.
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Kertes openly takes endorsement and money from the employee union SCPOA. The SCPOA funds hit pieces on Council Members they don’t like, intentionally distributes misleading information, and they overtly tie political opponents to incidents those candidates had nothing to do with.
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In 2026 Gillmor, Hardy, and Chahal will be termed out so we have about 11 months until the community is once again subjected to the slanted and loathsome propaganda the SCPOA usually commissions. We’ll see then if Kertes remembers how it felt and stands against it. Hopefully he will.