There is no question that when times are desperate, desperate people do despicable things.
What makes these times desperate? The coronavirus? The stock market? Politics?
Perhaps they all play a role in the current temperature in Santa Clara, and it really is the underlying fear of discovery.
For the past four years, residents have been led by the mother of political voodoo, Mayor Lisa Gillmor.
She and her council majority have led the charge to fire the Convention and Visitors Bureau; audit and defame the Chamber of Commerce; oust a city manager, a city attorney, and a finance director; and defrocked the city clerk’s job to the point he resigned.
This was followed by the council voting to fire the 49ers as managers of the Stadium non-NFL events, which was followed by voting to fire the 49ers as managers of anything, including NFL events.
This story can’t be made up.
She and her council ignored warning letters from the Santa Clara Fire Department to pay back overtime that was due years ago. The court finally ordered the Council to comply and tacked on a nearly million-dollar penalty for delaying so long.
The Mayor and her Council ignored warning letters from the Asian Law Alliance for not having single-member districts as required by the California Voting Rights Act.
Ignoring these warnings cost Santa Clara residents another $4 million in court costs and is still climbing since it’s on appeal.
What has happened in Santa Clara is the kind of thing that usually happens in paperback novels or B-rated movies.
Like a sheriff from the wild west, she has retained hired “guns” to dance to a tune only she knows.
Deanna Santana was offered a financial package that would make Mike Bloomberg blush. The new package pushes $800,000 a year, or about twice that of Washington DC’s City Administrator, who manages a city of 700,000 people with about 5,100 employees and a $15 billion budget, 3 airports, a subway system, 20 museums, 4 major league sports stadiums, a hospital and a public school system.
A former Civil Service attorney, Brian Doyle was acquired to rule on items and issues decided on by the council and stamped with his approval based on his training, experience, background and service or…whatever the Mayor says the decision should be.
His job is to be an impartial and objective officer for the City. However, he recently issued a pro Measure C statement that some say was neither impartial or objective.
You see, if you vote to endorse the court’s decision and say “no” to Measure C, you jeopardize Mayor Gillmor’s strangle hold on councilmembers and lack minority representation.
If Measure C is defeated, it would mean Santa Clara would have six districts and that could lead to a representative council.
And, if that were to happen, all the alleged under-the-table contracts, deals, awards, payments, appointments and salaries could come to light.
This would lead to discovery and the uncovering of what has really happened in Santa Clara.
Measure C going down to defeat means the beginning of unraveling the balls of yarn that have been spun by this Council.
Wouldn’t that be a great step forward on behalf of Santa Clara residents?
