The information you are about to read is X rated, and not conducive to or for impressionable youth.
The current City Council has spent the City of Santa Clara into a hell hole. An abyss so deep residents may not recover in this decade.
In an attempt to deflect details on the deficit, the City Manager issued a community letter pointing fingers and fledgling figures at the SF 49ers as the cause and culprit of concern.
Folks…the City Manager’s letter is a folk tale of fabrication.
The letter, no doubt prepared by the highly, City paid PR firm, Singer Associates, was designed to deflect the damage done by this Council.
Santa Clara is broke, and it is this Council majority that has done it.
When former City Manager Julio Fuentes was forced out by the current Mayor and Council, he left the City with more than a $50 million emergency reserve.
This Council has burned through that money and is on track for a combined $34 million deficit in the next two years.
Current City Manager Deanna Santana was hired on board with a pay and benefits package that would make a Rockefeller blush.
Forgetting the guidelines of practical prudence, the Council’s offer made to Ms. Santana defied gravity.
Santana’s package tops $700,000, catapulting her into the second highest compensated City Manager in California, and the city manager with the top base salary — out of 482 municipalities.
Most unusual for a city the size of Santa Clara, and most unusual period!
This amount of money rings a bell. Similar to the one in Bell California where reprehensible and nefarious activities by city authorities created numerous indictments.
Using her own pay scale as a guideline, Santana replaced Santa Clara’s one Assistant City Manager with three Assistant City Managers.
All three of these managers are at the peak of the pay scale topping $300,000 each.
At last count, there are over half a dozen members of the City Manager’s office receiving over $200,000 a year.
Ahh, how easy it is to spend money…especially when it is not your own.
So, this leads to the blatant and erroneous accusation by the City: basically, “the SF 49ers have not paid their bills to the City and is the cause of the City’s shortfall.”
According to the Stadium Authority 2020-2021 budget, the 49ers earned $68 million for the Stadium Authority last year. They have paid the City. Even according to City Attorney Brian Doyle, the 49ers have also paid the $1.1 million of contested expense.
According to the 49ers, these funds are sitting in the Stadium Authority’s account and can’t be transferred to the general fund. Is this a political shell game?
Santa Clara City Council is costing citizens a caboodle and someone is going to pay.