Santa Clara officials have to come to an agreement on how to respond to a report about how their disagreements and infighting have hurt the city.
The Santa Clara City Council addressed the recent report from the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury, which lambasted councilmembers for their inability to work together and claimed their spats have undermined city governance. The council has until Sept. 10 to respond to eight findings and nine recommendations directed at the city.
While the city council usually recesses from mid-July to mid-August, City Manager Jovan Grogan said there will likely be special meetings during that recess to meet the response deadline.
Multiple residents said councilmembers should treat the report as a learning opportunity, though some pointed out discussing the report took time away from other important city matters.
“When we look at issues, when we look at ourselves, it’s a learning experience,” former Councilmember Teresa O’Neill said. “You can take something that is not very positive and make it into a positive result if everyone’s committed to saying, ‘How can we all be better at what we’re doing?’”
The report recommends the city establish an independent ethics commission and regular city trainings on government ethics. It also found that city employees achieve a high level of professionalism, and recommended the city conduct a satisfaction survey and commend employees for their service.
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All seven councilmembers had some recommendations directed to them as individuals and each must respond by Aug. 12. The report suggested Councilmembers Anthony Becker, Karen Hardy, Suds Jain, Raj Chahal and Kevin Park attend ethics training.
Hardy said she’s drafting her response, but is concerned that the extra training and special meetings to form a response will eat city resources.
She said the report also worked to show that councilmembers disagreed, but did not provide enough evidence those disagreements affect city services or quality of life for residents.
“Maybe they haven’t read through history and (don’t) know that. Go back to 1776 and the personal squabbles they had over the Declaration of Independence,” Hardy told San José Spotlight. “Personalities got in the way all the time, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get something done.”
During the meeting, all the councilmembers agreed they have considerable disagreements, though discussions on how to respond will come in future meetings. Some councilmembers raised issues with the report cherry picking evidence, such as how it found no bad behavior from Mayor Lisa Gillmor or Councilmember Kathy Watanabe.
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“I wanted to start having community discussions about this. I have them almost daily in our community about the trust, or lack of trust, that our public has in the city council,” Gillmor said. “I’m going to pledge to answer and agree with everything they say.”
Councilmembers also said the report was similar to a 2022 grand jury report on the 49ers’ political influence in the city. Team executives called the jury “stacked” with Gillmor’s political allies, and several councilmembers previously told San José Spotlight they weren’t interviewed for the 2022 report.
“In reality, the grand jury report is a word salad full of inflammatory statements to give the perception of bad behavior while ignoring the rest of it,” Becker said at the meeting. “I will agree, though, to an ethics commission. However, I am very fearful of the weaponization of it, as we have experienced in many other forms.”
The council will discuss its responses to a third grand jury report , which looked into the city’s 2010 Measure J to build Levi’s Stadium, at its next meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Learn how to watch and participate .
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at sakura@sanjosespotlight.com or @SakuCannestra on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The post Santa Clara officials respond to being labeled ‘dysfunctional’ appeared first on San José Spotlight .
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