By Robert Haugh
Last night, the Council appointed seven people to a Charter Review Commission. The group will put a charter amendment on the March ballot so Santa Clarans can decide how to create council districts in our city.
As we’ve reported before, last November, 70 percent of Santa Clarans voted and said they should decide if and how districts are created in our city. We prefer that to Judge Thomas Kuhnle’s decision that concluded that Mission City voters are racist.
Here are the appointments:
District 1: Benjamin Cooley
District 2: Steve Silva
District 3: Christine Koltermann
District 4: Kathy Almazol
District 5: Suds Jain (did not attend)
District 6: Steve Ricossa
At Large: Rich Bonito
There were two unusual choices:
Vice Mayor Patty Mahan appointed Jain even though he did not show up for the interview. She had multiple qualified candidates in her district. No one can remember when someone was appointed to a city board or commission who didn’t actually interview. We got texts and emails last night from multiple candidates and people who were unhappy that they took the time to participate and Jain did not.
Councilwoman Karen Hardy appointed Koltermann. She was a controversial Trustee on the Santa Clara Unified School District Board years ago. Koltermann was a considered part of the bloc that included and supported disgraced former school boardmember Chris Stampolis. They drove parents, teachers, and administrators crazy for years. They were considered responsible for a lot of turnover of teachers and staff. In 2013, there was a Change.org petition with over 1,500 signatures supporting a no confidence vote of Koltermann, Stampolis, and others.
But the commission looks good overall despite these unusual choices. They’ll have to put together a charter amendment by the fall for the March, 2020 ballot.
Up until now I thought Hardy was doing an OK job… WOW Koltermann ??? Seriously?? Koltermann is drama and she is part of the reason SCUSD is so screwed up. Why would Hardy pick her?? Talk about poor decision making. Maybe Hardy & Mahan should team up with Stampolis & Koltermann WOW shame on you Karen Hardy. All your future decisions as a council member are in question now.
I would bet everything I own that Becker did not right the comments on districting. Read his diatribe on the Gateway Crossings project, his typical 5th grade droning. Many misspellings, punctuation, and just run ons. Very Stoner like.
These comments are written by somebody with a little better grasp of not only the English language but grammar. One could believe they have a legal background.
PATTY, I think so….
You will be on the streets betting everything you own cause you would be wrong… I don’t need anyone to write my work. I say, Prove it anonymous naysayer ! Haha it’s hilarious
honestly you are all so anal over grammar on here like you are all professional journalists. It’s a a damn blog site lol
Remember, I write lots of this on the fly or by a phone…. not anonymously…this is like Facebook or twitter…. grammar shorthand and not Harvard or Yale term papers 👍🏻📚
And when it’s really good writing someone says “oh he didn’t write it” sounds very trump like mentality when the truth hurts.
It is also always anonymous names writing these comments because most of these people don’t want other people to know how nasty someone can be and expose their dark side. we all know this is the Gillmor spin zone blog.
When they attack this way, you know you hit a nerve
Chill pills are needed for these wise ones who hide behind keyboards
Who really is writing these anonymous comments that’s a good investigation piece !
My dear young man (and I don’t address my remarks to you alone), using good grammar, spelling, and punctuation when writing anything – whether it is a Harvard or Yale term paper or a tweet or a blog entry – is essential. When you write, you want to present yourself in the best possible light, don’t you? I hope that whenever you write in the future, be it “on the fly” or a doctoral thesis or a blog comment, you will always do your best to use good grammar, accurate spelling and correct punctuation. Doing this will serve you well in your lifetime and go far to impress those you wish to have listen to you. Keep writing…
Besides the lack of grammar and punctuation, two completely different vocabularies.
One writes very well and possibly is a attorney just like Patty.
The other writes more like a budtender or Uber driver like duh Becker.
We can’t blame Becker, Patty’s the brains of this outfit.
I am amazed that you even ran for mayor. Do you know anything about the law or the city charter?
Please do all of us a favor and read the charter, better yet try reading a book.
Appalling! Patty Mahan reading an email statement from Suds Jain, clearly her ONLY choice. Must be nice not to have been interviewed. I feel sorry for the Santa Clara residents who gave their precious and valuable time to seek a position serving their community, only to be blasted by Pompous Patty that Suds Jain was the ONLY clear choice. Suds Jain replies to validate Pompous Patty by stating” he has been to more council meetings”, so this is you’re stellar qualification, you are smarter than the other applicants? Arrogant statement!
REALLY! Seems to me that you Mr. Jain are running for elected office in District 5. Is Pompous Patty helping?
The problem with Patty has always been dishonesty.
She lied about getting free tickets from the 49ers.
She lied about being a lobbyist when she left the council.
She lied about wanting to appoint someone to replace Caserta when she didn’t and wasted a lot of people’s time late into the night.
She lied again last night about being open to other candidates when she just wanted to pick Suds Jain.
Patty’s dishonesty is a bloody shame.
This is a waste of taxpayers money to do another ballot measure. The judge spoke and the districts are in place, these districts will adapt after the next census.
This is like ignoring a judges orders and trying to once again form a narrative around individuals agenda. I feel this is to cook up a scheme to eliminate the districts because a select few cannot let go of their power or patriarchy.
Instead we waste taxpayer money (not their own money) to get their way. If we have districts the council will actually be independent and it has been proven time and time again by creating new voices and an outside of the box thinking.
I noticed the city clerk’s rush to get this on the primary ballot which seems very suspicious. It’s almost like they want to get it done before the 2020 Fall Election. I’m thinking this must be the “busy season” for the elected city clerk since council stripped away the duties and responsibilities without a charter amendment. FYI city clerk maybe that is a charter amendment ballot measure you should fast-track…. you know to follow the law and do what you all wanna do to the Police Chief proposal.
I also feel that this is a way to squeeze out two council members (Chahal, Hardy) because they won in districts by small vote tallies.
think of it this way…. when a judge rules like say stopping segregation then the regional governing board decides to have their own election asking if the judge says segregation is ok ? The judges decision should be final not debated.
Yet the city continues to appeal the case on YOUR TAXPAYER DIME, spending more and more becoming most expensive CVRA lawsuit in history beating Palmdale’s record costs. Will the council, mayor, attorney, city manager, city clerk acknowledge this blunder? explain it?
The way this sounds, it really does sound like Santa Clara (government) is racist, not the general population of Santa Clara.
Many say The Weekly/Silicon Valley Voice is bias, yet I notice here the bias is much much larger. Why is there never criticism of the status quo? its always peachy perfect. Sounds more and more like the media machines coming out of Moscow during the Soviet rule. Can you say “Chernobyl” !
Suds Jain is the most qualified candidate that was listed, and he deserved the role. The bias reporting failed to cover the facts or even call to ask Mr. Jain for a quote. The city council often decides to hear something on a whim or when it is convenient for them. So Suds had previous engagements but was an overall qualified applicant. This is a petty attempt at making Mr. Jain look bad. Shameful !
OMG! ABecker is now a conspiracy theorist! How lucky are we? Go work for the FBI, ABecker. Your skills are being wasted in Santa Clara!
Disgusting behavior by patricia mahan last night. Politically motivated appointment you think? I hope the City takes action to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Jonathan Evans clearly was best choice and answered that setup question by mahan PERFECTLY. I don’t think sudhanshu would have done as good a job even after being prepped for days by mahan.
It was well known that the fix was in before the event started. There was no way patty was going to select anyone but suds.
But that’s okay with me. I believe each council member should be allowed to select anyone from their district. It is unfortunate it wasn’t set up that way from the beginning and then the applicants could have been applying for the at-large position. But the right person was selected for the at-large position so all’s well that ends well.
Now the work begins.
Congrats Rich.
Interesting that the wording here was that I didn’t take the time to attend given that my plans to attend a wedding in Canada were made before council set a date for the interviews and I have attended many more council meetings than almost all of the other applicants. Also I submitted a statement of my qualifications which was read by Vice Mayor Mahan. — Suds Jain