By Burt Field
Thanks to California’s Fourth District Appellate Court, a frivolous lawsuit against Mayor Lisa Gillmor was thrown out last month.
The lawsuit was initially filed in October 2018, just days before Gillmor’s re-election in November. That timing was suspicious.
The lawsuit was filed by Brian Exline, a Santa Clara University Law School student at the time. That’s suspicious, too.
No one really believes Exline paid a major San Jose law firm McManis Faulkner to handle the lawsuit. And no one believes Exline paid for the appeal. The total legal bill could be $200,000 or more.
So who paid Exline’s legal bills?
A lot of Santa Clarans think it was the 49ers. After all, the team has a history of spending big money to meddle in our local politics.
Last year, Jed York spent $3 million dollars to get Anthony Becker, Suds Jain, and Kevin Park elected to the City Council. These three people have appeared on the Santa Clara ballot numerous times. None of them ever won an election. The team clearly needs to have friendly votes at City Hall and they’re willing to pay for them.
In 2018, the 49ers spent over $700,000 to defeat Measure C, an attempt by Santa Clarans to draw our own City Council district lines. The team clearly wants to influence how our districts are shaped.
In 2016, they were exposed for being behind BluPAC, the dark money organization that spent approximately $50,000 to support pro-49er candidates and opposed others.
The pattern is pretty clear. Jed York is willing to write big checks so that the 49ers control the political leadership of Santa Clara.
Fortunately for us, Mayor Gillmor and others like our City Attorney Brian Doyle have stood up effectively against the team. And that’s why the 49ers want them gone.
We don’t know for sure if Jed York gave Exline the money for his lawsuit against Gillmor. That’s because Exline hasn’t said who funded the case. In fact, Exline hasn’t made a public statement at all about the case. That’s really suspicious. Maybe Exline was just being used.
But now Exline is a deputy district attorney in Fresno County. He’s a government employee with decision-making power.
The public has a right to know who is giving him money to cover his legal bills which are now even bigger. In addition to paying McManis Faulkner, Exline is responsible for paying Gillmor’s legal bills because he lost the appeal on a frivolous lawsuit.
If it wasn’t the 49ers, it was someone else. And Exline owes them a lot and therefore has a hidden conflict of interest.
The taxpayers of Fresno County and the residents of Santa Clara have a right to know who has financial influence over Exline.
If he won’t come clean about it, may his boss, Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp, should force him to do so. Or there will forever be a dark cloud hovering over Exline’s decisions as a public servant because someone paid off a large legal bill for him.
It’s interesting that this keeps coming up. When Karen read the documents to admonish Kathy, I send a long list of questions to the City to be answered. Basic questions like, who drafted the documents, who paid for the documents etc. I got a basic answer from the City but not all my question where answered so I send a second message specifically asking about who PAID for the documents. My second message was send directly to Karen and she never answered the questions. I think she was betting that my questions would go away. Maybe delayed Karen, but not forgotten and it will come out who paid for those documents. Maybe not today, but it will come out.
Residents of Santa Clara are document your behavior and actions and it will keep coming up.
mrrhmyers – This opinion piece was written by Burt Field not Robert Haugh who hasn’t yet figured out the myriad clues leading from Kevin Park to the leathered floors of the corner offices at 4949 Marie P DeBartolo Way via the opium dens frequented by Jay Reed and Ed McGovern. As the world’s most famous fictional detective would say: “It’s elementary my dear, Watson.”
Makings of an interesting book with movie rights to it.
Exlax should be 💩 pooping in his diapers.
Looks like the stink of Jed York is spreading. Keep the pressure on Robert.