By Robert Haugh
After spending two hours in a closed session, the City Council took “no reportable” action to replace former City Attorney Brian Doyle. Last week, the 49er Five terminated Doyle with “no cause.”
There must have been a lot of discussion or debate. A lot of eyes will be on this appointment.
On a written petition submitted by David Donaldson, the City Council was asked to establish the Mayor and City Council positions as full-time. Donaldson suggested that the salaries should be $96,000 annually for the Mayor and $80,000 for Councilmembers.
The City Council had to decide if they wanted to put it on a future agenda. On a 4-3 vote, they decided to consider the issue.
Councilmen Anthony Becker, Raj Chahal, Suds Jain and Kevin Park voted in favor.
Mayor Lisa Gillmor, and Councilwomen Karen Hardy and Kathy Watanabe voted against.
The supporters of the discussion all said that they believe the City Council should be full-time because of the workload. They also said that a larger salary would attract more candidates.
The opponents disagreed. Gillmor and Watanabe reminded the Council that some of them voted to cut police funding. So raising Council salaries would not be a good thing. (Hardy was one of the people who voted to cut Santa Clara police funding.)
Hardy feels that the Council should be part-time because she likes the strong city manager form of government.
Donaldson also asked the City for matching funds for donations, funding caps, and disclosures of fundraising activities.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Council handles those issues since the 49ers’ b wrote checks totaling $3 million to get Becker, Jain, and Park elected when they always failed to win on their own.
We’ll cover this issue in depth when it comes back.
It requires a charter amendment to raise the salaries of the City Council. It would help if the new Councilmembers had even a little idea of how our City government works.
It took 2 hours of closed session to talk about an interim city attorney but took only 5 minutes to fire Brian Doyle last week??
Oh to be a fly on the wall!!
Hey, Duds! There’s an opening for the City Attorney! You know!! The guy you fired last week! Aren’t you a fart smeller — I mean smart feller?? Or maybe Becker or Park! Ya’ll are real smart fellers! 🤑🤑
That’s the ticket! If you need a job that bad! 🤣🤣
Did I see in yesterday’s comments that Anthony Becker, Suds Jain, and Kevin Park have NO JOBS (or jobs that do not support them and their families)? Is this true? If this is the case, why are they asking the citizens of Santa Clara to be a welfare safety net for them – handing them money and lifetime benefits for a term or two on the city council??? We read every day how companies are desperate for employees; may I strongly suggest that these three (and their stooge David Donaldson) stop trying to scam Santa Clara voters and go out and get a job so they know what the rest of us in Santa Clara are going through.
I think even the part time gig pays better than Becker is used to getting. Does anyone know who David Donaldson is and does he know anyone on the council?
I am sure this would require a charter amendment which WE get to vote on. And it would almost have to be worded such that it could not benefit anyone in their current term.
Just make me wonder if there is a connection between David Donaldson and any council member(s),