By Robert Haugh
Yesterday, the SF Chronicle broke another major story.
The 49ers are spending big money in Santa Clara again to help the Councilmembers who are helping them.
This year, the team is pumping approximately $750,000 behind Anthony Becker who’s running for Mayor, and Raj Chahal and Karen Hardy who are running for re-election.
Here are some key sections from the Chronicle report which might be behind a paywall:
“Two days after Santa Clara City Council Member Anthony Becker allegedly ranted at his peers in a closed session, the San Francisco 49ers donated more than $368,000 to boost Becker’s bid to become mayor.
“Also on Sept. 1, the 49ers gave more than $380,000 to two committees backing pro-49ers council members Karen Hardy and Raj Chahal, who both are running for re-election. That means the team donated nearly $750,000 in all to the three council members who pushed for the settlement and are running for office in November.”
“Chahal was not present at the closed session, but in earlier meetings, he had spoken in favor of settling the lawsuit. Chahal and Hardy declined to recuse themselves from the matter even though both are targets of a state ethics investigation for allegedly taking pricey 49ers tickets from the team.
The big cash infusion marked team CEO Jed York’s second financial foray into local politics in Santa Clara in the past two years. In 2020, he spent $2.9 million to boost pro-49ers council candidates, electing Becker, Sudhanshu ‘Suds’ Jain and Kevin Park.”
The Chronicle story also mentioned how York bought a “sponsored content” story in the SF Examiner.
Santa Clara News Online broke that story two days ago. So the Chronicle isn’t scooping everyone in the South Bay.
But the Chronicle pointed out something funny and hypocritical that SCNO missed. Hat tip to the Chronicle.
“The upbeat campaign biography, published two days after his alleged outburst at City Hall, portrayed Becker as a council member for whom personal respect is a watchword.
‘People need to be respected, and our thoughts and different opinions need to be respected,’ the article quotes Hardy as saying of Becker. ‘And Anthony is the one to do it.’
For those not following the biggest news of the week in Santa Clara, Becker allegedly flipped off Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Kathy Watanabe during closed session last week.
Becker also allegedly yelled, “F— you.” And the police had to be called.
It’s part of a pattern of abusive behavior by Becker.
Filed cpras on becker
Steve Ngo will not release them until october 10
COM-09092022-02757
Fppc complaint on 49ers
Also starting to see targeted YouTube ads. Both when when I browse on my computer and PC. Timing is soooo bad.
I have screenshots, but can’t add to comments.
Yep. Me 2. Seeing ads everywhere. Friends are complaining about this. Shades of 202. Look where that got us. A bought council. Deja vu for 2022?
In this day and age I find it very interesting they “faxed” their forms in knowing that this is 2022 and who DOES that?
Faxing is so 1999!
And not far fetched to have a fax machine offline because, again, WHO faxes in this day and age of photo sharing?
If I can deposit a check via photo to my bank why couldn’t they do the same with these documents?
Why all this subterfuge?
It seems like the 49er five is not interested in representing the people, they have their own special interests such as Jed York and the 49ers.
My hopes are that the legal process will catch up with all of these five and they will go to jail. This is straight up stealing. How could they look their neighbors in the face. They need to be responsible for their negligent actions.
I can’t imagine voting for any of these felons. Backing the 49er 5 is backing the demise of our city.
I don’t know why this surprises anyone. The City has been in bed with SCU for decades. If you think the City gives a rat’s tail about anything other than filling its coffers you are either blind or naïve.
Where is the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury or District Attorney Jeff Rosen???????
The 49ers incestuous relationship with The 49er 5, and the 49ers attempted takeover of our beautiful city screams at the top of its loans for a for an outside investigation from our Civil, if not Criminal, Grand Jury.
The below is taken directly from the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury website:
———————————————-
***The jurisdiction of the Civil Grand Jury is limited by statute and includes the following:***
*Consideration of evidence of misconduct against public officials to determine whether to present formal accusations requesting their removal from office
*Inquiry into the condition and management of public prisons within the county
*Investigation and report on the operations, accounts, and records of the officers, departments, or functions of the county including those operations, accounts, and records of any special legislative district or other district in the county pursuant to state law for which the officers of the county are serving in their ex officio capacity as officers of the districts
*May investigate the books and records of any incorporated city or joint powers agency located in the county
* The Civil Grand Jury functions as an investigative body, and DOES examine complaints into actions or performance of city, county agencies or public officials.
————————————————
https://www.scscourt.org/court_divisions/civil/cgj/grand_jury.shtml
I was curious if Anthony Becker’s physical and verbal threats against our Mayor and Councilmember Watanabe could result in them filing a restraining order against Becker for their own physical safety? Typically, with restraining orders, Becker would have to remain at least 300 yards away from the protected persons and have zero communication with them, as well.
Perhaps there are revealing CPRA’s out there between Becker and the 49er 5, illuminating his festering hatred of our Mayor and Watanabe, and that his behavior is a pattern, and not an isolated incident where he lost control and attacked 2 women. Many other anecdotal incidents have either been witnessed (see Dr Ronald Patrick), coupled with those with personal dealings with Becker.
We have publicly seen how Becker, and to a lesser extent the other councilmembers treat our Mayor and Watanabe, when Becker is ostensibly on his “best behavior”. It is not some gigantic leap to conclude that bully and misogynistic Becker could come unhinged behind closed doors. It is not really surprising that the 49ers, an organization run by powerful men for the most part, are turning their blind eyes away from this incident of male rage against a female, and giving millions to get Becker, their puppet, elected as Mayor.
Can you say: Bribe? I knew you could. Or Payola, or Quid Pro Quo. Let’s hope the voters in Santa Clara are seeing this garbage.
Who are the opponents of Chahal & Hardy
As in all past elections, candidate committees and and independent expendeture committees FPPC financial filings were reported on the City’s web site through the City Clerk’s Office, that is not happening this year. I wonder if the Interim City Attorney, City Manager or council majority is blocking the publication of this info making it extremely difficult for the public to “follow the money”
The public site is there, https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?aid=CSC, but the financial info has not been posted.
Hello there! Hosam here. Just wanted to chime in that the Clerk’s office does not issue a public memo or bulletin every time we take action or are in the middle of an investigation. I acknowledge that the public has a right to assert that we are doing our job, which is why I’m chiming in here. But to remain impartial our job is not to “weaponize” or publicize any action to get compliance or any enforcement action that we do. This is not to say we are operating in secret or do not want the public to know, because as with all public work, a Public Records Request is always an option for the public to ensure that their elected officials and City Staff are responsive and doing their job, and I welcome it. But we wont go out on every action and publicize it as that could introduce bias in what is essentially an enforcement issue.
On this particular issue, the Clerk’s office had not received any of the required disclosure forms from the independent expenditure committees, and yesterday I sent an email requesting corrective action. They did respond today confirming they did in-fact submit the disclosure forms on-time late last week via fax and provided a fax receipt. The Clerk’s office hadn’t receive the fax, and we are following up with the IT department to look into the fax machine situation and ensure that we don’t have this happen in the future. In the meantime, the committees did email us the same disclosure forms they faxed last week and they have been uploaded to the online portal this morning (but after your comment).
Hope this helps clear things up.
Hosam Haggag
Your elected City Clerk
In today’s San Jose Mercury is an opinion piece by Tom Shanks titled Unethical behavior threatens trust in Santa Clara. If I knew how to post a picture of the article I would…..
Santa Clarans need to know they are being used and abused. Don’t vote for those that have sold you out. BECKER, CHAHAL AND HARDY.
Post on social media to spread the word.
Fax?? Lmao. No docusign, Hellosign, Signnow, Pandadoc, Adobe? Take your pick. Fax is dead.