By Robert Haugh
On Tuesday night, Santa Clara neighborhood leader Howard Myers requested that the City Council place on a future agenda an item asking indicted Councilmember Anthony Becker to resign.
He could not attend the meeting, but his request was read in the Council chambers. The text of Myers’ message is below. It has been edited slightly for clarity.
Myers’ request was supported by people who showed up to the meeting and called in.
No one publicly expressed support for Becker.
But Myers’ request was rejected on the 4-2 vote.
The 49er Five again were united in their opposition. Becker abstained from the vote but he criticized and challenged a member of the public who supported his resignation.
Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Councilmember Kathy Watanabe voted to allow a future discussion.
By Howard Myers
I would like to point out the problem caused by the influence of the 49ers in Santa Clara that led to the report by the Grand Jury and subsequent charges filed against Anthony Becker.
The results of this in the news have been to make Santa Clara a laughing stock locally and statewide.
You would expect a person who is truly dedicated to serving the people of Santa Clara to step down to save our City from continued embarrassment.
In case it didn’t occur to Mr. Becker that he should resign, numerous citizens have asked him to do so. That didn’t work.
So I’m now asking the City Council to formally request Mr. Becker to step down so the City and the City Council can be less distracted by the legal process that is about to begin.
As long as Mr. Becker is a sitting Councilmember, he will be a major part of any news story. He could spare us, the citizens, from asking him to resign but that has not worked.
Therefore, I’m imploring the City Council to ask him to spare us this tasteful distraction.
Editor’s Note: The 49er Five are Councilmembers Anthony Becker, Raj Chahal, Suds Jain, Karen Hardy, and Kevin Park.
Jed York spent $3 million in November 2020 to elect Becker, Jain, and Park. They were previously 0-6 in Santa Clara elections. Chahal and Hardy have received gifts from the team without reporting them and received $1 million each for their elections in November 2022.
In 2022, the team spent approximately $2.5 million for Becker in his failed attempt to unseat Mayor Lisa Gillmor.
The 49er Five met with the team on an almost weekly basis and have voted to help the team win millions of dollars in concessions from the City since December 2020.
Burt, being born and raised in Santa Clara, I am saddened by what is happening to our city. I hope voters see and understand who really has integrity on the council. We need more people like Mayor Gillmor and councilwoman Watanabe in office. It is the city’s loss that “some” council members decided to keep you from the volunteer position-
Becker should be calling for Suds’s resignation. One of the two of them is lying in their grand jury testimony. If Becker is innocent, then Suds is lying.
Suds on higher office??? Ambassador to the Congo.
News
CPRA 23 364
All grand jury reports becker sent 49ers.
CLOSED
Why?? Becker said in response that he did not.
23 369.
City records of asking Becker??
None
Thank you Burt Field for representing us on Tuesday night. No one really expected the 49er five to do the ethical thing, but it is important we go on record asking them to stand up for their constituents. I have to wonder what their end game is. We all know Suds sees himself in higher office, though many of us see him in an orange jump suit. But what of the others, are they ambitious beyond the city? Are they getting something out of this besides the rancor of residents? Do they expect the average voter to not know what is going on and keep electing them? I am at a loss.
Howard,
Sadly as you go down the possible ways to fix this obvious issue, the issue of severally under qualified candidates getting elected into Public Office, there is only one answer…Election Reform.
So here’s the issue. As I found out first hand how convoluted getting a Recall going, just multiply that by at least 10X.
Will Election Reform be the ultimate answer, no, but it’s the only way we can effectively keep the Millions of dollars out of our local elections.
It’s not hard to figure out why companies are highly motivated to “Buy their Representation”.
It is extremely effective given instead of paying that money to whomever is owed, they can simply give a small percentage to their “Rep’s” to save them huge amounts of money.
Case in point, look no further than us, Santa Clara.
Sadly, this is going on all over our Country. Voters, good, honest, well meaning voters are fed an abundance of flat out lies.
Seriously, flat out lies, but just like anyone else, if you hear the same thing over and over… at some point you tend to see some level of truth in those lies. Even when those statements make no sense at all.
Hopefully if you have any level of memory, just think at the abuse our poor little mail boxes have sustained ever since the “40 Whiners” have expanded on the 11 acres they rent from us for years (monthly rent.. for 40 years, $2,500 a month). Ever since they wanted us to build them a Stadium. The flooding of our Mail Boxes have been an easy avenue into our houses, and ultimately into our sub conscious minds. Now we also have the internet, radio, TV (We even have had multiple Monday Night Football ad’s telling us to elect certain people), I’m still waiting for the planes to fly over with large signs being dragged behind telling us what to do. And how horrible good people are.
Think about how horrible you have been led to believe our Current Mayor has been portrayed, ever since she has cut ties with the 49ers. This happened when she realized first hand that they were just lying to us. I happen to be in possession of a 49er Letterhead explaining all Jed York said they would do for us. All our Mayor did was ask when those promises would be put into action. At that point she found out really the level of deceit that was laid before us.
Since then Millions of Millions of Dollars have been poured into our local economy, not into our City, but into the elections of people who will be very supportive of the “40 Whiners” needs wants and desires.
Howard sorry for the long note, but just want everyone to realize we are about to go through another “Spin Cycle”…. and without Election Reform we have at least another 31 years of this.
Thanks
Your Former Parks and Recreation Commissioner
Burt Field