By Robert Haugh
The Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury has conducted another major investigation and dropped another bombshell on the 49er Five.
Yesterday, they released a report entitled: “Irreconcilable Differences.” And this time, the report was not leaked to the 49ers or the Silicon Valley Voice.
Here’s the key statement from the report’s summary:
“In addition, several Councilmembers have turned public meetings into spectacles by displaying abusive and belittling behavior from the dais towards members of the public; by political grandstanding, pontificating, and digressing from City business; by exhibiting a serious misunderstanding of parliamentary procedures; and by performing outlandish antics, such as reading from a satirical cartoon book. All of these behaviors contribute to lengthy public meetings, waste staff time, hurt morale, and discourage volunteerism and public engagement.”
Wow.
Santa Clara News Online readers will recognize the reference to the “satirical cartoon book” as the low-class stunt pulled by Councilmember Kevin Park.
According to the report, the Grand Jury conducted more than 40 interviews for their investigation. They also watched over 400 hours of Council, committee and commission meetings from January 2020 to May 2024. Some grand jurors attended Council meetings in person too.
The report has ten findings:
Finding 1a: The working relationships among Councilmembers and the Mayor are broken.
Finding 1b: Some Councilmembers do not adhere to the City’s adopted ethical and behavioral standards while conducting City business on the dais.
Finding 1c: Councilmembers Becker and Park air petty grievances and engage in squabbles with other elected officials and constituents from the dais.
Finding 2: Councilmembers Becker, Park, and Chahal do not understand and/or do not follow established parliamentary and meeting procedures.
Finding 3: Some Councilmembers do not uphold their responsibility to conduct the City’s business professionally and efficiently.
Finding 4: Some Councilmembers have become preoccupied by personal and political vendettas resulting in verbal attacks, mocking, and disparaging members of the public and community volunteers from the dais without consequence. Councilmembers have ignored the public’s request to address their behaviors.
Finding 5: Councilmembers Becker and Park have engaged in unethical behavior on the dais by insulting, humiliating, and intimidating constituents and volunteers. Councilmembers Becker and Hardy explicitly encourage this behavior by laughing, snickering, or eye-rolling. Councilmembers Becker, Park, Hardy, Jain, and Chahal implicitly encourage these behaviors by failing to call out inappropriate conduct.
Finding 6: There has not been an employee satisfaction survey since 2019.
Finding 7: City staff is exceptionally professional, well prepared, and consistently maintains their composure regardless of behaviors exhibited by the Council. Staff’s behavior is a model for the Council.
The Grand Jury made several recommendations related specifically to Councilmembers to get training for conflict resolution, parliamentary procedures, and ethics:
Conflict Resolution
The Grand Jury recommends that the City should hire a conflict resolution professional for conflict resolution training.
They also recommend that Councilmembers Anthony Becker, Raj Chahal, Karen Hardy, Suds Jain and Kevin Park attend one-on-one conflict resolution training so they “can learn to behave in a manner reflective of an elected official.”
Ouch.
The report also stated: “Even though Councilmember (Kathy)Watanabe has shown appropriate meeting decorum, the Councilmember should attend one-on-one conflict resolution training to learn how to work effectively in the current challenging Council meeting environment.” They made the same recommendation for Mayor Lisa Gillmor.
Parliamentary Procedures
Councilmembers Becker, Chahal and Park should attend training in parliamentary procedures so their “behavior is more reflective of an elected who is dedicated to the electorate.”
Double ouch.
Ethics
Councilmembers Becker, Chahal, Hardy, Jain and Park “should pledge to train with an ethics expert from an established outside entity that specializes in government ethics.”
Triple ouch.
The Grand Jury report is 92 pages long, including approximately 50 pages of documentation as evidence for their findings.
They did a lot of homework and a comprehensive job showing the public how badly behaved the 49er Five are during Council meetings.
That’s something people who watch Council meetings know. Now, the rest of Santa Clara will know.
[…] his indictment, Becker was “abusive and belittling” at City Council meetings. That was the conclusion of a Grand Jury report. Becker also […]
[…] his indictment, Becker also was “abusive and belittling” in public meetings. That was the conclusion of a Grand Jury […]
[…] report released in June 2024 slammed the 49er Five for “abusive and belittling […]
[…] May 2024 Civil Grand Jury Report “Irreconcilable Differences” documented how the 49er Five frequently engage in “abusive and belittling […]
[…] 49er Five were unhappy that they were called out for “abusive and belittling behavior.” For about two hours, they criticized the report and the Grand […]
[…] month, the Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury slammed the 49er Five for “abusive and belittling behavior” in a scathing report called “Irreconcilable […]
Did anyone see the June 4th City Council meeting where they voted against a motion that the Mayor had to recuse herself from. They voted against receiving some revenue, albeit a small amount, but nevertheless revenue. Who in their right mind would vote against any amount of revenue for the City and instead collect zero? This City Council is so out of control. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Note it was a 4-1 vote. Once again the lone councilmember called out the ridiculousnesss of the motion made by Jain after extensive input by staff as to the impact of losing the levy. Watanabe was then verbally attacked by Park the abuser. Why are we not surprised?
Untrue. There has been an employee satisfaction and mental wellness survey complied for 80% of your firefighters in 2023, however the chiefs did not like what it told them and although it was repeatedly promised to be released to both the full membership and the union leadership for followup action, it has thus-far been buried. Further the expressed will of the people regarding the shutdown (aka brownout) and movement of apparatus within the city has been summarily ignored, creating potentially dangerous gaps in coverage and unavailability of fire resources that in a worst-case scenario could put members of the public and firefighters at risk. Public resources have been used to prop up a failing, for-profit private contractor (Global Medical Response aka American Medical Response aka Rural/ Metro Ambulance) operating the threadbare County EMS ambulance service (citizens should also educate themselves on the current EMS crisis in the county, in particular the critical shortage of paramedics). You want to uncover some unethical, unhealthy, and downright toxic workplace behavior? Start looking under some rocks over at fire administration. It’s your right as the public to be informed and to take action to keep your city operating efficiently, effectively and ethically to provide you essential critical services. Your firefighters are some of the most dedicated, selfless, and talented in the area as well as being consistently the highest reviewed in customer satisfaction in the city. Morale and motivation is at an all-time low. They deserve much, much better. Please get informed, reach out, and help save the ones that dedicate themselves to saving you.
[…] report focused on the bad behavior of the 49er […]
I have felt that some behavior on the part of some council members has been outrageous. Such as Kevin Park’s use of the dais as a literal bully pulpit to mock a member of the public. And the cowardly and shameful removal of Burt Field as a commissioner for political reasons having nothing to do with his duties as a commissioner.
I agree that all the members of the council would probably benefit from a conflict resolution mediator to help them get on the same page when it comes to city business and to not let their personal animosities bleed into official city proceedings. But I also think that this is beyond the purview of a civil grand jury and the general topic of rudeness and improper but not criminal behavior does not warrant the attention of a grand jury.
The thin-skinned 5 and their “media friends’ have spent have written 3 attack pieces on the CGJ report, the mayor and lone councilmember. Hard to accept facts, eh Jed?
Robert, thank-you from everybody who cares about Santa Clara for your investigative and factual reporting and having the fortitude and passion to keep us informed of these things that would otherwise be buried. You are an unsung hero in trying to bring Santa Clara back from this cancerous banana republic of a city council majority that is literally destroying our city that we know and love.
I am especially happy for Burt Field who is a treasure for our city and especially the youth sports crowd and never ever deserved what Becker and Park and the others did to him. Burt is a wonderful person who has done more for his city than any of the 49er 5 have ever done. This city council majority tried to disgrace and silence Burt, and then removed him from his volunteer position, for literally no other reason than speaking up. This council majority has squashed public participation in citizen participation for anybody they disagree with. This suppression of opposition by the city council majority is the same philosophy shared by facism no matter how those like Suds et al. Suds comments on SCNO are almost always personally atttacking either Robert Haugh or dismissing SCNO as not a legitimate news source. Boy, was Suds wrong about that!!
A couple weeks ago this council majority gave away the city bargaining position and power by blindly agreeing to settle with their puppetmasters, the 49ers. The city lost hundreds of millions of dollars it could have had if not for this city council majority caving in to the 49ers who we all know gave millions of dollars under the table, basically, to get them elected and do their bidding.
Don’t for a second think the 49ers were not totally controlling the council majority headed by Suds in the special election that just went down in flames to change our elected chief to one appointed by the 49ers, I mean our city council majority. I don’t want to forget our city manager and city attorney whose actions show their own loyalty to the 49er and city council majority.
Becker is not the only one who should be going on trial. If you read this Becker you seem to be the lowest hanging and easiest target and you are being set up by your “friends” to take the fall for them. Becker, you really need to start throwing them under the bus they way they all have had no problem anxiously throwing you under the bus of your upcoming perjury trial. Do you really think the two private attorneys you have (costing upwards of $1,000 an hour each) were really hired to keep you out of jail?? Think again and critically think about those who have so much more to lose here, financially and legally, and if you will be making the choice to protect them though they will forget you in a heartbeat when this is done and you are possibly sitting in prison.
I hope this is used as evidence in Becker’s trial!
Gillmor called for an ethics commission, didnt she??
Vote them all out. By the way, a lot of this behavior was learned by prior council members. Caserta comes to mind
Patty Mahan is another who also drank the red and gold koolaid and trained the 49er 5.
The real question is, ‘now what?’ Does the ruling have any teeth, will something happen, can they be forced to be civil? I would like them to be forced to recuse themselves when voting on 49er and stadium issues.
Get rid of them!!
Add this
SUDS JAIN WROTE AN EMAIL DECLARING A DISABLED MAN “never worked a day in yout life” though the person was a teacher for five school districts from 1988 to 2009.