By Robert Haugh
I live in District 5, the area represented by Santa Clara City Councilmember Suds Jain.
I’ve watched the recall effort gather signatures and have received a lot of messages about why residents are upset with Jain. I reprinted a few of them.
People’s dissatisfaction with Jain started with his push for paid parking at the Franklin Mall. In the decades that I’ve covered Santa Clara politics, this would be on the list of Dumbest Political Moves.
No one likes paid parking, and no one thinks it’s necessary in Santa Clara’s Old Quad area – except for Jain.
Jain is either politically tone deaf or he’s being motivated by a personal vendetta, which a lot of residents who have signed the petition have told me, and at least one person has written about.
And Jain has not been honest about his motive or his actions. He lost a lot of support and respect when he attended a July public meeting about the issue and let City staff take the heat from residents.
Jain sat quietly in the back of the room with his head down while people called out the stupidity of the idea. Yup. No kidding.
After someone asked who came up with the idea, recall organizer David Kertes had to stand up and point to Jain, who still would not speak up and take ownership.
According to some residents, Jain is trying to hide the fact that he’s the one who’s been pushing the paid parking plan.
The recall campaign won’t let him get away with it. They’ve put a video on their website that shows the City Council meeting when Jain made the motion and pushed the effort.
Jain’s efforts to push paid parking go back to 2022. That’s when he pushed the Council to consider paid parking at the Franklin Mall – and other places in the Mission City. Yup. No kidding.
I know there are many other issues that have put Jain in the hot seat.
He has been a key vote for runaway City management salaries.
He hid the fact that convicted felon Anthony Becker leaked a Grand Jury report until Jain was forced to testify under oath.
And people don’t think Jain has been responsive to the District’s needs, including the Downtown. A lot of City money has been spent on rezoning property. But so far, no one has seen any progress or development interest. Jain has been working on the effort for five years.
It’s likely the recall gets the signatures they need. Then Jain will have to defend his record unless he decides to hide from it.
This rhetorical diatribe from politically impotent Jain concerns me. His insane hatred for a pithy mongrel like Mr. Rowen is an example of a person too frustrated with criticism. This constant referral to cheese is an example of emotional instability. All Jain is doing is making Haugh look sensible.
Why we don’t support Suds
Not a leader for District 5. Suds does not engage on issues that District 5 residents bring to him such as street maintenance in District 5, concerns about SVP during the major storm blackout in 2024, off campus SCU student housing concerns, concerns about development projects that don’t fit with the neighborhood. He has provided little visible active support for rebuilding Downtown. Suds says “Some people don’t realize that I can’t tell the City Manager what to do nor can I tell staff what to do. It takes a majority vote on the council for any action — even to agendize an item for discussion. I can’t kill a project or approve a general plan amendment on my own.” However, we do expect and want someone to take a leadership role in advocating for our District.
Minimal communication with District 5 residents. Suds has declined to publish a District 5 Newsletter although many other Councilmembers do so. Apparently District 5 residents don’t need information and communication.
Supported proposals that waste taxpayer funds. Suds promoted the special election to revise the City Charter to appoint rather than elect the City Clerk and the Police Chief. This special election wasted taxpayer funds at a time when the City faced significant budget issues. It was clear at the time of the election that the majority of voters opposed the proposed change. Suds has been a proponent for parking fees for City owned parking including Franklin Mall. Suds supported spending City funds on a consultant study of parking fees at Franklin again when it was clear that there was little support for this. And Suds has but has yet to address the concerns raised about this issue.
Influenced by 49ers. Suds claims not to be influenced by the support the 49ers have provided him in his campaigns. However, his voting record is consistently in favor of the 49ers. He defends his support as “making the best of it”. He has failed to hold the 49ers accountable for actions such as committing to the Super Bowl and the World Cup without the City’s consent. He has failed to hold the 49ers accountable for their lack of community engagement with Santa Clara and lack of support for local Santa Clara needs.
Once again, Robert Haugh seeks to mislead his readers. He’s not an investigative reporter. He’s Faux News serving a particular political agenda.
I wonder how many readers he still has because most of these comments are from James Rowen (Jarvis, Hawkeye, Charles Xavier, Billy Batson, The Faithful Toad) who doesn’t even live in Santa Clara. I wonder who’s paying for his Tillamook.
By the way James Rowen filed 24 Public Record Act Requests (PRA) for my communications on a single day Sept 18th, 2025 and, since I took office, he has filed more than 227 PRAs against me alone, costing the City tens of thousands of dollars. That’s from someone living on government assistance.
Here is the actual 030 that I filed in 2022 (agenda item 22-873, August 30, 2022) — ZERO mention of Franklin Mall.
======================================================
Recently the City Council approved an annual renewal of the Parking Maintenance District at
the Convention Center. Parking is free but there are no accumulating reserves to make any
major repairs to the parking structure which is aging.
I recently attended a Boy Scout breakfast event at the Santa Clara Marriott on Mission College
Blvd. They were charging $5/car parking
I also recently visited the Baylands Park in Sunnyvale. They charge $6.00 per car.
Valley Fair Shopping Mall has also started charging for parking including for employees. Valley
Fair just did a very large expansion which included adding a lot of parking in a parking structure
which probably cost more that $50,000 per spot. Valley Fair is trying to get people to carpool
and to use public transit or other forms of mobility.
When I brought up charging for parking at the convention center, I was told that the City
has a policy against charging for parking. I’m asking for a discussion of changing this
policy since providing free parking is very expensive as explained in Donald Shoup’s
book: “The high cost of free parking”. Perhaps charging for parking at the Convention
Center could be used to put aside money for future repairs of the parking structure.
Suds, notice that the accusations against you are primarily for what you are doing or not doing. Now we can add sadistic personal attacks. In spite of myself, I’m a little surprised at you, and a little ashamed for you. I wish you had the capacity to feel shame.
And you claim the PRA’s cost tens of thousands (?) but don’t mind spending up to a million for an effort to allow the new city mgr (a niner draft pick?) choose the police chief. How does that make sense? Good job trying to discourage citizen involvement.
Another good title for this would have been “why Santa Clara can’t have nice things” since District 5 elected a representative who has his own agenda plus the agenda given to him by Jed York that also directs the 49er 5 puppets who just follow the same script. Think about it.
Charles Xavier. This is interesting information. At the community meeting by the developers and the city staff for the 22 Washington St project(where the Normandy House currently is) the ONLY question Suds asked was if they were going to put in automatic parking systems!!!!! What a coincidence. And this is going to be a 6 story building on a currently very busy intersection.
It’s great to see so many comments today. I had no idea which District I live in, but took the time to look it up. OMG, I’m in District 5. Why does Jain hate us? Last year he sicced the the bicycle extremists on Benton Street wanting to take away parking, forced a study that SC paid for (how much did that cost?) and thankfully was overruled by the city council. We welcome bike lane striping and speed bumps for our traffic issues.
Aside – Santa Clara should remove any referencs to the Mission City. That designation is Nothing to be proud of. The indigenous population of California was decimated by the missions. Thousands of Native Americans died through the inhumane conditions of forced labor, child labor, resulting malnutrition, and disease.Their lives were considered to be of no value, they were forced to reject their religion and culture.
Three great road blocks to a diwntown area.
Superior Court Building
Thr Division of Franklin Street
The Promethus Housing Project.
Has Suds, Santa Clars’s Political Magneto, ever held discussions or design charates.(sic) on these issues. Not at all
Jain, a political Magneto, has focused his efforts on the 49ers and wild expressions of disdain for Gillmor.
Vartan has actually investigated modern planning designs dealing with the issue. I disagree with some aspects of spot planning, but Kirk is trying.
The effort should be applauded.
Gillmor as a realtor has brought businesses into the downtown
Jain and Becker show their adult child behavior, themed up with Park who is an Fulton child.
Jain shows no effort except for Jain.
Jain 2024 form 700
Investments in Honeywell.
Honeywell has invested heavily in developing
PARKING MANAGEMRNT SOFTWARE
Yep
Jain wants city to use.
Special election, doomed to failure and forced on us by Sud’s, cost us taxpayers upwards of a million precious dollars, that was desperately needed for pressing needs. NOTHING has been done to bring about a downtown area though lots of talk.
Get rid of him
The whole purpose behind the move to district elections was to foster neighborhood advocacy and promote diversity.
Suds Jsin spent the first three months of his term arranging secret meetings with the 49ers
Why??
Is the stadium located in the diwntown?
No.
Jain then spent years and thousands of dollars seeking an appointed chief.
Voters for 65 years opposed itm
The city clerk election fostered no spending. Voters rejected that.
Jain, like Mr. Mind, enlisted henchman named Park and Becker to launch attacks against soccer parents
Thr one thing that could check the power of independent expenditures and political consultants is an ethics commission.
Jain and Patk oppose it.
The hatred Jain has towards Gillmor. Burt Field, and Haugh is irrational.
Jain and Becker have tripled Haugh’s readership
Seriuous issues face Santa Clara, but Jain and his allies spend hours focusing on tripling the 49erd power.
An ethucs program would reset Santa Clara politics
But like Mr. Mind, Jain seeks to destroy the Mayberry fabric of the Mission City.
“Smoke and Mirrors”… or a much more common term used by magicians is “Misdirection”.
Suds Jain, yelling, finger pointing, and then out of no where the weird push for Paid Parking, is really all about “Misdirection”.
It’s a really poor example, but that says more about the 49ers Game Plan I guess.
Remember all his employer cares about is 5 votes.
With 5 votes his employer can get whatever they want, and all at a price they even set. Yet…with all that money at stake, the best they are able to convince to work against their own neighbors is now an epic list of Perennial Losers.
I mean one of them is now a Convicted Felon! The other 4 are not that far away.
At least one of them (Jain) knew what the convicted Felon was doing, yet thought it was best to keep his mouth shut (that’s also a crime). Then of course you also have maybe the most hated neighbor ever…. not sure if that is a category, but if it was, we wouldn’t even need an envelop to announce the Winner.
Sadly that is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. This one person has a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed. And how he got re-elected over Teresa O’Neil is maybe an even more unbelievable story all by itself.
Ethics, Morals, Accountability,…..mean absolutely nothing to Jain and his fellow Co Workers.
As the old saying goes, “Action’s always speaks louder than words”.
4 Votes right now is all his employer needs, and currently they have 5.
Just The Facts Ma’am
Found it.
The games four email flurry of Suds Jain to Doyle and Santana.
Demanding answers
Subject
DONUTS
Jain texted Becker numerous times in 2023 about Parking Issues. Texts between Jain and Becker detail his hatred of Franklin Square businesses. Jain accused Santa Clara residents of racism various times. Jain sent an email to a retired teacher living on a disability pension account him of “never working a day in your life”