By Robert Haugh
A longtime Santa Clara grassroots organization is re-emerging with a new website and a renewed focus on reforming City government.
Stand Up for Santa Clara (SUSC) is not a new group. It was formed more than a decade ago when residents organized to stop the 49ers from taking over the Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park.
After being largely dormant in recent years, the organization is becoming active again.
Its new website suggests it was inspired by growing public concerns about the cost, direction and transparency of Santa Clara government.
“Better government starts with an informed public,” the website declares.
And SUSC wants to make Santa Clara City government more responsive to residents.
The organization says it will focus on the rising cost of City Hall, compensation for top City employees, the lack of progress on important projects and proposals to move City Hall without adequate public input.
It also plans to track the costs and reimbursements connected to major events at Levi’s Stadium, including the Super Bowl and World Cup.
The website says its goal is to concentrate on facts, numbers and accountability.
The first major story focuses on City Manager Jovan Grogan’s compensation.
The organization reports that Grogan receives approximately $627,000 annually in salary, benefits and pension-related costs. His base salary is more than $430,000.
Grogan also received an automatic 2 percent raise because the City Council failed to complete his performance review by the May 31 deadline in his employment agreement. The raise was retroactive, resulting in approximately $994 in back pay.
City Attorney Glen Googins received the same automatic increase after the Council missed his review deadline. His total annual compensation is estimated at approximately $567,000, including about $2,280 in retroactive pay.
Together, Grogan and Googins cost the City approximately $1.19 million annually in total compensation.
In addition to City documents, SUSC relied on news sources for its story: Santa Clara News Online and the Silicon Valley Voice. (One out of two ain’t bad.)
I wouldn’t mind the staff expenditures so much if they were doing anything other than covering up all the secret deals funneling the Stadium Authority and City’s cash to the FIFA, the 49ers and the Bay Area Host Committee. Not to mention letting developers tell us where city hall should be. They use public resources to thwart public records requests and sign NDA’s when they don’t have to, all while acting in the interests of outside actors and against the public interest. People should remember which council members running for election voted keep the public in the dark.
The only rationale the 49er five could give for replacing the city mgr and city atty was the high salaries. If the replacements immediately started costing more and hiring extra staff, in the interest of transparency that should be noted and tallied as well. JMEO.
“…growing public concerns about the cost, direction and transparency of Santa Clara government” What else is there? And the city council, city mgr and city atty all score negative in all 3 categories. Too bad we can’t fire the one person I hold accountable for all of this, yed jork. As I understand it the number of staff members under the atty and mgr has increased. It would be very relevant to add that to their salaries to see the total cost of this boondoggle.