Does Pat Kolstad have one foot out the door?
The City of Santa Clara is one of those places that seems to succeed despite political dysfunction. With an enviable tax base and its own power company, it has two of the ingredients larger cities — read, San Jose — consistently crave.
Santa Clara’s politics have always seemed to contain plots within plots. Consider the odd story of Councilman Pat Kolstad, a 69-yearold former cop whose term of office expires next year.
Kolstad was recently the target of coverage by the blog Santa Clara News Online, (santaclaranews.org), which reported a piece of news. The councilman and his wife, Terri Ann, sold their house on Ponderosa Way in late May and bought a $1 million place 20 miles east of Spokane, Washington. Google Maps shows it’s a big, spacious home.
The blog questioned whether Kolstad was still eligible to serve on the council, quoting from the California Secretary of State’s web site, which says, “If a person moves to another state with the intention of making it his or her domicile, the voter loses his or her domicile in this state.’’
The post noted that former city clerk candidate Deborah Bress, a veteran City Hall critic, had raised the question of Kolstad’s eligibility before a meeting of the city council’s governance committee. The piece did not seem to bode well for Kolstad.
But there’s more to the story. And once you learn the whole narrative, you wonder a little at the hullabaloo. Kolstad still has a substantial presence in town. He has rented a house on Fargher Drive from former mayor Larry “Duke’’ Fargher.
I’m not saying Kolstad is beyond question. Anytime you buy what looks like a nice retirement house for yourself and your wife in another state — 900 miles away— you raise questions about your devotion to your council gig.
“I’m committed to finishing this term,” said Kolstad. “I’ve got over 40 years of my life wrapped up in this city, and I’m not about to abrogate my responsibility. I show up for work.”
I’m not saying Kolstad is beyond question. Anytime you buy what looks like a nice retirement house for yourself and your wife in another state — 900 miles away— you raise questions about your devotion to your council gig.
On both legal and moral fronts, however, the councilman escapes flunking the smell test. As a journalist, I would rather this were not so. But facts are facts.
Take the legal piece first: The city’s charter says you have to be a “resident and a qualified registered elector’’ of the city to serve in elective office. It does not say you have to own a house. By renting a place on Fargher Drive, Kolstad passes those hurdles. In July, he changed his voter registration to that address.
“To my knowledge, he rents a home in Santa Clara,’’ said City Clerk Rod Diridon Jr. “And we’ve confirmed that he’s a registered voter with the registrar of voters. Unless information otherwise presents itself, he’s qualified.’’
The second piece — the moral question — is a little tougher.
Clearly, Kolstad is spending time in Washington state. And I’m told that he is stepping down from at least one council committee assignment.
But Kolstad has continued to show up for council meetings. His attendance record — three absences this year — is about average for Santa Clara council members. The record shows he attended one meeting, Aug. 1, remotely from his new home in Liberty Lake, Wa. (The council attendance record does not reflect whether absences were excused, though Kolstad says all three of his were.)
The final question is a political one: Why is this story arising? It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Kolstad is not part of Mayor Lisa Gillmor’s majority coalition on the council. If he were to depart early, the council would likely have a chance at appointing a successor before 2018.
Anytime a council member has a foot even partly out of the door, voters ought to pay attention.
Yet Kolstad has given this situation some thought. He shows all signs of wanting to remain. And there’s no club to take him out.