Dem operative’s defamation suit is tossed out
A judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by a local Democratic Party leader against a Silicon Valley newspaper, a San Jose councilman and his former staffer.
Shaian Mohammadi, a community organizer, campaign consultant and Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee delegate, filed suit in July accusing Metro Publishing, which owns the Metro newspaper and San Jose Inside blog, of libel. He also named Councilman Donald Rocha and his former aide Ann Grabowski in the suit.
Mohammadi’s lawsuit stemmed from a July 2016 San Jose Inside blog post that detailed claims of harassment from Grabowski and another woman who had accused Mohammadi in 2011 of posting a nude photo of her on Twitter af-
Del Terra woes for another school district
ter their romance soured. Mohammadi denied the accusations and claimed Metro’s story caused him to lose jobs and social standing and to struggle in school.
Rocha was named in the suit because he defended Grabowski in the article.
Mohammadi maintained in an interview that he had asked the court to dismiss the case, but still insisted his complaint had merit.
“If people continue to make preposterous and false claims about me without showing full and complete proof, then I will be forced to seek my due process in a court of law,” Mohammadi said.
Metro’s editor Josh Koehn said the paper stands by reporter Jennifer Wadsworth’s story.
“At a certain point, you have to question his credibility,” Koehn said. “He can throw out whatever he wants, but the facts are the facts. It’s not the free press that’s our problem — it’s people who think inconvenient facts are fake news.”
Metro in reporting the case dismissal published what it said was a screen shot of an undated Facebook chat in which Mohammadi appeared to admit sending the topless Twitter photo.
A woman named Alysa last week identified herself on Twitter as the victim as part of the #MeToo campaign, and she called out Mohammadi by his Twitter handle, @ShaianNavaei. She declined an interview.
Mohammadi in his lawsuit had denied posting a topless photo of the woman, asserting that there is no evidence he had done so. He accused Wadsworth of careless reporting.
But Mohammadi now says that he had meant to send the picture to his ex in a private Twitter message — as a threat after learning she cheated on him — but accidentally posted it publicly.
“I have made a big mistake, and I am only human,” he said. “This isn’t to excuse my action whatsoever, and I’m very disappointed in myself, as well as that I let my friends and supporters down. Posting any kind of revenge porn is absolutely not OK.”
S.J. council wants automatic raises
Fed up with political fallout from voting on their own salaries, San Jose lawmakers will ask voters to scrap the longstanding protocol of the City Council approving its own pay raises.
If approved by voters next year, San Jose’s mayor and City Council members will get an automatic raise every July tied to cost-of-living increases.
But it would be capped at 5 percent per year, and the council could vote to decline it.
The change requires a vote by residents and will cost San Jose about $136,000 to put a measure on the June or November ballot in 2018.
Since 1995, San Jose’s mayor and council members have relied on an appointed salary-setting commission to make recommendations on their salaries and benefits every two years.
City law allows them either to accept the recommended salary boost, decline it or adopt a lower amount.
The mayor and council members for years have refused the raises — for political reasons or because city employees took pay cuts amid budget shortfalls and a deep recession.
Mayor Sam Liccardo and the council in January 2016 approved raises, but put off another boost last May.
Liccardo, along with Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco, and council members Chappie Jones, Raul Peralez and Sylvia Arenas, proposed stripping the council of the decision-making power and going with the automatic raises. The council approved the idea on a 10-1 vote Tuesday, with Councilman Lan Diep opposed.
Diep said the council should not divest its own authority and a ballot measure is not a “worthwhile” expense. “I just say we should have more political courage, if we think we are worth that,” Diep said during the meeting. “There’s a lot to this job.”
But Liccardo said elected officials voting on their own salaries is “bad for public confidence” and it creates conflicting loyalties.
“To be voting on budgets at the same time we’re voting on our own salaries — which are paid out of that same budget — is fundamentally a conflict,” the mayor said.
Taking aim at “illegal expenditures, fraud and waste,” a former school administrator has filed suit against his old district to halt its bond construction program.
No, this isn’t about San Jose’s Alum Rock Union School District.
The suit was filed this month by Cleve Pell, former chief finance and operations officer, against the Montebello Unified School District in Los Angeles County. It seeks to stop payments to Del Terra Construction, which manages the district’s bond construction program — as well as Alum Rock’s.
The suit alleges that Montebello steered its program management contract by stacking the jury that selected applicants. For one of the district’s three bond measures, the suit alleges, Del Terra is reaping $13.5 million in management fees.
The allegations follow on a suit Pell filed in June with Montebello’s ex-superintendent, Susana Contreras Smith.
Both Smith and Pell were dismissed by Montebello’s board last year, after questioning the credentials of then-chief business officer Ruben Rojas.
The new lawsuit alleges that Rojas previously worked for Del Terra and that as Montebello CBO hand-selected a panel that disqualified other bidders in order to ensure that Del Terra would win the program management contract.
In an email, Del Terra CEO Luis Rojas wrote, “This is nothing more than a last ditch effort to retaliate against a district for his dismissal and for moving forward without him on an ambitious and progressive agenda to provide a quality education for its students. His claims regarding Del Terra have no absolutely merit or credibility.”
Montebello has since given Ruben Rojas the boot, right after State Auditor Elaine Howle announced she is looking into the district and its hiring of contractors.
The board hasn’t changed course. Two months ago, it renewed its contract with Del Terra.
Beloved Milpitas crossing guard dies
Milpitas employees and community members are remembering longtime resident and city employee Noel Jackson, who died Oct. 13 following his third battle with cancer in 10 years.
Jackson’s wife, Rondi Jackson, posted an update in the Noel’s Journey Facebook group the next day saying: “His family was surrounding him. He is at peace and no longer hurting.”
A U.S. Navy veteran, Jackson, 63, worked as a public works maintenance employee for the city for 22 years. Shortly after retiring in 2010, he joined the police department’s adult crossingguard program. And he had been its supervisor since 2011.
In July, Milpitas police officers, firefighters and community members rallied together in support of Jackson after he was again diagnosed with cancer, dedicating their Relay for Life walk to him.
The Milpitas Police Officers Association team also made shirts that combined thin blue and thin red lines symbolic of police and fire support for him.
Milpitas police detective Craig Solis, Jackson’s friend, spearheaded the public safety departments’ effort to support Jackson after he was diagnosed with lung cancer for the second time in June.
“Noel is one of the kindest and most giving persons I know,” Solis said. “He sincerely cares about his community, especially our youth and has even donated his own time to help facilitate a soccer program in Armenia for poor and orphaned children.”
Tara James, president of the officers’ association, said the union will participate in the Morgan Hill Veterans Day Run on Nov. 11 in Jackson’s honor, and encouraged the community to join in.
People who had known Jackson through his work with the city, as a crossing guard and as a soccer coach, friend and valued citizen took to social media to post remembrances of him.
Daniel Bobay, president of the Milpitas Unified School District Board of Education, called Jackson a “prince among common men.”
“We think the merits of doing business in San Jose speak for themselves without subsidies.”
— San Jose City Councilman Johnny Khamis, on the city’s independent bid for the site of Seattle-based Amazon’s second headquarters.