School trustee who swiped $9K has no plans to quit
After being fined by a state watchdog agency and censured by his colleagues, Franklin-McKinley school board member John Lindner said he feels apologetic and regretful for swiping $9,300 in funds donated to a school bond campaign.
But other than in a brief conversation with us, Lindner has not publicly apologized — even when he was censured by fellow trustees earlier this month.
“I’ve not chosen to say anything at this time,” Lindner said.
The board this month voted 4-0 to censure Lindner for violating state campaign laws, with Lindner abstaining. In a stipulation with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, he admitted that he took campaign funds for personal use, lied to the FPPC about his actions and agreed to pay an $18,500 fine.
The censure resolution does
have a slight self-serving tinge to it. It declares: “In order for the board to maintain and ensure confidence over the district’s management of bond funds, it must publicly condemn any board member for conduct that harms the reputation of the district.”
It sounds a bit like telling constituents, “We have to say this so that you’ll believe us” — and continue to give us your money.
Lindner had been treasurer of a campaign fund established to promote a 2010 ballot measure to pass a $50 million bond.
Asked if he would repay the funds, Lindner said that the campaign fund no longer exists.
“I’ve paid back everything I was required to do,” he said. That is only sort of true — the FPPC fine was a penalty that goes to state coffers, not to FranklinMcKinley donors.
Trustee Rudy Rodriguez, the district’s teachers union and some parents have called on Lindner to resign from the board. He’s served 13 years and has three years remaining in his term.
His response: “I have no plans to leave the board at this time.”
Candidate says he was ousted from public meeting
A City Council candidate vying to unseat Councilman Tam Nguyen claims he was physically shoved out of a public meeting at the Tully Community Branch Library.
“They ordered a security guard, who grabbed me by the arm and forcefully removed me out of the room,” Chris Le said in a letter to San Jose Public Library Director Jill Bourne. “In the interest of peace, I avoided calling the police to resolve the issue. … Libraries are public venues that must provide equal and open access to the public regardless of political differences or party affiliations.”
Bourne said in an interview that the meeting was not a sponsored event of the library and that her staff was not involved. It was hosted by the Association for the Assistance of Disabled Veterans of the Republic of Vietnam.
“Library staff reviewed the video recordings, and we have forwarded the complaint to the city attorney to review and determine if the nonprofit violated the rental agreement requirements,” Bourne said.
Le, who is challenging Nguyen’s re-election next year, claims the councilman’s supporters kicked him out of the Nov. 12 meeting .
Le, who alleges civil rights violations, claims he was ousted because of his opposition to a ban of the communist Vietnam flag on city property — one of Nguyen’s signature policies.
A YouTube video appears to capture Le being escorted out after people shouted “get out from here!”
It’s unclear what type of resolution Le is seeking from the library, but he demanded an investigation into collusion between event organizers and Nguyen.
Le threatened to “escalate this grievance to litigation” if he doesn’t hear from library or city officials within 45 days.
Google puts scam ad atop search results for Amazon
In the runup to this year’s Black Friday shopping frenzy, a search for Amazon on Google was leading users to a tech-support scam.
It was Thanksgiving Day and all through the land people were preparing to launch their credit card numbers into the ether in return for a bounty of discounted loot.
But some who searched on Google for Amazon saw at the top of the results an ad purportedly from the e-commerce giant, but instead designed to part victims with their cash — and who knows what else.
Not only did test cases by CBS News reveal a bid to fleece internet users with a malware scam, an attempt was made to get a user to hand over full control of their computer.
Clicking on the ad brought users to an app running on a Facebook page, then to a fake support site said to be run by Microsoft, saying the computer was infected with malware, CBS reported.
The network called a number on the scammers’ site and reached a man called “Robert” who had what appeared to be a South Asian accent, CBS reported.
“He asked for the error code found on the pop-up and said he would need to take remote access of the computer to resolve the issue,” according to CBS.
The man also said he worked for Microsoft in New York City, but wouldn’t say where in the city he lived.
“He quickly became agitated and hung up when asked whether the site was a scam operation designed to lure users into forking over money for supposed anti-malware software,” CBS reported Nov. 23.
CBS called again, and a man who answered said the supposed malware problem could be fixed for a “one-time fee of $149.99,” according to CBS.
It was unknown how many people, if any, were confronted by the scam or ensnared by it.
Google said it had taken down the ad, according to CBS.
“This was an abuse of our platform,” the Mountain View tech giant told the network. “We strictly prohibit advertising of illegal activity and have removed these ads and suspended the account.”
The Federal Trade Commission describes tech-support scams and how to respond to them.
“Some scammers call and claim to be computer techs associated with well-known companies like Microsoft or Apple,” the agency said on its website. “Other scammers send pop-up messages that warn about computer problems. They say they’ve detected viruses or other malware on your computer. They claim to be ‘tech support’ and will ask you to give them remote access to your computer. Eventually, they’ll diagnose a non-existent problem and ask you to pay for unnecessary — or even harmful — services.”
Here’s what to do if you’re hit with such a scam, according to the FTC.
“If you get an unexpected popup, call, spam email or other urgent message about problems with your computer, stop. Don’t click on any links, don’t give control of your computer and don’t send any money.”
Frugal holiday shopping in San Jose predicted
The National Retail Federation predicts the average per-person tab this holiday season will reach $967, up nearly 3.4 percent since 2016. And personal-finance website WalletHub’s analysts, concerned that folks might overdo it and put themselves deep in debt, calculated a maximum holiday budget for people in each of 570 U.S. cities. Some Silicon Valley towns were among those with the 10 highest budgets. But others, including San Jose, were far down the list.
The analysts used five key characteristics of each population, such as income, age and savings-to-monthly expenses ratio to come up with their findings to help consumers avoid post-holiday regret.
Sunnyvale had the fourthhighest holiday budget, at $2,360, and Milpitas the sixth, at $2,262. Mountain View ($1,841) was 15th, Santa Clara ($1,706) 21st and Palo Alto ($1,689) was 23rd.
The holiday budget for San Franciscans ($1,575) was 27th highest among surveyed cities.
San Jose, with a holiday budget of $1,041, was 96th on the list. Seems rather meager for the Capital of Silicon Valley and home of Santana Row.
But don’t feel bad, San Joseans. Oakland’s holiday budget, 276th on the list, was just $633. And Angelenos were pegged to just $246, making Tinseltown the ninth-lowest on the list.
“I recoiled, and I made sure I was never alone with him in a room ever again.”
— Rep. Jackie Speier, a San Mateo County Democrat, recalling what she described as a forced kiss from a congressman’s now-deceased chief of staff when she was an aide in the office 44 years ago.