Planning commissioner blasts council members, resigns

The vice chairman of the Milpitas Planning Commission has resigned following a meeting in which he accused City Council members of sitting on their “fat asses” and not doing enough to create affordable housing in the city.

Rajeev Madnawat, a commissioner since 2012, dished out the criticism during a May 9 commission discussion about potential topics for which it could receive staff advice.

He resigned via email just hours before a May 15 City Council meeting in which some of his comments were replayed on a video screen, stirring consternation among council members who said he was out of line and off topic. Before that meeting, the city’s planning director had sent Madnawat an email saying his comments were “offensive.”

But in an interview Monday, Madnawat defended his comments as relevant to the Planning Commission discussion and said public officials should be able to handle criticism.

“I’m a big taxpayer and I am a concerned citizen of the city, so I have a right to bash anybody if I feel so,” Madnawat said. “If they are babies, they should not be on the council.”

During a wide ranging discussion at the May 9 meeting, Madnawat questioned whether the city was properly enforcing occupancy rules on the lowincome housing units it maintains to verify that owners aren’t subleasing them for profit.

He then suggested that allowing so-called granny units, or accessory dwelling units, to be built all over the city is key to making affordable housing a reality for people earning lower income levels.

Other than Councilman Garry Barbadillo, “All the other people, I don’t even think they know what this is,” Madnawat said of the council’s knowledge about the dwelling units.

“No matter how many … condominiums you provide, that’s still $700,000. No person who is living on minimum wage can afford it. This is the only way to provide affordable housing, to allow in-law quarters,” he said.

“Other cities are already way ahead of us in doing that. And we are just sitting on our fat asses, nobody is trying to do. They have big mouth and they just talk about it, but nobody does anything,” he said.

Madnawat also suggested the city’s public art fund — which developers who don’t want to install public art on their property pay into — is being mismanaged and possibly used to pay for park maintenance, so should be audited.

Councilman Bob Nuñez asked Planning Director Bradley Misner at the May 15 meeting to play the video clip during council discussion over whether to raise planning commissioners’ salaries.

“I think that we up here must defend the things that we do and simply saying that everything is great when things like that are taking place is wrong,” Nuñez said of Madnawat’s comments.

Councilman Anthony Phan said in an interview that Madnawat was out of line.

“He’s entitled to his opinions as a private citizen,” Phan said last week. “But as an official who adheres to the city’s policies, our protocols, our procedures, that’s not something that was appropriate to say.”

Misner sent Madnawat an email on May 15 telling him his comments were “not professional or respectful,” “not relevant to the discussion of training topics and were offensive towards the City,” and noted the council could take action against him.

Madnawat resigned in a reply to that email. He said in an interview, however, that he was already planning to resign soon, and this incident might have only sped things up by a few days.

Misner also sent a memo to the commission and the council on May 15 saying Madnawat’s claims about public money and policy were “without validity.” He said staff is working on a Milpitas-specific accessory dwelling units ordinance that will be brought to the council in the fall.

It also said a commission training session set for May 23 would address the incident, “to ensure that situations like this are not repeated.”

Madnawat holds that his comments were focused on soliciting information from city staff about issues that could affect planning commission decisions.

Alluding to a meeting earlier this year when Phan said he had “no confidence” in Misner, Madnawat said the City Council has been out of line frequently.

He added that Mayor Rich Tran’s heated exchange with former City Manager Tom Williams over his job performance review in April 2017 was inappropriate.

“People who cannot even control themselves should not be preaching what others should be doing,” Madnawat said.