SAN JOSE COUNCIL Leaders keep gift limits, get raises

Votes also aim to allow churches to continue sheltering the homeless

SAN JOSE >> After voting last week to get rid of a local policy that bars city officials from accepting gifts worth more than $50, the City Council reversed course Tuesday and voted unanimously to keep it in place.

The council in its final meeting before its summer break also gave its members a 3 percent raise and considered a plan to continue allowing churches to house homeless people, but took no action on a settlement with a waste hauler to pay “living wages” to subcontracted workers.

Councilman Lan Diep had proposed eliminating the city’s gift ordinance — which is much stricter than limits in state law. Diep wanted to eliminate confusion by tying San Jose’s policy to state law, which limits gifts to $470. The proposal passed its first vote last week with Mayor Sam Liccardo and Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco opposed. On Tuesday, Liccardo urged the council to reconsider.

“I simply don’t think the state rules should be the touchstone for ethics in this city,” Liccardo said.

Though the $50 limit stays for now, the council in August will consider raising it to $250, as recommended by a city commission, to keep up with inflation.

Also on Tuesday, the City Council was poised to continue indefinitely a policy that allows local churches to provide temporary housing to the homeless.

Scrambling to get people off the streets during a cold snap two years ago, city officials eased permitting restrictions to allow churches and other faithbased groups to take in homeless people temporarily. Sixteen churches signed up for the program, city housing officials said, but it was capped at 35 calendar days a year and no more than 15

people a night.

Elected leaders on Tuesday considered permanently extending the program, which was set to expire June 30, and expanding it to 50 people per night for an unlimited period of time — as long as it’s not more than half the facility’s regular use.

Other public assembly places, such as gymnasiums, libraries and theaters, can also participate.

After a brief debate, the City Council on Tuesday also voted 9-2 to give itself a raise — 3 percent this year and 3 percent next year. Liccardo and Carrasco were opposed.

Last month, the council deferred a 9.6 percent raise for Liccardo, increasing his pay from $125,000 to $137,000 a year, and a 10.8 percent hike for council members, increasing pay from $92,000 to $102,000 annually. The raises were recommended by the city’s Salary-Setting Commission.

But frustrated with political fallout from voting on their own salaries, the mayor and four others asked to be stripped of the duty. Liccardo, Carrasco and council members Chappie Jones, Raul Peralez and Sylvia Arenas asked City Attorney Rick Doyle to come up with a new process that doesn’t involve the council — and put it before voters in 2018 since it’s a charter change.

Meanwhile, the council took no action on an agreement over a wage dispute with a waste hauler.

The dispute between Allied Waste Services, which operates as Republic Services, centers around accusations that it didn’t pay its subcontracted workers — sorters and housekeepers — a living wage, as required by San Jose’s policy. The company, which picks up commercial waste and recyclables, has held the city contract since 2012.

Doyle, the city attorney, said San Jose reached an agreement to raise those employees’s salaries from minimum wage to $17.29 per hour effective July 1. The deal includes paying $2.7 million in restitution to employees dating back to July 1, 2012, costing a total of $3.6 million.

Allied will pay $1.4 million and the remaining $2.2 million can be “passed through to Allied’s customers,” Doyle said. That means a potential 1.7 percent hike in garbage rates for businesses.

Teamsters officials said the agreement runs afoul with a decision from the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. which found employers are jointly responsible for certain subcontracted workers. They urged San Jose to penalize Allied Waste for violating wage policies.

Carrasco, Peralez and councilmen Sergio Jimenez and Donald Rocha led the charge to put off the issue until August to analyze the agreement further.