Strong mayor? Now it’s up to the voters
Ballot measure OK’d after feisty 22-hour City Council meeting
In a decision one San Jose leader called the most “divisive and significant” in recent years, the City Council on Wednesday moved a proposal to give Mayor Sam Liccardo considerably more power and two extra years in office into the hands of voters.
At the end of a contentious meeting that lasted 22 hours over the span of two days and occasionally took the tone of an intense courtroom trial, the council voted 6-5 to place the proposal on the November ballot.
If voters approve it, the ballot measure would give Liccardo executive powers as a “strong mayor” and shift the next mayoral election to 2024. Council members Raul Peralez, Maya Esparza, Sylvia Arenas, Magdalena Carrasco and Sergio Jimenez dissented because they opposed a movement toward a strong-mayor form of government without at
“This isn’t about ‘strong mayor’ being good or bad, it’s about major changes to the way this city is run.” — Brian Dane, representative for the local chapter of Municipal Employees’ Federation
least vetting the idea further.
The measure is a hybrid product of two yearslong efforts by influential and opposing strongholds in the city.
Labor groups have wanted to change mayoral elections to presidential years to increase voter participation, and business organizations have supported giving the mayor of San Jose as much clout as the mayors of most large cities across the nation.
But while some council members and community leaders commended the two sides for helping to craft a resolution, others called the outcome a “sham” and “the definition of a backroom deal.”
“Allowing a decision like this to be decided in a silo and then coming forward and pretending this is what’s best for our community is what is insulting, not only to me but to our community members,” Peralez said during the meeting Wednesday.
The November ballot measure would allow Liccardo, who first became mayor in 2014 and was reelected in 2018, to serve 10 consecutive years instead of eight.
The newfound support for the extra two years marks a stark contrast to just a year ago when the mayor and five council members shot down a suggestion by the council’s five-member Latino delegation to move the mayoral election. The council at that time instead advised proponents of the change — primarily labor unions and organizations — to gather signatures to place it in the upcoming election.
But that effort, known as the Fair Elections Initiative, fell short of the required signatures just a few weeks ago. This time, the six council members who had initially opposed the switch in mayoral elections voted for it and those who had pushed for the change voted against because it was tied to the strong-mayor element.
Under the proposed ballot measure approved by the council majority Wednesday, San Jose would join San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego in transferring the power of its councilappointed city manager to the mayor.
Liccardo would immediately oversee the city manager and share with him the responsibility to monitor the performance of department heads and appoint new ones. The mayor also could fire the city manager and department heads starting on July 1, 2023 — 18 months before he terms out.
Under San Jose’s current council-manager setup, the mayor has basically the same power as other council members, aside from guiding the budget process.
Over the course of the past few months, Liccardo said he’s been inundated with requests from residents to take actions that he can’t legally tackle under the limitations of his current role.
“It has become more apparent than ever that we need a system of government that aligns accountability with authority because our residents deserve to know in urgent circumstances that the person they’re urging to take action can take action,” Liccardo said.
But City Manager David Sykes — who typically shies away from commenting on political decisions — penned a memo to voice his deep concerns about the measure.
Sykes said it would “diminish the voice of independent, non-political, professional staff,” “create dysfunction within the organization” and send it through a major transition while city staff is already “beyond the point of exhaustion.”
Some of the residents and community leaders who called into the meeting Tuesday night described the measure as a “power grab” and a “rushed job” that neglected to engage the community during a critical and inappropriate time — amid a global pandemic that has put thousands of San Jose residents out of work and a wave of national protests over police accountability that has thrust San Jose officers’ behavior under national scrutiny.
Brian Dane, a representative for the local chapter of Municipal Employees’ Federation — a union that represents more than 3,000 city employees — said the city should explore the proposed changes to the city charter through a commission before putting it before the voters.
“This isn’t about ‘strong mayor’ being good or bad, it’s about major changes to the way this city is run,” Dane said. “To make a deal in the dead of night with organizations that have ulterior motives like the SVO (Silicon Valley Organization) and labor unions that are not directly affected by it like my members — without fleshing it out in the public — is immoral and nakedly unethical.”
But Michael Bangs, board chairman of Silicon Valley Organization, reminded everyone that the strong-mayor form of government had been discussed for many years. In fact, a poll commissioned by the organization in April 2019 found that 68% of respondents supported the idea.
“In an era of partisanship and division, clear judicial leadership is needed to unite,” Bangs said. “If San Jose wants to move at the speed of business, it should be organized like a business with a true hierarchical structure.”