A Review of Santa Clara County’s Grand Jury, Which is Accepting Applications

Santa Clara County’s Grand Jury is accepting applications for openings in the upcoming fiscal year.

Santa Clara County’s Civil Grand Jury—a watchdog of local government—needs 19 new jurors to serve during the coming fiscal year. The deadline to apply is March 8.

Every year, the grand jury fields citizen complaints and chooses which to pursue as investigations. Sometimes, the grand jury chooses to follow up on a previous jury’s reports to make sure the recommendations were taken seriously.

California’s 58 civil grand juries, comprised of regular citizens, provide a level of oversight, monitoring local government’s actions for instances of abuse of power. Every year, the local arm of the judicial branch audits elected leaders, public agencies and the county’s 25 special districts to make sure they govern with integrity and don’t misuse taxpayer money.

“Civil Grand Juries are the cornerstones of democracy that ensure county and local government are wholly accountable to the people they serve,” says Presiding Judge Brian C. Walsh. “Civil grand jury service offers everyday citizens a unique opportunity to contribute to the efficiency of local government and to hold elected and appointed officials accountable for the use of our precious tax dollars.”

Applicants must be at least 18 years old, a U.S. citizen who has lived in the county for a year or more and able commit to at least 20-25 hours a week to the role. Terms start with the new fiscal year.

“We are incredibly committed to selecting a group of citizens who represent Santa Clara’s diverse community,” Walsh says. “Because the Civil Grand Jury looks at all aspects of government, we need a deep bench of knowledge—everything from construction to finance—and are looking for a mixed set of skills and abilities. But most importantly, we are looking for civic mindedness, strong ethics and commonsense.”

The currently impaneled grand jury released a dozen reports between 2011 and 2012:

• Custody or Rehabilitation? The County’s Approach to Women Inmates at Elmwood >> Women locked up at Elmwood Women’s Correctional Facility need better access to support and self-help services and more focus on rehabilitation—as opposed to punishment for minor crimes, the jury concludes.

• South Santa Clara County Memorial Special District Continues to Fall Short of Good Governance >> Jurors dug up some shocking violations of the Brown Act by the governing board of a small veterans memorial district. Boardmembers, all elected officials, held a private meeting to talk about ousting a fellow trustee who wasn’t even invited to the meeting. Then, boardmembers proceeded to strike out his votes at a later regular board meeting, even though their attempt to remove him was completely illegal. The jury pressed further and found that the district had no effort to reach out to veterans to connect them with valuable services, despite being paid by taxpayers to do exactly that. The district had no website, no mission statement and no up-to-date ethics training.

• San Jose City Hall: A Promise Kept or a Promise Broken? >> In 1996, voters passed a ballot measure that required the city to use proceeds from the sale of the old City Hall to help finance the new one. Jurors found that the city didn’t keep its promise, and that the new City Hall is far beyond the scope of what voters originally asked for.

• Is Santa Clara County Ready for Prison Reform? >> When the state last year started trying to thin out its prison population, it shifted a huge weight to counties, requiring them to release some of the jail population to ease overcrowding. Jurors wanted to see how well the county stepped up to the task of this new responsibility. They released a glowing report, naming the county as an example to follow in enacting prison reform.

• How Santa Clara County Decides to Lease Property at Below Fair Market Rates >> The role of our county government is to offer public services like mental health care, education, recreation and other welfare services. Very often it can’t afford to staff a department to extend those services itself, so it contracts with nonprofits or other community organizations to help, in exchange for letting them lease county-owned land for $1 a year. The jury examined this leasing practice and concluded that it’s necessary, but that the county needs to treat these exchanges as financial transactions, naming a dollar amount loss and list the assessed fair market value of the property on Board of Supervisors meeting agendas before a vote is taken.

• Change Starts at the Top in Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Resuscitation >> A prior jury lambasted Valley Medical Center for its shoddy financial management, finding that its operating losses more than quadrupled from 2000 to 2009. The $1.2 billion operation has consistently needed a bailout from the county’s general fund. The current jury decided to follow up and see if the public health agency followed the previous recommendations to fix that. Jurors say in their recent report that the hospital took steps to fix that, including a the Board of Supervisors hiring a doctor as county executive and federal healthcare reform that handed down stricter oversight rules to public health agencies.

• Community-Based Organizations: Partners in the Community >> The county pays more than 100 community organizations to extend public services to residents. That’s 155 separate contracts adding up to $46.5 million. Because of how much money is on the line, the jury decided to look into how these private and nonprofits perform with our taxpayer money. The consensus was positive overall, with suggestions for some minor improvements in the way the county awards small-dollar contracts.

• An Analysis of Pension and Other Post-Employment Benefits >> The jury looked at the pension and benefits of employees at 16 county cities. The cost of retirement takes away from valuable city services, like public safety, said jurors, who called for across-the-board pension reform.

• County Updates the Look and Feel of its Website Without Attention to Content >> Sure the county’s new website is shiny and new, but the useful information is either absent or tough to find, jurors said. They cited San Jose’s city website as a helpful user-friendly model to mimic. (San Jose has since updated its own website design.)

• Veterans Memorial Restoration: Preserving History and Restoring Pride>> It took the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs more than a year to repair a vandalized $1.25 million war memorial on Park Avenue by the Guadalupe River. The agency missed several completion dates and patched up the monument with a temporary plastic cover. The jury wanted to find out why the repairs took so long. It wound up finding out that the city didn’t communicate well with the public, should have bought copyrights from the original manufacturer and needs to install security cameras by the memorial to stave off or catch future vandals.

• Continuity in Fire Service Delivery >> Another follow-up to a previous grand jury’s audit, this report found that local fire agencies need to re-think the way they respond to emergencies. About 94 percent of calls for service are unrelated to fires (about 70 percent are medical). This is caused, in part, because modern building codes require sprinklers and flame-retardant construction materials, cutting down on emergency fires to fight. That means agencies need to consider ways to dispatch vehicles appropriate to the call received. The jury found that fire departments are following those recommendations and reinventing service protocol.

• Luther Burbank School District Misses the Mark in its Response to the Grand Jury >> This Burbank school district gave jurors a little lip when responding to a 2010-11 report that accused it of violating open meeting laws and granting too much authority to an outside consultant. The district wrote its responses to the audit based on input from the same consultant the report called into question. The successor jury followed up to make sure the district wrote a new formal response to the review based on input from objective counsel, not a person defending their work.

WHAT: Apply for the county Civil Grand Jury
WHEN: Deadline to submit an application is March 8
WHERE: Download an application from http://www.scscourt.org
INFO: Gloria Alicia Chacón, Office of the Civil Grand Jury, 408.882.2722

Show Me the Money: City Employee Salaries for 2012

 

San Jose released its annual list of city salaries late last week, reminding us once again where the bulk of the municipal budget goes. Like most municipalities, payroll accounts for the city’s single highest expense. San Jose shelled out $596 million, or 62 percent of this fiscal year’s budget, on payroll for its 5,500 employees. That doesn’t even count non-general fund personnel who work in utilities, such as Mineta San Jose International Airport or other city-run enterprises, says David Vossbrink—whose total 2012 pay, since we’re on the subject, was $135,638.

Here is the full list of City of San Jose Employee Salaries for 2012.

Retired Sgt. John M. Seaman topped the list, receiving total compensation in the amount of $308,345: $144,480 in vacation and sick leave payouts, $103,872 in base salary and $51,294 in overtime. In fact, five of the 10 highest earners retired last year, and six are police.

Recently retired Police Chief Chris Moore, who received the fifth highest amount in compensation, likely would have taken the top spot had he walked away from the job before the New Year. Not including full sick leave and vacation payouts, Moore received $255,791 in total compensation in 2012.

City Manager Debra Figone, coming in fourth, was once again was the highest-paid, non-public safety official and the most well-compensated active employee on the list at $255,8546. Her base salary is highest on the list.

Mayor Chuck Reed ($111,577) again managed to see several of his staffers earn more money than he did. Public safety advisor Jose Salcido pocketed $119,393 in total compensation, and he was followed by Pete Furman (118,6543), Reed’s chief of staff; Jeff Janssen ($116,186), a policy advisor; and Armando Gomez ($113,603); the mayor’s budget director.

Michelle McGurk, the mayor’s spokesperson, made more than any councilmember with $96,722 in total compensation, as did Joseph Okpaku ($94,250), a chief of staff for District 2 Councilmember Ash Kalra ($83,740).

Councilmembers from highest paid to lowest were as follows: Pete Constant ($89,736); Madison Nguyen ($89,287); Rose Herrera ($86,487); Peirluigi Oliviero ($86,284); Kansen Chu ($85,139); Sam Liccardo ($84,640); Kalra ($83,740); Xavier Campos ($83,449); Nancy Pyle ($83,449); and Don Rocha ($83,449).

No one came close to touching Rob Davis in 2011. San Jose’s former police chief ended his career with nearly $535,000 in total compensation for the year, $300,000 of which came from vacation and sick leave payouts.

Years of inflated PTO payouts have prompted some councilmembers to call for ending the lump-sum giveaways, or at least limiting them. A second-tier system has already been designed for a few unions, including anyone top-level administrators hired in the future.

City Attorney Richard Doyle, 10th on this year’s list, clocked in at $230,014. Senior Deputy City Attorney Brian Doyle, ended 2012 with $238,526 by cashing out $92,650 in sick leave/vacation payout.

Fire Battalion Chief Ivan Lee was seventh, earning $242,602 last year, about half of which came from overtime. Acting Police Chief Larry Esquivel($230,376) came in ninth and Fire Chief William McDonald ($218,889) was 14th.

Of the 70 workers listed under the City Manager’s employ, 18 made more than six figures; four, obviously including Figone, made $200,000 or more.

The lowest-paid city staffer, Environmental Services plant operator trainee Timothy Carroll, made all of 30 cents last year.

Bills would end federal marijuana ban, levy taxes

By Josh Richman
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 at 2:48 pm in marijuana, U.S. House.

Even as states keep chipping away at marijuana prohibition, some House members keep trying to change the federal law.

 A bill being introduced by Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., would end federal marijuana prohibition, letting states decide their own policies; it also would set up a regulatory process like the one for alcohol for states that choose to legalize the drug. Commercial marijuana producers would have to buy a permit, as commercial alcohol producers now do, to offset the costs of oversight by the newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms.

And a bill by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would establish a 50 percent federal excise tax on the first sale of marijuana, from the producer to the next stage of production, usually the processor. It also would impose an occupational tax on those operating in marijuana, with producers, importers and manufacturers facing an occupation tax of $1,000 per year and any other person engaged in the business facing an annual tax of $500 per year.

“Absolutely, there’s an opportunity for us to make at minimum a $100 billion difference over the next 10 years,” Blumenauer said on a conference call with reporters this afternoon, as the nation moves away from high law enforcement and prison costs and marijuana starts generating public revenue.

Polis said November’s successful legalization ballot measures in his state and Washington mark “an enormous evolution of American opinion on the issue.”

Most Americans now believe the war on drugs has failed and “enough is enough, let’s try a new way,” he said. “It’s an idea that’s time has come.”

Jesselyn McCurdy, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office, said the war on drugs has had disproportionate impact on communities of color. Students for Sensible Drug Policy executive director Aaron Houston said young people are disproportionately impacted as well.

“It’s clear that we’ve reached the tipping point,” said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance. “The American people are demanding reform, and members of Congress are starting to give it to them.”

A lesson for Vietnamese-American Candidates in San Jose

The Vietnamese-American community in San Jose still felt cheated after the election as a lot of them were led to believe by Jimmy Nguyen’s supporters that he would have a chance against the incumbent Rose Herrera.

If it wasn’t for Herrera running a terrible campaign and her husband getting caught stealing campaign signs,  Jimmy Nguyen would be trounced by wider margin instead of the 10% difference.

With roughly $500K spent on his behalf and with all the biggest names in San Jose politics campaigning for him, including Supervisor Dave Cortese (the dean of District 8 politics), Assemblywoman Nora Campos,  her brother San Jose Councilmember Xavier Campos and Labor Unions, everybody was predicting that the race would be much closer.

So what do we learn from this campaign?  A negative campaign that based on lies does not work, especially when the candidate is a newcomer with no ties in the community.   Spending $500K on mailers and other media  under the advise of high power consultant usually is a bad sign for a city council campaign, especially in a district of 100,000 people.   It was far excessive and it caused some people to vote against Nguyen out of disgust.

Jimmy Nguyen was a good candidate but lacked the credibility to replace Rose Herrera.  People see him nothing but a pawn for other people’s agenda.   He tried his best but his message was drown out by the negative campaign.  His campaign staff was inexperience and it showed in the end.  There were a lot of disappointed supporters who were also upset at the way they were treated by his campaign staff.

To run for city council and this is only true for city council since the importance of knowing your community is heavily emphasized, the candidate does need to show that they are active within the district and know their neighborhoods.   This provides a foundation of local support that one will need to win a city council race.   Jimmy Nguyen needs to learn this lesson and keeps himself active if he is interested in running in 2016.

LSI does not see a Vietnamese-American candidate winning a major office in 2014 election in San Jose, especially if Cam Van Le and Tam Truong are on the collision course in District 7 to replace Madison Nguyen for the city council seat.  Nguyen meanwhile has nothing to lose so she will try her luck at running for mayor.  With practically no Vietnamese-American base, she will have a hard time getting past the primary.   Dave Cortese is getting his coaltion of Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans and Hispanics under his belt.   If he runs, it is just a question of can he get 50% + 1 in the primary or not.

Kevin Krick for Bay Area Regional Vice Chair

 As the organizational convention for the California Republican Party approaches, Marin’s Kevin Krick is running to be the new Bay Area Regional Vice Chair for the CRP.

The opening arises because incumbent Morgan Kelley has reached her term limit after serving for four years.  The Regional Vice Chair represents six Bay Area counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara) on the CRP Board of Directors.

Kevin Krick is the Chairman of the Marin Republican Party, as well as First Vice President for the Republican County Chairmen’s Association.

He says that, “the CRP needs a plan to increase Republican registration and as you’re well aware, that need is very apparent in our area.”

Krick works for APL (formerly American President Lines), one of the world’s largest container shipping companies.

He serves as Senior Director – Security/Environment, managing a staff that deals with all security and environmental issues for a logistics company that operates 150 containerships and 7 container terminals located throughout the Pacific.

Previously, he served as the Assistant Director, Security and Accident Prevention for the Pacific Maritime Association in San Francisco.  He was part of the waterfront employers’ 2008 negotiation team that successfully delivered a contract with the longshore union.

Before that, President George W. Bush appointed Kevin Krick as the Special Assistant to the Administrator for the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) in the Department of Transportation. He was promoted to Senior Advisor for Maritime Policy, where he provided both policy guidance and leadership to MARAD.

Kevin graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York and subsequently earned an M.S. degree from the College of Marine Studies at the University of Delaware.

He received a commission in the United States Navy and currently holds the rank of Captain (select) in the Strategic Sealift Reserve Group.  He drills out of the Naval Operations Support Center in Alameda.

Kevin is very active with the local Boy Scouts of America, assisting in a leadership role alongside his wife in Pack 7 and concurrently serving as Scoutmaster for Troop 15.  He and his wife Natasha live in Fairfax with their two sons.

He believes that “we can begin a Republican resurgence in the Golden State.”  You can learn more about Kevin here.  You can contact Kevin’s campaign at KrickforCRPbayareavc@gmail.com.

Calif. Law Would Force Gun Owners to Buy Insurance

By DON THOMPSON |  Tuesday, Feb 5, 2013

Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation Tuesday that would require California gun owners to buy liability insurance to cover damages or injuries caused by their weapons.

Similar bills have been introduced in other states after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. They include Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.

  “I was moved, like many others, being the father of two young children, by the Sandy Hook incident and looking for constructive ways to manage gun violence here in California as well as the rest of the country,” said Assemblyman Philip Ting of San Francisco, who introduced AB231 along with Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles. “There’s basically a cost that is born by the taxpayers when accidents occur. … I don’t think that taxpayers should be footing those bills.”

Ting equated the idea to requiring vehicle owners to buy auto insurance. Gomez said it would encourage gun owners to take firearms safety classes and keep their guns locked up to get lower insurance rates.

No state has enacted the requirement despite repeated previous attempts, said Jon Griffin, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Bills have been offered unsuccessfully in Massachusetts and New York since at least 2003, when the conference began keeping track, he said. Similar bills were proposed in Illinois in 2009 and in Pennsylvania last year. Lawmakers are introducing the bills this year in even more states after the recent shootings.

Some proposals would require buyers to show proof of insurance before they could purchase a weapon. The proposal in California would apply to anyone owning a weapon, Ting said, though the bill’s details are still being worked out.

Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, said most gun owners already act responsibly and can be sued for damages if they don’t.

He said the proposal is part of an ongoing attempt to “price gun owners out of existence,” particularly the law-abiding poor who live in crime-ridden areas and need protection the most. Criminals would ignore the law, he said.

Moreover, he questioned whether it is constitutional to require someone to buy insurance to exercise a constitutional right.

“If they don’t address it in committee, I’ll guarantee they’ll have to address it in court,” Paredes said.

Ting said he and Gomez plan to work with gun owners and opponents to craft a constitutional bill. It will not require insurance companies to offer gun insurance, but will encourage them to enter the market.

He noted that the National Rifle Association itself already offers its members the chance to buy liability insurance, despite its opposition to requiring gun owners to buy such policies.

Ting also introduced AB232, which would give a state income-tax credit of up to $1,000 to anyone who turns in a firearm to a local gun buyback program. The amount of the credit would be determined based on the value of the weapon.

Copyright Associated Press