Nora Campos Continues to Lose Staff; No Change in Behavior

Fly predicted it was only a matter of time, and Nora Campos didn’t let us down. Instead she continues to fail her district. More than a year ago, it was reported that Campos had given back a half-million dollars from her office budget because she couldn’t keep a full staff. The trend continues. Minh Pham, a senior field representative in Campos’ district office for the last year, is the latest employee from the San Jose assembly member’s office to defect. He resigned last Thursday, bringing the total number of people who have left Campos’ employ to—well, we’re starting to lose count but it’s roughly double most Assembly offices during the same time period. Sources say Pham was the latest person to give up due to harassment and a lack of support by superiors—mainly Campos’ chief of staff, Sailaja Rajappan. With Pham’s departure, Assembly District 27 has lost three employees in the last three weeks, and the only person in the district office until today was an inexperienced secretary. Fly called the capitol office to see what was being done to serve constituents in East San Jose, but Rajappan was out sick. It was then a bit of a surprise to see an email later in the day from Rolando Bonilla, a former staffer and the assembly member’s current campaign consultant. Bonilla said Cory Black, co-founder of a Sacramento lobbyist and consulting firm, will take over the role of district director at a salary between $90,000-$100,000, which is more than his predecessors received. Black apparently contacted Campos about the job, so he probably knew he could name his price. Black’s bio says he has worked on every presidential campaign going back to Bill Clinton in 1992, which means he has likely seen some stuff—but has he seen stuff like this? Going back to Bonilla, it’s no secret he and his partner, Ryan Ford, have been forced to go above and beyond normal consulting duties to keep Campos’ house in relative disorder. They have routinely interviewed candidates to join Campos’ office. But Bonilla told Fly his work in communicating for this story was pro bono, and not related to the $37,837 Campos paid the pair as a “retainer” from last year’s election cycle.

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6 Comments

  1. Is Nora in a contest with Williams in Milpitas to see who can lose the most staff members?

  2. As if state representatives actually effect the districts they represent. I live in her district and don’t feel like she failed or succeeded because it is just a political job.

  3. Nora is a true civil servant who does a lot for her district. You folks should be proud that she uses her budget in the wisest way. A little favoritism never hurt no one!

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