The big news of the day, as reported by Deborah Lohse and Barry Witt in this morning’s Mercury News, is that Carl Mosher has resigned as the city’s envronmental services director to take a job with the County of Sacramento. His new boss asked the reporters “Should I know about that?” when asked about the Norcal investigation.
Scott Herhold thinks we should do the math and add up costs when officials ask us to pay for projects. Maybe so, but to borrow Jude’s metaphor from the other day, sometimes it seems as if our elected officials have taken all of the chalk when we walk to the board to try to work out the problem.
In Metro, The Fly talks about which mayoral candidate might get to count on the backing of business with Pat Dando out of the race and running the Chamber of Commerce. Maybe they shouldn’t hold those endorsement interviews yet, there may be a new player before they can tally the votes. Internal Affairs reported that Maryles Casto might join the race for mayor next year. If she does, we’d welcome her to the race and hope she would join the other candidates who’ve blogged here.
The Willow Glen Resident uses back to school time to highlight the 50th anniversary of Schallenberger School in a story by Mayra Flores De Marcotte. There’s a push in Willow Glen to replace a duplex with four homes, reports Alicia Upano. Also, San Jose may join San Francisco in banning smoking in all city parks, says Michele Leung.
Finally, we’re a San Jose blog and we may like to keep the focus on San Jose, but we’ve got hearts. Please consider giving to the Red Cross to help those hurt by Hurricane Katrina.
Does San Jose Inside exercise censorship by not posting comments that your individual Blog writers do not agree with?
Yesterday’s Blog does not have any comments after 12:20 pm.
Why were my highly critical comments about Measure J being the primary cause of San Jose
Hhhmm: Mr. Mosher takes about a $34k pay cut just to get outa Dodge. The rats are starting to flee the sinking ship. Who’s next? He beat out the appointment of the investogator, but how hard can that be since it’s taking so very long to appoint a neutral person.
His new boss’s assistant fail to tell the new boss about the NorCal situation. Did he come from San Jose, too?
It would be interesting to find out just how much Mr. Mosher actually revealed to his propspective new employers during the interview process; but since it falls within the oft-used Brown Act exception for personnel matters, neither we nor the citizens of Sacramento County are likely to ever find out.
#1. Actually, the truth is that we didn’t receive any comments to post yesterday after 12:20, otherwise they would have been up there.
Our policy on what we don’t post is clear and is printed here: http://sanjoseinside.com/sji/blog/Comment_Policy/
We do welcome divergent opinions. In fact, you can see criticism of Measure J by comments to this entry: http://sanjoseinside.com/sji/blog/entries/the_charter/
As I’m sure you’ll see if you read through our postings, at various times criticism has been leveled at all of the bloggers and many of those who comment.
Thanks for your comment..
When a San Jose city department head leave San Jose and take anothe rgovernment job they do NOT normally take a pay cut
They receive BOTH their San Jose retirement payments AND the new job’s salary and possibly additional retirement benefits or as many taxpayers would say they DOUBLE DIP
Maybe a City Hall insider knows the retirement numbers for Carl ( his final salary $$ times the retirement percentage – which maybe 70% ) plus his new salary in Sacramento
Our former Police Chief made $185,000 times 85% retirement equals $ 157.000 plus his new San Diego salary of $165,000 – the total equals $322,000 take home pay plus new retirement plan in San Diego
No pay cut just smart career and financial management
It is estimated the many California city and county governments will possibly face massive service cuts, possible bankruptcy since they soon will be paying out more in retirement costs than the cost of current city employees in the next 2-3 years and if these city employees live into their 70-80-90 ‘s the taxpayers will eventually pay 2 1/2 to 3 times cost for each city position since we will have 1 active city employee and 1 or 1 1/2 or 2 retireees at 70%, 85% or if state 90% retirement granted in their early or mid 50’s plus generous health benefits
Many private companies have done away with their retirement plans while local / state governements in Californai have doubled or more their retirement benefits and granted them to early retireees
City employees as well as everyone deserve a fair retirement benefits and many in governement especially teachers and private jobs do not receive a fair retirement
Are these California city / county / state government early retirement – double dip retirement plans also fair to the taxpayers?
Can we as taxpayers afford to pay for what many people call excessive early retirement plans?
Many taxpayers will be working into their late 60 or 70’s since they do not have any retirement plans or adequate savings due to massive layoffs , outsourcing etc and their taxes will be paying for these early government retirees
Is this fair?
Exactly what kind of loyalty (to the citizens he served) should we have expected from a high-paid administrator living two hours away? Why on earth would Carl Mosher have cared that the mayor violated the city charter, that the council had been left in the dark, that the people of San Jose had been lied to? Should we have expected him to jeopardize his paycheck and job prospects by being the only one to stand-up to the mayor? Clearly, by the time Ron Gonzales got around to staging his dog and pony show in the council chamber, Carl Mosher’s priorities—and best interests—had already left the building.
I am fully confident that the mayor and his staff knew about (and were counting on) Carl Mosher’s particular vulnerabilities all along. Exploitable tidbits of that nature are never overlooked by those playing hardball politics. I also have no doubts that Mr. Mosher’s new boss had been made aware of everything and viewed her new employee as just another victim of something that has reached epidemic proportions, the Cowed Administrator Syndrome.
“See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil…”
put that on your résumé, apply for a job in government, and reach for the stars.
#4 nails it.
Why should gov’t employees get jobs for life and a red carpet at retirement?
401ks for all gov’t employees except those in hazardous occupations (police, fire, etc).
What am I missing?
When this pension largesse starts hitting the front pages – the public outcry against municipalities that outsource gov’t jobs will be nill.
fustrated finfan
Are you recommending a new San Jose city government slogan
” The silicon valley capital of ” See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil…
Mosher was one of the last senior staffers to “…get away, while the getting is good.” Gonzo’s legacy may be leaving an organization that focuses on CYA, being evasive when pushed for information and leaving the mess for the next guy/gal to clean up.
Here’s real irony—Gonzales considers himself a good manager. I say the emperor wears no clothes.
Re comment #9: Gonzo was originally elected as San Jose’s Mayor because of his combination of experience in government and the private sector. He often cited his “hi-tech” management experience at HP as one of the key selling points for his qualifications as Mayor of the largest city in the Bay area.
As an international icon, HP, “…had a management philosophy emphasizing integrity, respect for individuals, teamwork, innovation, and contribution to customers and the community, it earned the abiding loyalty of thousands upon thousands of employees since the company was founded 63 years ago.” Apparently our Mayor was on a very, very long coffee break during his time at HP, or the cubicle walls at his station were too high to absorb some of the HP way of doing business.
I remember him saying he was going to run our city like a finely structured business. Too bad he ran it like a dot com that had not substance.