Story of the Week: Campos, Constant Collect Campaign Money for Family

Elected officials lead hectic lives. They attend plenty of meetings, study sessions and community events. Keeping pace with it all must require a steady level of focus to serve the needs of constituents. But those constituents aren’t always the people who live in a particular politician’s district.

An examination of DFR forms, or Disclosure of Fundraising Reports, filed in the last two years shows that many San Jose city councilmembers not only spend their time soliciting contributions for community events, but also partisan organizations and even family members in two particular cases.

Over the last two years, Councilmember Xavier Campos has raised at least $25,550 to support the political aspirations of his sister, former San Jose councilmember and current State Assemblymember Nora Campos.

Xavier Campos raised $9,800 for his sister’s 2012 Assembly campaign earlier this year, notably taking $2,000 from the Police Officers Association and $6,300 from Republic Services, the waste management company that currently holds a contract with San Jose. He also collected $1,000 from Bianca Pirayou—wife of attorney Ash Pirayou—for the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee.

In 2011, Xavier Campos raised a total of $15,750 for his sister’s re-election run this year. Virtually all of the companies that he solicited have an interest in city contracts and policy: construction and developer companies, bail bonds, labor unions, and trash and recycling companies. He also raised $21,000 for the League of California Cities Latino Caucus in just the third quarter of 2011.

More timely, in the second quarter of 2012, Xavier Campos received $2,000 from Lara Diaz Dunbar, a Senior VP of the California Restaurant Association—the same firm that employs Javier Gonzalez, who Xavier Campos has been actively lobbying to get on the county Office of Education’s Board of Trustees.

Joining Councilmember Campos on the family fundraising bandwagon, although not nearly to the same extent, is District 1’s Pete Constant.

In the last quarter of 2011, Constant raised $7,000 in contributions for his wife Julie’s school board campaign in Campbell. Of that amount, $3,000 came from California Waste Solutions, a company that also handles trash and recyclables for San Jose.

In the last four months of 2011 and first three months of 2012, Councilmember Constant collected $11,300 for the Santa Clara County Republican Lincoln Dinner. The bulk of that money—$9,4000—came from Jeff Stanley ($4,000), CEO of Bad Boys Bail Bonds, and John Davis ($5,000), president of TMFC Inc. (The latter’s contribution was considered an in-kind donation for use of Club Auto Sport.)

Constant also raised $2,560 for the 2012 West Valley Senior Walk.

Perusing the rest of the council’s DFR forms shows some other interesting trends on what certain councilmembers consider priorities.

In the case of District 3’s Sam Liccardo, it often involved downtown events and getting two people elected to the council: incumbent Rose Herrera and District 10 runoff candidate Robert Braunstein.

Liccardo collected 15 contributions for Braunsetin, including the max of $500 each from Jim Salata, president of Garden City Construction, and his wife Suzanne.

Liccardo also received 20 contributions for the re-election campaign of Rose Herrera, including a max contribution of $500 from Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino. After the report Thursday that Mayor Reed’s been accused of illegally transferring $100,000 into the campaign of Herrera, which the mayor’s office called a baseless attack from the POA, could this just be further proof that Herrera can’t fundraise for herself?

Liccardo also was active in raising $3,500 for Via Services, an amount TBD for the Cinequest Film Festival downtown, $4,000 from a PG&E lobbyist for the Santa Clara County Cities Association Dinner and more untold amounts for Downtown for the Holidays and Cristo Rey High School.

In 2012, Councilmember Kansen Chu received eight in-kind contributions of food and drink, staying true to his culinary reputation. In the second quarter filing, Chu raised $1,500 for the 2nd Annual Berryessa Family Day Farmer’s Market on April 21.

Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen focused almost all of her solicitation efforts on Operation Prom Dress and the Mid-Autumn Festival 2012, while Ash Kalra raised lots of money for the Future Roots Event on May 26.

Josh Koehn is a former managing editor for San Jose Inside and Metro Silicon Valley.

5 Comments

  1. It seems to me that the Mayor has had his share of “misunderstandings”  with finances in which he either paid back or has made questionable responses to his actions. This is the same Mayor who has went after and fired other city employees in either the same situation or much lesser offenses. So why no investigations ? why no follow up questions??? It truely worries me that it will come out after the Mayor is termed out ,  alot of questionable/illegal decisions made by him.

  2. No surprise at all that Campos is the leader of the pack with the quid pro quo to all the labor and trade groups.  Maybe he should get started on fundraising for his former boss Gorgeous George Shirakawa to solve his campaign money shambles. 

    All losers.  Constant is no better.

  3. Garden City Cardroom and construction OWN Pete Constant.
    Why else is he shilling for them @ Matrix card room? Definitely not in his district any longer but he’s trying to squeeze every last penny out.
    Shameless.

    Go ahead and complain Shane Patrick Connoly. Constant’s wife will hire you as a shill too

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