San Jose Grand Prix

I write letters. In today's San Jose Mercury News:

San Jose council scorns citizens

I continue to be disappointed, yet not surprised, by the San Jose City Council's contempt for the citizens of San Jose. The latest example is the rush to push through a $4 million subsidy to keep the San Jose Grand Prix in San Jose. Ignoring our morally ambiguous mayor's comment that ``the deal is the deal,'' citizens deserved notice about this and the chance to comment to their council members. This council's culture of excluding the citizens from debate has become standard operating procedure, and I'm afraid it will continue if Cindy Chavez (the only council member other than the mayor informed ahead of time about this deal) is elected mayor. Thank you to Councilmen Cortese, Reed and Yeager for voting against this back-room deal.

David Shannon
San Jose

Interestingly, the Mercury News main editorial today was:

City's climate of secrecy has to change

VOTE ON GRAND PRIX SUBSIDY ILLUSTRATES NEED FOR REFORM

Mercury News Editorial

Still mopping up after the Norcal scandal, San Jose's elected leaders should be going out of their way to win back the public trust. But most of them haven't got a clue.

They proved it Tuesday by rubber-stamping a surprise proposal to give $4 million to the San Jose Grand Prix -- even though most council members had only one day to peruse the deal, and most of the public found out about the unexpected subsidy when they picked up Tuesday morning's newspaper.

It gets worse. Some leaders did know. Mayor Ron Gonzales and Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez had been briefed on the proposal last month. Neither said a word.

It's no surprise for Gonzales, who has a record of keeping discomforting news to himself. But Chavez ought to know better, particularly since she's running for mayor. Voters don't want more of the same.

Springing proposals on the council and the public has been business as usual in San Jose. Staff reports on important issues often go out at 5 p.m. Friday for a Tuesday council meeting. The Grand Prix details didn't make it to the city Web site until late Monday morning.

Only Ken Yeager, Chuck Reed and Dave Cortese stood up for open government and voted no. All but Reed said they'd probably have approved a subsidy once they had answers to a whole raft of questions, including what the net effect of the deal will be on the city's general fund.

The late reports aren't the fault only of the staff. They happen because the mayor and council let them -- or perhaps prefer them in some cases. More notice can mean more public controversy.

Cortese argued eloquently to delay the vote until the next council meeting. But the majority fell for that old sales pitch: This offer's only good for one day! Come back in two weeks, and it may be too late!

Seriously. Negotiations have dragged on for months, but now suddenly a two-week delay will kill the race? If it's that fragile, the sponsors are likely to be back asking for more money by spring. Which, by the way, is another San Jose pattern.

The Grand Prix was great last year, and we'd like to see it come back. But if the ground rules were going to change, the debate should have begun before a firm deal was hashed out, not after. And as Reed has proposed, San Jose needs a sunshine law to prevent these kinds of taxpayer surprises.

posted by Dave @ 3:44 PM