June 29, 2006

In sit-down interview, Mayor Gonzales claims he accomplished
much in his tenure but ‘took the arrows’

By Daniel DeBolt
Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: On May 15, the Times Media editorial board sat down at the Times offices with Mayor Ron Gonzales and his spokesperson David Vossbrink for a 90-minute interview to discuss the ups and downs of his tenure as mayor. We held the article until after the election because we wanted to concentrate on the candidates and their positions prior to the June 6 primary.

He is the mayor who does it his way. For better or worse.

In the song “I Did it My Way,” Frank Sinatra sings, “The record shows, I took the blows and did it my way.”
For Mayor Ron Gonzales it’s a song that fits. He’s a man who enjoys his job and works hard at project after project, not afraid of taking “the blows” whenever he needs to.

On May 15, 2006, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales came to speak to the editors of Times Media Inc. in an effort to "give myself a pat on the back," noting that no one else would do it. Photo by Jeff Frazee

But his actions haven’t earned him a lot of public support. His public approval rating is lower than any outgoing mayor in recent San Jose history, according to San Jose State University political science professor Terry Christensen. And on June 22 the mayor was arrested and indicted on six felony counts including, conspiracy, bribery and lying to a grand jury and now faces up to eight years in prison if convicted on all counts.

However, in a May 15 interview Gonzales was relaxed as he offered up a long and distinctive list of accomplishments in his term that he claims are unmatched by other previous mayors and said simply that some projects require that you have a “tough skin.”

“The deciding factor between a leader and a non-leader is those that say ‘hey this is important to the future of this city and I’ll take the arrows,’” Gonzales said. “You just have to do that, whether it’s a ballpark, a city hall, a grand prix race, whatever. You just have to say I’m going to be a leader.”

A Mercury News poll was taken in the heat of the mayoral primary when five candidates “almost sounded like they were running against Gonzales instead of each other,” Christensen said. His approval rating was at 23 percent.

“Actually I’m surprised (public approval) is as high as it is,” Gonzales said. “I don’t think any elected official could take the pounding from our local newspaper that I have.”

“The blows” Gonzales suffered to create this rating are numerous, starting with his affair with a staff member, followed by questionable dealings with a Cisco bid, budget disasters associated with the building of the new city hall, the “last minute” Grand Prix subsidy and then, of course, the Norcal Garbage scandal. Overall, it would appear that his “individualistic” leadership style has left citizens and council members feeling cut out of the political process and questioning his integrity.

Christensen said Gonzales’ weakness has been his “bunker mentality” that has caused people to turn on him quicker than other mayors. In his first term, homeless advocates tried to confront him by going to his office but he dispatched a representative to deal with the situation. Gonzales admits that he rarely talks to newspapers and deals mostly with radio and TV because they “editorialize less.”

Many say Gonzales’ closed-door leadership style is the reason why a Sunshine law is being seriously considered in San Jose and it may affect Cindy Chavez’ chance of becoming the next mayor. Public perception of him has tainted those around him, Christensen said and his administration is often called the “Gonzales-Chavez administration” because of his perceived relationship with consensus-builder Chavez.

“I think he is basically a nice person that has been caught up in some unfortunate decisions and directions,” said Pat Dando, executive director of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber’s political action committee singled out Chavez and Gonzales in a controversial and expensive “issue” campaign during the mayoral primary that Chavez blamed in part for her second-place June 6 primary finish.

“When you are surrounded with so many allegations of wrongdoing and investigations and legal actions it takes so much of your time and energy,” Dando said. “It gives the impression that’s all you’re dealing with.”

While his prospective replacements were giving campaign interviews at Times Media during April and May, Gonzales also requested an interview to talk about his accomplishments “because no one else is going to do it for me,” he said.

“The other candidates running for mayor … should be glad I’m not running because I would be in first place, even with that pounding everyday,” Gonzales said. A pounding from “what I consider one-sided journalism.”

But some people can step back and appreciate the positives in Gonzales’ regime, and Professor Christensen is one of them.

Christensen said Gonzales should be remembered for pushing to build more affordable housing in San Jose than any other California city since 1999, including Los Angeles.

Christensen praised Gonzales for fighting hard to bring BART to San Jose, even if it is “old news” now because voters defeated Measure A on June 6, which would have paid for much of BART. At least Gonzales put BART on the agenda, Christensen said.

Christensen and Dando said Gonzales should be remembered for preserving historic buildings downtown, like the Montgomery Hotel and the California Theater and for putting a new a focus on building housing downtown, Dando said. Gonzales took the lead and passed the first bond measures since 1966, which directed money to parks and libraries in San Jose. A new city hall was built and a block away a new joint SJSU and city library has become a model for other cities.

To Gonzales, it was important to mention that crime went down as unemployment went up during his term as mayor of “the safest big city in America.”

“Show me any city that’s our size any time in this country’s history where unemployment went up and crime went down,” Gonzales said. “That is unheard of.”

The increase in public safety Gonzales said was due to investments in the police department where a point has been made to hire progressive police chiefs. Complaints to the police auditor went down every year he was mayor, he said.

Both Dando and Christensen said the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative was a crowning achievement. SNI gives neighborhoods redevelopment money and allows them the freedom to spend it on projects of their choice.

Proponents say it has made city government more democratic and distributed wealth into traditionally poor communities and empowered citizens and turned neighborhoods around. Critics say it’s empowered a few residents to be a part of a gentrification process in San Jose that’s pushing poorer residents out.

Gonzales, Chavez and Assistant City Manager Mark Linder delivered a program that allows neighborhood groups to prioritize where redevelopment money will go in their neighborhoods. Gonzales said the nationally recognized initiative was his vision, but Chavez took credit for it also during her interview with the Times. Christensen said it was hard to pin down whose idea it was, but like most projects it would have been hard to implement without Gonzales’ support.

City Council voted in early June to extend SNI to all neighborhoods in San Jose, not just those that are in redevelopment areas.

Gonzales said he remembered when Susan Hammer was wrapping up her term as mayor and a reporter said she led the city through tough economic times. But Gonzales said he kept the city afloat in even rougher economic waters following the dot com collapse in the late 1990s, something Professor Christensen also noted as significant. The city maintained a 76 percent satisfaction rate with city services, according to Gonzales’ office, compared to 37 percent for San Francisco. This is while San Francisco has 30,000 city employees while San Jose has less than 7,000.

During his interview with Times Media, Gonzales said Joe Alioto, mayor of San Francisco from 1968 to 1976, told him that his most proud accomplishment was the Transamerica building, which is now an icon in a city already full of icons. Building it was expensive—it meant giving up space in the top floors to achieve the architecturally attractive peaked top section, even though the top floors of high rises are considered the most valuable real estate. It’s something that rarely happens anymore due to the cost, Gonzales said.

Gonzales likened the challenge of building the new San Jose City Hall to the building of the Transamerica building in San Francisco. He said that in 10 years no one will look back on the building of the new city hall as a hugely expensive project but will instead be grateful that the city has such an impressive city hall much as they look upon the HP Pavilion, which voters approved only by a slim margin but now enjoy universally. The new city hall has been criticized for going millions of dollars over budget while being lauded as an architectural jewel for San Jose. It’s quickly becoming the city’s most photographed building, Gonzales said.

“Hey, any project worth doing, you are going to take a lot of heat,” Gonzales said. “There’s just no way you can avoid that.”

That is what Gonzales said about bringing the Oakland A’s to San Jose even though a Mercury News poll in May said 53 percent of voters were opposed to using tax dollars to build a ballpark.

“I’m surprised it’s not 60 percent,” Gonzales said. “I’m surprised the Mercury News needed to spend money on a survey.”

Gonzales continues to push ahead despite many other difficult obstacles. The Giants still have territorial rights to San Jose, Fremont is also trying to attract the A’s and San Jose has a law requiring voter approval of stadiums, a law Gonzales wants to overturn.

“That’s a major hurdle,” Gonzales said. “If you are a major league team owner and you have to choose between a city that has a requirement like this and another, which are you going to pick?”

Mayoral candidate Michael Mulcahy told Times Media the mayor needs to pursue grassroots support of a ballpark before taking action. As a member of Baseball San Jose, Mulcahy said he was surprised when Gonzales announced he was going to try and bring major League Baseball to San Jose because he had never approached the group before.

The city is buying land south of the Diridon train station for a ballpark that will be used for affordable housing if a ballpark falls through.

During his last months in office Gonzales had hoped that his last major project would be creating a system for publicly funding election campaigns in San Jose. He proposed that the idea be studied in May noting that when implemented in other cities, publicly funded campaigns opened the door to the election of officials from more diverse backgrounds.

After it was discussed during a city council meeting, Gonzales said he hoped to vote on the idea before his term was over. Considering the circumstances of the past week he may never get that chance.

“I have regrets, more than a few, but then again, too few to mention.” —Sinatra

Gonzales said his most terrifying moment as mayor was when he had his stroke and collapsed in the middle of a state of the city address in 2004. His stroke received media attention nationwide.

The mayor’s spokesman, David Vossbrink, said of that period, “his perspective changed since his stroke and he views each day now as a gift. He knows what is important and he has relied heavily on his family and friends and his [Catholic] faith.”

When asked how his wife deals with the tumult of having a mayor for a husband, he said “she’s just internally strong; she believes I’m doing the right thing.”

His mother and the rest of his family, however, may have a more difficult time.

“I think they were fearful,” he said, that he might run for office again. When he told them he was going to take a break, “that was when it was time to order the drinks and relax,” laughed Gonzales.

On a positive note, Gonzales notes that since he was censured following the Norcal scandal and barred from serving on several committees, he is now able to spend more time with his wife. But he said it’s also been a disservice to the community because he is no longer allowed to participate in most meetings outside of council meetings, including Valley Transportation Authority board meetings.

Gonzales said that while he has received a beating from the Mercury News over what is perceived as a backroom deal, the paper doesn’t tell people he initially saved the city $50 to $60 million by insisting the garbage contract go out to bid instead of re-negotiating with the garbage company that preceded Norcal. Even though $11 million was given back, says Gonzales, he still saved the city $40 million when all was said and done.

When asked what he would have done differently he said that he would have asked each council member one by one if they understood the requirements for “labor peace” in the Norcal contract.

“I would have asked them … ‘do you understand this is going to cost us?’” he said.

And it did cost the city $11 million more than most thought it would. That money went to the salaries of garbage sorters, so Gonzales said it doesn’t bother him. He insists that residents still have a garbage bill lower than most Bay Area cities.

Christensen said Gonzales had a point but that he should have known better than to do a backroom deal.

“If you don’t follow open discussion you wind up turning something that could have been a good thing for the city into a bad thing,” said Dando, also a councilmember during Gonzales first term.

Vossbrink says that what really helps during this trying time is his belief that his boss is innocent. “No money changed hands. They are criminalizing public policy and I’m afraid it will discourage good people from running for office.”

“So I face the final curtain … I faced it all and stood tall— and did it my way” —Sinatra

Gonzales said he would probably be returning to the private sector where he once worked as an executive for Hewlett Packard. He said he wouldn’t return to politics as a lobbyist, as some have said he could, because that’s not what he would enjoy doing.

Gonzales is the first to arrive at the office and last to leave, said Councilmember Nancy Pyle. Dando said she bared witness to man who worked hard and enjoyed his job.

It’s been almost eight years since Gonzales was elected, and in January, and perhaps sooner, someone else will take a turn at the helm.

“Time flies when you are having fun,” Gonzales said on May 15.

Undoubtedly he’s singing a different tune now.