August 31, 2006

City Council approves monthly disclosures on outside work

Passes measure to aid San Jose Rep

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

The San Jose City Council spent most of its Tuesday afternoon session discussing two items—one approving monthly disclosure statements about work council members do that is unrelated to their full-time City Council jobs and the other giving financial and staff aid to the San Jose Repertory Theater.

The ordinance amending Title 12 of the city’s Municipal Code requires “elected officials to report any time spent on services unrelated to their duties of office and the income earned from such services…” The ordinance requires council members to report time and income earned outside of their elected duties on a monthly basis.

The measure was approved by a 6-5 vote with Linda LeZotte, Madison Nguyen, Judy Chirco and Dave Cortese voting against it. Surprisingly, District 8’s Cortese initially was one of the three council members who initially proposed the amendment. He said he changed his mind because the proposal was “unclear…it excludes and exempts community property and does not describe income as passive or active.”

“This is very confusing,” said Cortese. “Why not put this information onto Form 700 [the required annual statement of information to the state]. It’s already a chore to fill that out once a year.” District 4 Councilman Chuck Reed agreed.

District 9 Councilwoman Chirco later told the Times that she’s worried the amendment “will create barriers for citizens that might want to step forward [and work on the council].”

During the midst of the debate among the council members, Chirco made a substitute motion that the amendment be referred to the Sunshine Task Force for further study because “it is too vague. I don’t feel comfortable with the levels and what we’re trying to capture,” she said. “It’s already a challenging job, are we capturing data that has something to do with work or just capturing data? Is this information that we are giving to the public meaningful and necessary?”

Cortese voiced support for the Chirco motion saying that he wasn’t sure that the definitions are complete.
Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez said she understood where Chirco was coming from, but added that the City Council should govern its own conduct. “I’d much prefer to keep the responsibility among the City Council,” she said.

District 1 Councilwoman LeZotte, who has been against the idea since it first surfaced as a moonlighting measure, was adamant that the proposal is not good for anyone. “I find this ludicrous. It’s morphed from ‘you can’t work at any job outside of the city council’ to this. …It’s anti-business. This is embarrassing, and it doesn’t give the public any more information.”

Both LeZotte and Chirco emphasized their concerns that the motion will deter people from running for council seats. It’s hard to convince good candidates to run now,” said LeZotte.

“We need to encourage good people not discourage them,” said Chirco. “If potential candidates are cognizant of the burdens we bring to work, any added work [regarding councilmember’s outside income] needs to make sense.”

Chirco’s substitute motion failed with Mayor Ron Gonzales, Chavez and Councilmembers Ken Yeager, Nora Campos, Forrest Williams and Nancy Pyle voting it down.

According to Doyle’s memo, the ordinance defines “income to include payment for services rendered to another governmental agency but excludes other types of interests normally treated as income…[such as] community property interest, registered domestic partner’s interests, gifts, loans and investments. The proposed ordinance would provide limited information for the purpose of identifying conflicts of interest.”

Thus, if a council member did pro bono work, that would not be subject to reporting. Neither would work on a family business, since that would be considered community property. Another example of exemptions from the report would be rental receipts.

Stabilizing the Rep
Another lengthy discussion took place concerning the city’s Repertory Theatre. Board officials from the Rep discussed the financial problems concerning the theater and asked the city to provide an advance of $225,000 to help keep the theatre afloat.

City staff have been studying the beleaguered theater company. While they say there hasn’t been sufficient time to work out what steps the theater needs to take, city staff feels the board is making an effort to manage its problems and reorganize its methods.

Public speakers from the Rep asked council members to help them work out their problems. During questioning from District 10 member Pyle, the council members learned that board members had donated nearly $100,000 to keep the theatre afloat for another month if the City Council will loan $225,000.

Pyle also asked about fund raising. That too has been a source of income in the past, one board member said, but in most cases created burnout and there’s little money being raised from that direction.

Council members unanimously passed recommendations proposed by Chavez, Yeager and Williams. That document recommends the $225,000 advance payment as a loan. In addition, the memo directs City Manager Les White to form a corrective fiscal team to develop a plan to correct infrastructure problems and ensure financial stability. The team will include representatives from the city manager, finance director and cultural affairs offices as well as the City Council liaison to the San Jose Arts Commission.

The proposal also stipulates that Rep officials will return to the City Council on Sept. 12 or Sept. 19 “with a menu of loan options with clearly defined performance standards to keep” the theatre operating for the rest of fiscal 2006-07.

During the debate, business options were added such as the possibility of reorganization and bankruptcy. The recommendation also stated that the Rep will provide a monthly review of its progress to the city team. It also will create a “best practices standard” for city interaction with nonprofits in crisis. Progress will be reported to the council through the driving strong economies committee.