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FW: Public Comment - September 15, 2026 City Council Agenda - Consent Calendar Items 2.7-2.15 From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Tue 9/15/2026 7:34 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: brian darby
Sent: Monday, Septem
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment - September 15, 2026 City Council Agenda - Consent Calendar Items 2.7- 2.15 [External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel September 14, 2026
Dear Mayor Mahan and Members of the City Council:
I am writing regarding the consent calendar for the September 15, 2026 City Council meeting, particularly Items 2.7 through 2.15.
I recognize that a consent calendar is necessary for conducting routine City business efficiently.
However, several of these items involve significant questions of transparency, delegation of authority, procurement performance, long-term contractual commitments, and public accountability . These matters deserve more than approval through a single motion without discussion.
Under the City's consent-calendar procedure, an item may be removed for separate consideration when requested by a member of the City Council. I therefore respectfully ask a Councilmember to pull Items 2.7 and 2.13 for discussion. At a minimum, the Council should obtain clear answers to the questions raised below before approving these items.
Item 2.7 - Conflict of Interest Code Biennial Update
The purpose of updat ing the Conflict of Interest Code is legitimate and necessary. The proposed resolution covers elected officials, employees, temporary employees, newly created positions, board and commission members, and certain consultants. It requires designated filers to submit Form 700 Statements of Economic Interests and directs the City Clerk to notify a department director when a filer remains delinquent after a reminder.
I support maintaining a comprehensive and current list of designated filers. However, the supporting memorandum provides little explanation of the actual changes between the 2024 code and the proposed 2026 code. Councilmembers and the public are being asked to approve a 33-page resolution and extensive departmental appendices without a concise change log identifying positions that were added, removed, renamed, or assigned different disclosure requirements.
Before adoption, the Council should request:
1. A plain-language comparison between the 2024 and 2026 codes.
2. A list of all positions added, removed, renamed, or assigned modified disclosure categories.
3. The number of designated filers who are presently delinquent.
4. The number of late-filing referrals made to department directors during the previous two years.
5. An explanation of when consultants are required to file Form 700 statements and who decides whether a consultant qualifies as a designated filer.
6. Confirmation that temporary, contract, and newly created positions cannot avoid disclosure merely because their job titles do not yet appear in an appendix.
The resolution states that a delinquent employee "may be recommended for disciplinary action." The Council should clarify who makes that recommendation, what standards apply, and whether enforcement is consistent across departments and employment classifications.
These questions do not necessarily require rejection of Item 2.7. They do justify pulling it for a short public explanation.
Related Transparency Concern - Nondisclosure Agreements A separate recent discussion before the Rules and Open Government Committee raised questions concerning nondisclosure agreements and contacts between City officials and outside individuals or organizations. I understand that this issue is not part of Item 2.7 or the other consent-calendar items presently before the Council. Nevertheless, it is closely related to the larger principles of disclosure, conflicts of interest, and public trust.
Because Item 2.7 updates the City's Conflict of Interest Code, this is an appropriate time to recognize that financial disclosure is only one part of government transparency. Residents should also be able to understand when City officials or employees have entered into confidentiality arrangements in connection with City business.
Confidentiality may sometimes be justified to protect cybersecurity information, personnel matters, legally privileged communications, proprietary technology, or active negotiations. At the same time, no nondisclosure agreement should be used to conceal a conflict of interest, improper conduct, the expenditure of public funds, or information that the Brown Act, California Public Records Act, whistleblower protections, ethics rules, or other applicable laws require or protect.
As the City continues considering the separate NDA issue, I encourage the Council to develop a clear policy addressing:
1. Whether a Councilmember, council staff member, City employee, consultant, contractor, or other City representative may sign an NDA relating to City business.
2. Who must review and approve such an agreement before it is signed.
3. Whether the existence of the NDA must be disclosed publicly, even if some of its protected contents may lawfully remain confidential.
4. Whether City officials must disclose meetings or contacts associated with an NDA.
5. How the City will ensure that an NDA cannot override public-record, open-meeting, ethics, conflict-of-interest, or whistleblower laws.
6. Whether the City Clerk or another central office should maintain a record of NDAs signed in connection with City business.
I am not asking the Council to resolve that separate matter through this consent calendar. I am asking that the recent discussion result in a clear, publicly accessible policy rather than disappearing after a committee meeting. Raising the subject here helps preserve the connection between financial disclosure, confidential contacts, and the public's right to understand how City decisions are made.
Item 2.13 - Procurement Delays, Performance Measures, and Unfinished Audit Recommendations Item 2.13 asks the Council to accept fourth-quarter financial reports covering debt management, investment management, revenue management, purchasing, and risk management. The reports contain positive information, including strong investment earnings, credit ratings, revenue recovery, and continued financial oversight.
The purchasing portion, however, raises a serious accountability issue.
The memorandum states that the City Auditor completed a procurement audit in August 2025 and issued eight recommendations. According to the report, as of the applicable status update, only two recommendations had been fully implemented and one had been partly implemented. The Finance Department stated that it intended to close the remaining recommendations during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2026-2027.
The public letter attached to Item 2.13 raises a longer history. It states that procurement performance measures and transparency improvements were discussed at the October 7, 2021 Smart Cities and Service Improvements Committee meeting. According to the letter, nearly five years later the department still lacked the promised performance measures.
The letter specifically identifies six audit recommendations as not implemented:
• aligning the procurement risk strategy with the operational need for timely procurements; • improving transparency and accountability in strategic procurement; • establishing strategic-procurement performance measures; • developing a consolidated, user-friendly procurement handbook; • providing departments with procurement guidance; and
• ensuring that procurement policies are current and applicable to present operations.
These are not technical housekeeping matters. Procurement delays can affect nearly every City department and can postpone services, infrastructure work, technology upgrades, equipment purchases, and programs serving residents. Delays can also reduce competition, increase costs, encourage repeated extensions of existing contracts, and make it more difficult for smaller vendors to do business with the City.
The staff report acknowledges the audit but does not provide a recommendation-by-recommendation implementation table, responsible officials, firm completion dates, measures of actual improvement, or an explanation for why commitments dating to 2021 were not completed earlier.
The Council should not merely accept this report without asking:
1. What was requested or promised at the October 7, 2021 committee meeting?
2. Which promised deliverables remain incomplete?
3. What caused the delay between the 2021 discussion and the August 2025 audit?
4. What is the present status of each of the eight audit recommendations?
5. Have the six recommendations identified in the public letter now been implemented? If not, what remains to be done?
6. What firm deadline and responsible official have been assigned to each open recommendation?
7. What performance measures will be published for procurement processing times, backlogs, competitive participation, exceptions, protests, contract amendments, and customer-department satisfaction?
8. Will the City provide a public dashboard or recurring written report so residents can measure progress?
9. When will the matter return to the Council or an appropriate committee for verification rather than merely being reported as an anticipated future completion? A statement that staff "intends" to close the recommendations is not the same as demonstrating that the reforms have been completed and are producing measurable results. The Council should direct staff to return with a written implementation matrix and supporting evidence.
Other Consent-Calendar Items
Item 2.8 authorizes travel by the Mayor, three Councilmembers, and mayoral staff for a San Diego treatment-diversion study mission. The objective is worthwhile, particularly the examination of treatment pathways, placement capacity, interagency coordination, and recidivism tracking. The memorandum promises a report to the Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee on February 18, 2027. The Council should ensure that this report includes measurable findings, specific recommendations, estimated costs, responsible agencies, and a public implementation schedule. The quorum memorandum indicates that three members of the Rules Committee would remain available, but this should be confirmed before travel arrangements are finalized.
Item 2.9 increases the construction contingency for the Regional Wastewater Facility yard-piping project by $1.54 million, raising it from $1.949 million to $3.489 million, or from 10% to 18% of the original $19.49 million construction contract. Staff provides substantial engineering justification, including severe pipeline corrosion, incomplete historical records, congested underground infrastructure, design changes, and unforeseen conditions. The request appears supportable, but the Council should require a final report comparing forecasted and actual change-order costs and identifying lessons for future condition assessments and project estimates.
Item 2.10 could extend the Granicus web-content-management agreement through June 30, 2032.
The existing system resulted from a 2017 competitive process, and all original options have been exercised. Five more years is a substantial extension while the City evaluates alternatives. Staff should provide a definite schedule for evaluating the market and should not allow "additional time" to become an indefinite substitute for competition.
Item 2.11 would extend and broaden the Securitas access-control agreement through June 30, 2029 and add an approximately $645,063 City Hall upgrade. The security need appears legitimate. However, the agreement originated in 2013 and has already received nine option-term extensions. The Council should ask when a new competitive solicitation will occur and whether the authority to add or remove hardware, software, and services has a defined financial ceiling.
Item 2.12 could extend the Tolemi redevelopment-analysis purchase order through May 31, 2032. The platform may be valuable, and replacing an integrated system can be costly. Still, continued reliance on prior configuration work can create vendor lock-in. The Council should require performance measures, annual cost information, data-ownership protections, export capabilities, cybersecurity requirements, and a future competitive-review date.
Item 2.14 establishes a 20-year cost-sharing agreement with the West Valley Sanitation District, retroactive to July 1, 2026. A long-term sewer agreement may be appropriate, but the memorandum states that no further Council follow-up is expected. The Council should confirm that the agreement contains adequate auditing, billing-dispute, cost-verification, amendment, and periodic-review provisions. A 20-year commitment should not operate without meaningful periodic oversight.
Item 2.15 authorizes the Mayor's attendance at a Bloomberg Center for Cities convening entitled "Leading a Government Residents Can See and Trust." Because the subject is public trust, the City should provide a brief public report describing the practices learned, their relevance to San Jose, and any resulting commitments or recommendations .
Requested Council Action
I respectfully ask the Council to:
1. Have a Councilmember pull Items 2.7 and 2.13 for separate discussion.
2. Provide a plain-language summary of the changes contained in the proposed Conflict of Interest Code.
3. Ensure that the recent Rules and Open Government discussion concerning NDAs results in a clear and publicly accessible City policy.
4. Direct staff to publish a recommendation-by-recommendation procurement implementation matrix with deadlines, responsible officials, performance measures, and evidence of completion.
5. Require specific follow-up dates for long-standing contract extensions and major delegations of purchasing authority.
6. Ensure that public letters raising documented concerns receive a substantive response rather than merely being included in an agenda packet.
I am not asking the Council to reject necessary City operations. I am asking it to distinguish genuinely routine matters from actions that involve unresolved audit findings, long-term contractual commitments, broad delegations of authority, or important transparency questions.
The consent calendar should promote efficiency, but efficiency should not come at the expense of public accountability. Even if the Council ultimately approves these items, a brief public discussion and clear follow-up direction would strengthen confidence in the process and create a record of the City's commitments.
Thank you for considering these comments and for placing them in the public record for the September 15, 2026 City Council meeting.
Respectfully,
Brian Darby
San Jose, California
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