San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo’s secretive advocacy organization has hired a PR firm linked to a racist ad that toppled a business group’s political action committee. Liccardo’s group—Solutions San Jose—is working with Storefront Political Media, a San Francisco PR firm linked to a racist ad in a local City Council race last fall, San José...
UPDATE: San Jose to conduct another search, release a log of emails on mayor’s advocacy group
In response to an appeal from San José Spotlight over a denial of public records, San Jose will conduct a more thorough search for Mayor Sam Liccardo’s emails related to an advocacy group and produce a log explaining why certain communications are being withheld. The decision came Wednesday after the Rules and Open Government Committee...
How San Jose mayor’s ally helped Bloom Energy skirt a natural gas ban
Two weeks before San Jose passed a landmark ban on natural gas for new commercial buildings, city officials introduced an exemption that benefited a local energy company, Bloom Energy, whose vice president is a personal friend to the mayor. And the way they did it shows the stark difference in access granted to political insiders...
Behind closed doors: These are San Jose’s top 10 lobbyists
In the heart of Silicon Valley, local policies and laws, especially on land use and the economy, shape our way of life. But key policy discussions don’t always happen in public. Despite a global pandemic shuttering in-person meetings for more than a year, a data analysis by San José Spotlight found lobbying remains to be...