The San Jose City Council is formally excusing embattled Councilmember Omar Torres’ absence from an earlier meeting as he battles child sex abuse allegations — allowing Torres to dodge the public eye while holding onto his seat.
Councilmember Bien Doan was the lone objection to the council’s Tuesday 8-1-2 vote, with Torres and Councilmember Dev Davis absent. Doan requested proof that Torres was sick when he didn’t show up to an earlier Oct. 8 meeting, amid an ongoing police investigation for alleged “oral copulation of a minor.” But his request died without other colleagues’ support.
Excusing Torres allows him to keep missing meetings without vacating his seat under the city charter. If he misses five meetings without a council-approved excuse, his seat becomes vacant. Torres claims “illness” as the reason for missing the earlier meeting, according to his excuse request.
While Mahan slammed Torres for holding his seat “hostage” and “denying representation to the 100,000 residents of District 3,” he said he’s not interested in “litigating” whether Torres was sick a few weeks ago.
“Should he continue to request excused absences, I personally will want to hear a better explanation for what the illness is,” Mahan said at the meeting. “This is a difficult and unique situation … a situation we haven’t been in before.”
Councilmembers also approved reassigning Torres’ various committee seats to other colleagues.
Mahan and the rest of the council have stated that Torres needs to go, unanimously calling for his resignation in a joint statement last week.
“I do not approve of Councilmember Omar Torres’ attempt to prolong separation from the City of San José and will not vote to support his continued participation in official City business,” Doan wrote in his memo for consideration on Tuesday. “Councilmember Omar Torres has failed to make any meetings of elected obligation since the news broke on October 3, 2024. Should Councilmember Omar Torres be able to submit proper medical documentation to the Clerk, then the Council can reassess at a later date.”
Torres is also dodging his other elected obligations, most recently a city finance committee meeting on Thursday. He was also absent from VTA’s Oct. 3 board meeting the night the scandal went public, as well as a news conference the following day about Spartan Keyes Park. The mayor’s office is now attending District 3 neighborhood meetings in Torres’ stead. On Oct. 10, Mahan’s office hosted a contentious public outreach meeting for District 3 residents about a proposed homeless safe sleeping site on East Taylor Street.
The scandal has taken multiple turns since going public on Oct. 3. Torres at first dismissed the investigation as political retaliation and extortion. A week later, new police filings forced Torres to acknowledge lewd texts about minors while dismissing them as “role-play.”
The revelations appalled his colleagues and constituents. But for a week, the San Jose police union was the only organization calling on Torres to resign. The San Jose Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose Downtown Association, the Vietnamese American Organization and Jean Cohen, head of the South Bay Labor Council which endorsed Torres’ 2022 council run, have all followed the city council in calling on Torres to resign.
Story last updated Oct. 22 at 2:56 p.m. Original story published on Oct. 21 at 5:58 p.m.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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