San Jose failed to investigate cheating claims amid unclear process
The San Jose City Council recently appointed Domingo Candelas (right) to represent District 8. Photo by Jana Kadah.

A newly-appointed San Jose councilmember faced allegations of cheating, but the city failed to investigate those claims.

Three people claim Domingo Candelas, who was appointed to the District 8 San Jose City Council seat last week, cheated during the interview process by having access to questions ahead of time. The allegations stem from Candelas’ use of a tablet and phone before and during questioning.

Sal Alvarez, Sukhdev Bainiwal and Tam Troung, three of the candidates competing against Candelas, saw him using his phone while another candidate was being questioned inside the chambers. They reported him to the City Clerk.

The city required candidates to wait outside the council chambers so they would not hear the questions ahead of time. The city has no definitive rules on the appointment process, but a Jan. 19 email from City Clerk Toni Taber warned candidates not to watch or listen to the meeting. It did not explicitly say candidates could not use electronic devices.

Candelas said he followed all the rules. Bainiwal said that’s hard to believe.

“I was sitting behind him as he was answering the questions. He was scrolling down with every question, not bouncing around his notes,” Bainiwal told San José Spotlight. “That doesn’t sit right with me.”

The allegations dramatically halted the meeting. City Attorney Nora Frimann rushed everyone into a closed-door meeting to discuss the allegations in private because of litigation risks. After an hour, councilmembers emerged from closed session and councilmembers concluded there were no legal threats and continued the process.

Councilmember Sergio Jimenez, who voted for Candelas, would not say what happened behind closed doors, but noted the council didn’t take the allegations lightly. While there was no investigation into the cheating claims, councilmembers asked another set of random questions to all candidates to offer parity.

“How do you prove that he was gaming the system? There’s nothing we can do about it, and I think that’s why the latter portions of lengthy questioning really put them on equal footing,” Jimenez told San José Spotlight. “It’s an interesting predicament because nothing has been proven, these are just allegations. Am I supposed to make my decision simply based on allegations?”

Candidates, including Candelas, said city staff didn’t question them after the cheating allegations. The city council did not ask to see the notes Candelas read from.

“We thought about doing those things, but really there isn’t much we could do to prove whether these allegations were true,” Jimenez said.

Frimann did not respond to questions about how she weighed the complaints and decided there was no legal risk.

Councilmember Dev Davis supported Candelas despite her suspicions he might have had questions beforehand because he read from his tablet.

“It was impossible to know in the moment. And I still don’t have any confidence that we’ll ever know for sure,” Davis told San José Spotlight. “It’s a judgment call and because we didn’t know, I don’t want to unfairly penalize him if he didn’t, but I didn’t want to reward him if he did. And ultimately, I think he handled himself the best out of the two I could vote for at the end.”

Some councilmembers want the city to investigate what happened, but no movement has been made yet. Davis and Jimenez said they would support an investigation, but doubt it would reveal much.

Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who supported Candelas from the start, said the allegations are politically-motivated and nothing more than hearsay. He said he would not support an investigation.

“We had a very serious conversation in regards to that. That’s why we had the second round of questions to negate any sort of cheating because obviously we made those questions up on the spot,” Ortiz told San José Spotlight. “He performed way above the other opponents, so I think these allegations were like a Hail Mary attempt to try to essentially assassinate Domingo’s character.”

Contact Jana Kadah at [email protected] or @Jana_Kadah on Twitter.

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