A San Jose politician directed the city to change the email addresses of three staffers who went to work for a colleague, an unusual move that comes after she was accused of turning a blind eye to child sex abuse allegations against a former councilmember.
District 1 Councilmember Rosemary Kamei has seen an exodus of employees from her office. Her former chief of staff took a job with newly-elected District 10 Councilmember George Casey in January, and two other staffers left Kamei’s office this month to work for Casey. All three employees had their city email addresses changed at Kamei’s behest, City Clerk Toni Taber said.
Taber said Kamei’s request is uncommon. Employees have historically kept their city-issued email addresses when they’ve moved to different offices or city departments, even years after leaving and rejoining the city.
“(Kamei) is the one who made the request,” Taber told San José Spotlight. “The request came in and I passed it on to IT. If I get a request from a councilmember I pass it to the department and they handle it.”
Kamei asked to change her ex-chief of staff’s email address because of a “glitch” that flooded her with alerts from his account, according to Taber. Kamei told San José Spotlight it raised concerns about the Brown Act since she was seeing details about meetings in Casey’s office.
“There were constant notifications,” Kamei said.
City Hall insiders wonder if Kamei’s push to deactivate email addresses is part of an attempt to hide communications about former San Jose Councilmember Omar Torres. The disgraced downtown politician was arrested in November and faces a maximum 24 years in jail for three felony counts of child molestation, including sodomy.
Kamei is one of at least two San Jose councilmembers warned in 2023 about Torres’ alleged child molestation, but took no action. Sources previously told San José Spotlight Kamei directed staff to delete communications with a tipster about Torres and to not involve her.
Kamei denies her request to have the email addresses changed is related to records about Torres. She said she’s not aware of any messages her three former employees might have exchanged with the Torres tipster.
“If they did communicate, it was unbeknownst to me,” Kamei said. “If and when I’m able to share the information that is with the police department and city attorney, it will become more evident. It’s not like I don’t want to share this information with you — I would love to be able to clear myself. But my hands are tied with the city attorney and the investigation from the police department.”
Sources with knowledge of the ongoing police investigation told San José Spotlight the city attorney’s office asked police to put emails, texts and other communications about Torres into the investigative file to avoid public disclosure.
Taber said she’s never seen the email alert glitch Kamei cited. Khaled Tawfik, the city’s director of information technology and chief information officer, told San José Spotlight his office has not received IT help desk tickets about this issue.
Kamei didn’t tell Taber why she wanted new email addresses for the other two staffers.
“She didn’t say why and I didn’t ask,” Taber said.
Kamei said she made that request for the two other former employees to avoid the same problems.
The city has repeatedly denied requests from this news organization to release emails related to Torres, including those involving Kamei’s staff and texts among councilmembers about the tipster who sounded the alarm on Torres.
In October, the San Jose Police Officers’ Association publicly accused City Hall officials of trying to expose leaks about the investigation and questioning officers working the case. The union questioned whether San Jose leaders engaged in a cover-up about Torres’ illicit acts.
Kamei’s requests to create new emails for three staffers — without consulting them — raises questions about whether she overstepped her authority.
The city charter prohibits the mayor and councilmembers from directing city employees to avoid interference. Taber said the rules don’t apply to council appointees such as herself, and that she regularly fields demands from elected officials.
“That’s my job. I get directed by council for all sorts of things,” Taber said. “I’m their go-between whenever they have an issue. They ask me for help and I go to the departments.”
Contact Ramona Giwargis at [email protected] or follow @RamonaGiwargis on X. Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.
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