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After spending $ 145,000 on a Washington communications consultant to bolster his two-year national profile, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo again extended his four-month contract to $ 30,000.
Stephanie Craig’s Apeiron Strategies Group was first hired by Liccardo’s office in 2018 and bills the city for placing opinion pieces in major national media under Liccardo’s signature. Sources in the mayor’s inner circle say Craig is actually an integral part of the mayor’s communications team.
An ethics expert told the San José Spotlight that there was nothing wrong with paying for this kind of press attention. But others wonder how much Craig’s work benefits the city, and to what extent it only aims to improve Liccardo’s public image.
Last November, the city extended Craig’s $ 7,500 per month contract until June 2021, increasing his total compensation from $ 187,000 to $ 229,000 since the contract began in 2018. The mayor’s office has hired Craig for a temporary part-time job in 2018, when Liccardo was making regular trips to Washington.
Although it started as a temporary arrangement before the onslaught of a global pandemic that emptied city coffers, Craig’s contract has now been extended four times.
Invoices obtained by San José Spotlight as part of a public records request show that the mayor’s office has relied heavily on Craig since October 2018 to create a national profile for Liccardo and some of his initiatives. Craig was hired around the time the mayor left a key FCC advisory committee in January 2018. She spent 25 hours securing a mayor’s op-ed for the New York Times in November about her resignation.
Last June, Craig billed the city for another opinion piece in The Times, plus an interview the mayor did with the Wall Street Journal and an editorial in the Mercury News under Liccardo’s signature.
A long-time advocate for government accountability told the San José Spotlight that the issue was complicated by the fact that Liccardo would personally benefit from it.
“It’s obviously an ethical issue on some level,” said John Sims, professor emeritus at McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento. “At the heart of the matter is how much the city benefits from the work this communications consultant does for the mayor. As a mayor uses city funds to promote the interests of the mayor and not those of the city, this is inappropriate.
Without a thorough audit of Craig’s work for the mayor’s office, Sims said it was difficult to disentangle what is good for taxpayers from what is only a boon to Liccardo.
But John Pelissero, a senior researcher at the University of Santa Clara’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and a political scientist, told the San José Spotlight that it’s not unusual for local governments to look to outside companies for public relations. .
Liccardo’s contract with Craig may raise questions, but it’s politics, not ethics, Pelissero said.
“Entrepreneurs are hired by cities and states for many reasons, including reputation management and general government promotion,” Pelissero said. “You might not agree with how the mayor spends the money, but it’s a political issue, not an ethical issue.
Ann Ravel, a longtime local government lawyer who ran for a seat in the California Senate last fall with Liccardo’s endorsement, agreed that the benefits of hiring a public relations consultant would be shared between the city and the mayor.
“It’s one of those things that, depending on what exactly she does, could raise legitimate ethical questions,” Ravel said. “Getting articles to be published in national publications or appearing on television for the mayor – although it may benefit him personally and politically – will not make him a movie star. But it also allows a national audience to recognize that San Jose is a place of some significance in the country.
The contract extension comes as questions swirl over the sequel for Liccardo which will terminate in 2022.
The mayor faces a difficult final to his term as mayor. He lost his will to create a strong mayoral form of government that would grant him more powers and extend his term by two years. He lost his majority in the council which would guarantee the adoption of his agenda. And he could lose his ability to appoint lawmakers to committees, one of the mayor’s key positions.
Two of his allies and biggest political fundraisers – Carl Guardino and Matt Mahood – no longer run the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Silicon Valley Organization, respectively. The SVO PAC, which financially supported Liccardo, has disappeared.
Liccardo recently started an advocacy organization called Solutions San Jose to gain some power and control, but it remains to be seen how she will raise funds and what long-term policies she will advocate.
A spokesperson for Liccardo insisted that taxpayers benefit from a more visible mayor on the national stage.
Liccardo did not accept an interview.
“San Jose has not always and historically managed to beat its weight in the national media,” spokeswoman Rachel Davis said. “It is the tenth largest city in the country with a smaller national profile than cities a third of its size. This undermines our ability to raise philanthropic funds from national foundations, to bring congressional and federal government attention to funding priorities, and to be a site for (private) investment.
Contact Adam F. Hutton at [email protected] or follow @adamfhutton on Twitter.
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