Are you listening, Jude Barry? Based on what was described in court, you track every word the Santa Clara Weekly/Silicon Valley Voice pushes out about Santa Clara. So I’m sure this will reach you—if not directly, then through Mayor Gillmor or one of the many disciples of what people in town openly call the “Gillmor mafia.”

This letter is based on your own words with what’s publicly reported, what was said about you in court, and on the patterns you’ve woven through Santa Clara politics for years. You stand at the intersection of the powerful Santa Clara Police Union, a major developer, a power hungry Mayor, and a city whose political climate has been shaped—sometimes warped—by the very forces you advise. That isn’t a rumor. That’s your résumé, laid transparently. You are known around these parts as the “Master of Spin”, “Man who pulls the strings” or the “Man behind the curtain“.  

Yes, you worked with the 49ers’ Measure J stadium campaign from 2008 to 2010—side by side with Lisa Gillmor. You later began a professional relationship with the Santa Clara Police Officers Association in August 2022. At the same time, you work for Related Companies, a developer with a billion-dollar stake in Santa Clara city approvals. You have been close to Gillmor and former Councilmember Watanabe for years, maintain regular contact with them, and even admitted in court that you were rooting for Gillmor to win re-election in 2022 because it would “benefit” your client, the Related Company. One consultant working simultaneously for a police union, a major developer dependent on City Hall, and an incumbent Mayor with whom he has decades of political history may not be illegal. But the timing, the overlap, and the shared political goals raise questions that any resident should ask. How much influence over Santa Clara do you have? When Mayor Gillmor and your team talk about conflicts of interests, what about yours? Where are your ethics? What about your conflicts? 

Months before the 2022 election it was mentioned you had been hearing chatter about investigations swirling around City Hall. Complaints to the FPPC. Rumors of lawsuits from former terminated city employees. Speculation about the civil grand jury. Discussions with POA president Jeremy Schmidt, your client, even conversations with Mayor Gillmor herself about whether she was hearing similar buzzing. You described this as political “chatter,” but you were clearly plugged in. All of this looks like a blueprint to the perfect crime. 

Then came October 7, 2022—the morning publication of the leaked grand jury report in the San Francisco Chronicle, a paper you and Mayor Gillmor are close to.  Days before, Mayor Gillmor had texted you, “Check your email”, after she had forwarded the report to her personal email. In court it was learned that on the morning of the seventh, you texted POA President Jeremy Schmidt which was short and stunningly revealing: “Does this change the plans?” The question that hangs over Santa Clara is: What plans? Plans coordinated around the POA’s ballot priorities? Around the Mayor’s re-election? Around Related’s interests? Or around a political narrative you were already preparing before the public ever saw a word of the report?

It was learned that you suggested to the POA President to purchase the domain grandjuryreport.com and advised them on what should be posted there, mainly suggestions and highlights of the report. This clearly benefitted the Gillmor campaign in which you were working for the POA and Related who both supported her re-election. In other words, you were not a bystander. You were part of shaping how the leaked report would be weaponized in the political arena, all while insisting you had no role in the leak itself.

The reality is that the leak created the opposite effect: a political bombshell hitting just as ballots arrived, with all winds blowing in the direction most favorable to Gillmor and most damaging to the rest of the city council. Convenient, to say the least, for a consultant who has openly admitted Gillmor’s victory was important to his clients. Gillmor herself even admitted that the report was beneficial to her campaign and that she could have lost the election without it.

It was also learned that you believed the reports release must have come from the “49er Five”, the “Bad Guys”. Yet it was only speculation that conveniently aligned with the narrative favored by Gillmor’s supporters, delivered by bloggers and supported by your own clients. While you are critical of this paper, Silicon Valley Voice/The Weekly you rely on it heavily for political monitoring. Ironically, your own role as a political influencer has been repeatedly documented by The Silicon Valley Voice with various investigative articles questioning how much sway you hold over Santa Clara’s media ecosystem, including local bloggers and online personalities whose messaging often mirrors you, The POA and Mayor Gillmor’s own talking points.

Other relationships also raise eyebrows. You have had a cozy relationship knowing longtime political agitator James Rowen, who has a history of filing complaints with the Civil Grand Jury—complaints that have repeatedly shaped the political climate in Santa Clara. Many wonder whether information about his complaints was shared with you and how that may have contributed to the “chatter” you had been hearing. 

When you worked for former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales back in the 1990’s after he served on the Board of Supervisors that oversaw the Department of Corrections during the period of the controversial 1991 Grand Jury report—where Lisa Gillmor herself served as a civil grand juror. Your political history is filled with these kinds of intersections, and they deserve more than passing acknowledgment.

While you work for Related Companies, with a huge financial interest in City Hall’s decisions; the Santa Clara POA, with political goals in every election, and Mayor Gillmor, whose presence on the city council is good for you and those you work for. One consultant working across all three of these power centers while multiple politically explosive Grand Jury reports surface is deeply concerning and deserves public scrutiny. Imagine if that was the 49ers? You and the Mayor create the boogeyman out of Jed York and Anti-Gillmor Councilmembers, while you yourself act more like the wizard behind the curtain. That kind of rhetoric—paired with intense political coordination—is exactly what creates community distrust. And in Santa Clara, that distrust has now reached a boiling point.

Over the years, multiple published articles have raised questions about your role in Santa Clara politics subtly operating as an unofficial “eighth councilmember,” your involvement in the beginnings of fake non-profit Stand Up for Santa Clara, where you maintained the “Hey Jude” page on their website all while also influencing a failed journalist turned blogger who echoed your messaging. I am not asserting these as settled facts, but the patterns are undeniable, and the appearance of coordinated political machinery is unmistakable.

Many residents feel that the political climate in Santa Clara has been engineered by a tight circle of players with overlapping loyalties, interests, and narratives. Your history and record including the Mayor’s only amplifies those concerns. 

So Jude, since you follow everything written about Santa Clara politics, and since your work has shaped so much of the narrative around this city, let me close with the song by The Beatles a favorite of mine and one you borrowed for your own political branding but with a modern twist:

**“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad story and make it better. Remember to let the truth into your heart, then you can start to make it better. Hey Jude—don’t carry Santa Clara upon your shoulders. For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder”.