Mayor Gillmor maintains an extensive and well-organized network of resources, including a reliable cadre of “useful idiots” who advance her agenda. At its core, Gillmor’s politics are about power—acquiring it, retaining it, and preserving the status quo. That status quo is what former resident Debbie Bress often referred to as the “good ol’ boys and girls club.” Rather than acting directly, Mayor Gillmor relies on proxies to carry out her political objectives, allowing her to maintain the appearance of innocence while keeping her fingerprints off the work. She enlists advisors, operatives, institutions, and media allies to advance her agenda. What follows is a breakdown of how this network operates and why Gillmor serves as a textbook example of a corrupt politician.
Advisors
As I have written before, Jude Barry remains the ultimate political advisor to Gillmor’s modern-day Tammany Hall. I sincerely hope he is reading this. His methods have not changed in decades and follow the same familiar pattern. Twenty years ago, CNN compared Barry to Karl Rove. Since then, his influence has helped create division within Santa Clara, orchestrated contentious district elections to preserve Gillmor’s power (remember the two districts with three councilmembers ballot measure?), and framed debates by planting and manufacturing controversial issues in the media.Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” In Barry-Gillmor terms, that translates to: use everything and anything against your enemy. This strategy is clearly visible in the handling of the International Swim Center—an artificial crisis born of Gillmor’s own failures. Fear is created, blame is shifted, and responsibility is avoided.Barry and Gillmor adhere to three basic rules of winning: attack relentlessly; admit nothing and deny everything; always claim victory and never admit defeat. Ruthlessness and perception matter more than actual outcomes. Another key advisor is Special Advisor to the Mayor Kirk Vartan, commonly known as “the pizza guy.” Vartan has close ties to former Councilmember Teresa O’Neill and to the BARAC site, now redeveloped as the Agrihood—a project he continues to lobby the council about. The City of Santa Clara has spent significant funds supporting worker co-ops, a model under which Vartan’s pizza business operates. Vartan’s role is to help frame anti-Gillmor councilmembers as the true problem and the supposed “root of all corruption.” Then there is Tom Shanks, the so-called “ethics expert,” whose advice is frequently echoed across the Gillmor network. His commentary is treated as authoritative, quoted in fancy campaign mailers, and used to justify the authoritarian move of presenting a Gillmor-approved ethics pledge. His loyalty has earned him a permanent seat at the advisors table—and membership in the merry band of useful idiots.
Intelligence
This arm of the network is known as the G.I.A.—the Gillmor Intelligence Agency. Its purpose is simple: gather information on anyone who challenges the Gillmor narrative.
Mayor-aligned blogger Robert Haugh, for example, tracks IP addresses of commenters on his blog. Candidates, residents, or even casual social media commenters who dissent are subjected to scrutiny. The G.I.A. searches voter databases, property records, court filings, citation histories and overdue library books. They investigate family members, employers, and friends. Facebook profiles and friend lists are combed for leverage. They dig deep. If connections exist, they exploit them. If they do not, they create them. The CIA has real competition. I am a prime example of how deep they are looking into me and my background.
Henchmen
While residency and voter registration are often weaponized against Gillmor’s critics, long-time loyalist James Rowen receives a free pass despite living in the East Bay. Rowen has repeatedly assisted Gillmor’s crusades by filing FPPC complaints, Civil Grand Jury complaints, and public records requests—all targeting anti-Gillmor Councilmembers. Rowen considers himself an unofficial advisor to Gillmor, as he has to past Councilmembers. Multiple sources report that Rowen and Gillmor speak almost daily. His tactics are aggressive and multi-channel: inflammatory comments on the Gillmor-Haugh blog, harassing emails (described as “inane drivel” by Councilmember Jain in public records), and performative public comments at council meetings designed to appear sophisticated while adding nothing of substance. Rowen himself was subject of losing a lawsuit to attorney John Mlarnik for having a blog similar to the current one Robert Haugh runs. Rowen was shut down. Rowen also pushes the Ethics Commission which is also pushed by Mayor Gillmor herself.
Legal
The legal arm is among Gillmor’s strongest resources. Two disgraced former city officials—the former City Attorney and former City Manager—filed lawsuits against the city, not merely to seek relief but to generate headlines, suspicion, and chaos. Brian Doyle’s attempts failed, and hopefully the same will be true of public grifter and former City Manager Deanna Santana. Former 2023 Charter Review Committee members Joyce Davis and Satish Chandra filed suit over ballot language for Measures A and B, which proposed changing the police chief and city clerk from elected to appointed positions. Both committee members were Gillmor and Watanabe-aligned selections. When the council moved forward without changes, litigation quickly followed. Though the case was thrown out, the damage was done. The Civil Grand Jury has long served as a useful tool. Gillmor ensures loyalists apply, some are appointed, and reports conveniently appear during election years—2016, 2022, and 2024—just as they did in 1987 and 1991, before her own campaigns. Gillmor and Jude Barry see the civil grand jury as a beneficial and legitimate “independent/third party” that solidifies and validates their lies and narratives. The District Attorney’s Office is perhaps the most valuable asset. District Attorney Jeff Rosen and Deputy DA Jason Malinsky have declined to act on evidence involving Gillmor and former Councilmember and current School Board Member Kathy Watanabe related to the 2022 grand jury leak. “I see nothing,” as Sgt. Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes would say. Enforcement exists—but only for others and not for friends. Justice for pay. Then there is the Judge on the grand jury that allows false reporting despite any opposition or clarify the facts are wrong. Judges also have lots of power to not compel Gillmor to testify or claim that Gillmor evidence is irrelevant to her receiving charges or confidential like her correspondence with members of the Grand Jury. There’s also a former judge Quintin Kopp that has quotes in the San Francisco Chronicle about others committing crimes and is also the source of threatening letters to Councilmembers Jain, Park and former councilmember and convicted felon Anthony Becker. Kopp has also pushed for ethics commissions and is an “expert” in civil grand juries. Lastly, at the December 16th, 2025 Council meeting, while talking about the Youth Soccer Park being used during Super Bowl 60, Gillmor hints at lawsuits from Soccer groups by referencing history from December 2015 when Santa Clara youth soccer league filed suit to block the NFL from converting the soccer fields near Levi’s Stadium into a Super Bowl media site. The 2015-2016 lawsuit was filed days before the city was set to turn the park over for Super Bowl 50, alleging the city failed to fully inform the public and risks long-term damage to the fields. Does that sound like deja vu or Groundhog Day? Was Mayor Gillmor hinting at the Soccer League filing suit by the end of December 2025 despite her vote in favor? Based on history The Gillmor machine is looking to do just that, hence Davis & Satish v. City of Santa Clara situation.
Media
When facts fail, repetition succeeds. Tell a lie long enough, people will believe it. Gillmor’s media ecosystem relies heavily on two sources. The first is something small that many say that blogger Robert Haugh has no reach. Yet this blogger’s hit pieces have been often seen on the app Newsbreak where it looks like the blogger’s “articles” and “investigative” pieces are legit news which is the most disturbing part that it’s considered legitimate news, His irrelevance is becoming relevant. In between the hit pieces, Haugh does some lazy copy and paste on something going on in the city as if he is a “community journalist” as his front for what Suds Jain calls his “safe space for hate and bigotry.” This is the same blogger that had headlines related to the topics in the 2022 grand jury report weeks before its release and the same blogger that did an April Fool’s joke that the entire council was indicted by District Attorney Jeff Rosen days before an actual Councilmember was indicted. How did he know? This same blogger who is not a journalist was never pulled into court, somewhere he has been familiar with and has never been given the same scrutiny as other media during the grand jury report “leak” window. As much as Pinocchio thought he was a real boy, the same goes for Haugh thinking he is a real journalist. He is a failed journalist that was fired by the Silicon Valley Voice/Santa Clara Weekly. He is nothing but a very lazy blogger who lies daily and was fired for just that which included grifting his former employer with stays at the Mariani’s Inn. When this blogger gets told his facts are wrong by the city or anyone he doubles down and stands by his writing. That is concerning; he is violating every ethical rule in the book. The POA election mailers in 2020 and even 2022 referenced the blogger’s “news articles” as if it is authentic. This is the same police union and department that arrested the blogger at a Target store for alleged inappropriate behavior involving his daughter. Although the charges were later dropped, during that same period the Santa Clara POA—the very group sworn to protect and serve—was citing and promoting quotes on election mailers from someone they had arrested. Asking for your vote. Let that sink in.
Then you have the San Francisco Chronicle, Gillmor’s strongest ally news media source that she has wrapped around her finger. The Chronicle is owned by the Hearst Corporation, founded by William Randolph Hearst, whose legacy is closely associated with yellow journalism—sensationalized, often exaggerated reporting that defined parts of New York journalism in the 1890s. Gillmor, her blogger Haugh and more dub the Chronicle the ‘paper of the record’ because Haugh doesn’t have the reach they need. They use this paper as an “independent third party” to validate their narrative because of their historical reputation.
They are loyal to Gillmor, they love the 49ers on the field and hate them off the field. The Civil Grand Jury report released in 2022 cited nothing but articles from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gillmor’s favorite San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lance WIlliams once faced 18 months in prison for refusing to name his sources of leaked grand jury transcripts that were used for his stories on Major League Baseball’s Barry Bonds steroids scandal. Charges were later dropped for journalistic integrity however it is very clear there is a history of receiving leaked confidential materials related to grand juries. In the Becker Trial it was discovered that during the “leak window” of the 2022 Civil Grand Jury report text Messages between Mayor Gillmor and reporter Lance Willaims were deleted and before the reports public release Lance Williams and the San Francisco Chronicle published the article about it. This is nothing new, in 2017 a confidential draft of the Measure J Audit surfaced publicly in the article by San Francisco Chronicle. Additionally, the Chronicle reported that Mayor Lisa Gillmor held a closed-door meeting with the paper’s Editorial Board which then Gillmor went live on Facebook with the editorial page editor, asserting the audit would reveal violations of Measure J. What timing huh? This is not the first instance in which confidential city business has spilled into public view. In 2015 and 2016, a sensitive personnel report involving the then City Manager Julio Fuentes was disclosed to San José Inside and the Mercury News. Worth noting that Jude Barry at the time wrote frequent pieces on San Jose Inside and had a close relationship with the Mercury News at the time. Patterns like this don’t lie. Lastly, Social Media is a strong tool of Gillmor’s. NextDoor is a great source for the Gillmor machine to control the narrative where leads like Kathy Watanabe, the special advisor Kirk Vartan, Debi Algeri censor anything from authentic news articles from this paper to posts they don’t like or those that are a distraction. The same with Facebook groups. It’s like blood in the water when anyone defends themselves or contradicts their narrative. The Gillmor machine-army is on standby ready to dismiss, debunk, distract or dispute.
Public Safety
Public safety is the Gillmor machine’s lifeblood. Gillmor has never opposed a police or fire union. Dare you to name one time she did. Their fancy endorsement election mailers label Gillmor’s slate as “public safety candidates,” implying others are dangerous. This is deeply disingenuous, masquerading as concern for safety while shielding corruption. Though it’s considered a cliché in literature or scripted entertainment, people are far more willing to believe it in fiction than confront the reality of corrupt cops and politicians.The fire union with no reservations loyally supports Gillmor and her candidates in every election, the same with the police union. In 2022, Officer and POA President Jeremy Schmidt in court and, using his badge and invoking his experience as a sworn peace officer, identified who he believed to be the source of the grand jury report leak—labeling them as “the bad guys” the “49er 5” which are anti-Gillmor Councilmembers. In doing so, he effectively used his badge to protect and serve Mayor Gillmor. Who would the general public be more likely to believe: a sworn officer or an ordinary citizen? This is the same POA president who was involved in the dissemination of a leaked grand jury report alongside Jude Barry and who helped create a political website and campaign mailers featuring that report—first in 2022 and again twice in 2024. He is also the same officer who destroyed potential evidence after the fact. Yet none of this appears to matter. As long as Mayor Gillmor continues to receive independent expenditures from the police union, accountability is nonexistent. The message is clear: they are above the law, and in return Gillmor promises them raises—at the eventual expense of the city’s financial stability. You can also put former Police Chief Pat Nikolai into this category as he is often pulled out as reference to some form of public safety and used as a tool to promote Gillmor’s agenda which currently he sits as the 2025 Charter Review Chair. Remember Nikolai is the one that asked the District Attorney to investigate the city council in 2022.
Organizations
Fake nonprofits—such as Stand Up for Santa Clara—actively promote Gillmor’s agenda, while youth sports leagues are mobilized at a moment’s notice. (See “Concerned Citizens” below.) The Diversity Equity Task Force was initially appointed without a thorough vetting process and populated largely by Gillmor loyalists, many of whom advanced positions such as protecting the police chief and advocating for an elected role—issues they were never explicitly tasked with addressing. The proposed Ethics Commission appears to be another attempt to establish a supposedly “independent third party,” allowing Gillmor to replicate the same playbook used with the Diversity Equity Task Force and the Civil Grand Jury: accuse others of wrongdoing, generate headlines, and legitimize a predetermined narrative—much like Stand Up for Santa Clara and her blogger, Robert Haugh, routinely do. Finally, the Charter Review, filled with Gillmor loyalists, is likely to manipulate hearings to advance the specific changes to the charter that Gillmor favors.
Events
Gillmor tends to attend only those events where she can be the center of attention or operate within her comfort zone. Take the Mayor’s Breakfast Event, for example: she presents a dual persona—critically commenting on events like the World Cup and Super Bowl from the dais, while simultaneously acting as the cheermaster of the event, yet still wondering why she isn’t more recognized in spaces where San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan takes the lead. To maintain control of the spotlight, Gillmor often organizes her own events.The Mayor’s Breakfast, hosted by the Silicon Valley Business Journal—a group closely aligned with Gillmor—named her one of 2022’s Women of Influence and later hosted her at the “Future of Santa Clara” event in 2023, where she called for the resignation of convicted former Councilmember Anthony Becker following his indictment for leaking and lying about the grand jury report—charges similar to accusations she herself faces. Other events, like the State of the City, reveal a similar pattern: she allowed the event in her 2022 election year but canceled it in 2024 without explanation. Could this have been to avoid giving other Councilmembers a platform while they were running for re-election? Over the years, numerous examples show Gillmor positioning herself as the star of the show. Consider the Mayor @ Noon program, where she interviewed loyalists while denying other Councilmembers the same access to resources.
Real Estate
Gillmor is a real estate mogul whose power extends beyond her self-styled political royalty and birthright—it stems largely from her family’s extensive real estate holdings. She always has her finger on the pulse of the city, controlling what can and cannot be developed. Few know the full extent of property owned by Gillmor or her family, which raises serious conflict-of-interest concerns. The City of Santa Clara’s 2016 purchase of the Gary Gillmor-owned Morse Mansion was highly controversial, yet she voted in favor without facing consequences. Serving as Mayor or on the City Council has consistently benefited her real estate interests. For decades, the Gillmor family has influenced land-use decisions, from redirecting movie theater development near Great America away from Paramount-owned land to Mercado which was tied to their own holdings, including Mission College—a property notable enough to have a building named after the family. Interesting to note a future hospital is poised to be built near Mercado, did Gillmor influence that? The influence has always been there like with developments at Fairway Glen which is reinforcing the perception that the Gillmors see Santa Clara as their personal real estate playground. Related Company, the largest beneficiary of her council votes, has received not one but two sweetheart deals from Gillmor—and still has not begun construction on a single project in over a decade. Meanwhile, Gillmor routinely approves projects whose developers funnel contributions to the POA and fire unions, which in turn support her and her preferred candidates. From 2011 to the present, How many projects has Gillmor voted in favor of who had donated to the POA which in return supported her or a slew of her candidates? Countless development approvals reflect a cycle of political favors and financial gain tied directly to her influence.
Concerned Citizens
Failed city council candidate David Kertes attends council meetings to criticize Councilmember Suds Jain for alleged ethics and leadership failures—the very person who defeated him—yet he never calls out his own boss, Mayor Gillmor, for her repeated failures and unethical behavior. Kertes has aligned himself fully with Gillmor’s promises and in the process sold his soul on Gillmor’s agenda. Former Councilmember Teresa O’Neill frequently appears at council meetings to push Gillmor machine-aligned talking points. She presents herself with sincerity and innocence, but this masks a deeply authoritarian approach. For example, in 2022, O’Neill demanded that the council openly discuss closed-session litigation involving the 49ers management agreement—a direct attempt to encourage the council to violate the Brown Act, something she has previously done in collaboration with Gillmor, Watanabe, and former Councilmember Debi Davis. The Mayor’s Special Advisor, Kirk Vartan—nicknamed “the pizza guy”—also attends council meetings, often armed with video segments attacking anti-Gillmor Councilmembers or promoting the Mayor’s agenda, or his own lobbying efforts for Agrihood. Notably, he is not registered as a lobbyist, why is that? Similarly, a spinoff figure, the “hot dog guy,” shows up to discuss his business, ridicule opposition Councilmembers, and comment on illegal stadium vendors in ways that carry subtle racial overtones. It raises questions about whether the City is giving the ‘hot dog guy’ money to come to sell hot dogs at city events. Was this influenced by Gillmor? “Was this RFP’d” as Gillmor would often say? Is Gillmor getting the city to fund the Hot Dog Guy in exchange for him to come speak at Council meetings and take shots at her opposition? Could it be that the city is giving money to the pizza and hot dog guys in return for Gillmor loyalty? Quid pro quo in practice ? So many questions. It doesn’t end there, even campaign operatives get involved. Lee Broughman, Gillmor’s campaign treasurer, calls into council meetings to disparage the anti-Gillmor faction. Realtors, like 2013 Realtor of the Year Wanda Buck, also weigh in during Council and Governance-Ethics meetings, presenting themselves as moral authorities while clearly aligned with Gillmor’s interests. Remember Wanda is a realtor, realtors of a feather stick together. Finally, “concerned citizens”—whether focused on youth soccer parks or the local swim club—can shift the narrative and public perception simply through optics. In effect, children and community organizations are sometimes used as tools to influence votes—a tactic familiar to tyrants throughout history.
Like most tyrants in history, Gillmor surrounds herself with loyal power players and rejects who share her agenda, while sidelining or co-opting anyone who might challenge her. These allies will do whatever it takes to stay relevant, unquestioning and unflinching.
When you compare her resources, influence, and network to any other anti-Gillmor Councilmembers or constituents, the difference is stark—none come close. From media allies and loyal bureaucrats to campaign operatives, “concerned citizens,” and even youth organizations, she has built a web of support that few can rival.
The city council and the people of Santa Clara must recognize this and act. The greatest trick Mayor Gillmor has pulled is convincing the public that she is neither corrupt nor in control. Look closer—behind the optics and public displays lies a tightly orchestrated network wielding power, shaping narratives, and bending rules to maintain dominance.
Santa Clara deserves transparency. It deserves accountability. And most importantly, it deserves leaders who serve the city—not their own ambition. The time to see the system for what it is and to stand up is now.