Kathy Watanabe should NEVER be Mayor of Santa Clara. Voters don’t like that Santa Clara has a reputation for having a divisive and contentious Council. Watanabe would certainly make things worse.

I ran against Watanabe in 2016 and lost to her. After that, I tried to meet with her multiple times and all the dates I offered to her staff simply never seemed to work for her. Staff finally said she would not meet with me even though I was her constituent. I have the emails. 

When Watanabe refused to let Kevin Park speak at an anti-hate rally, the Council considered censuring her. It seems she wanted to head off the censure and asked to meet with me. I suspect she met with a majority of Councilmembers in violation of the Brown Act. At our coffee, I remarked: “It seems to me that you don’t like me” to which she replied “Well, you never should have run against me”.

The pattern of hostility continued throughout the four years that we served on the council together. I never had a substantial conversation with her in those 4 years and she regularly refused to say hello to me at ribbon cuttings and public events. She often did the same with other councilmembers as well. City Staff regularly holds briefings with a sub-majority of Council members to avoid Brown Act violations. In all of those 4 years, I never had a briefing together with Kathy Watanabe nor Lisa Gillmor.  I sincerely doubt that was coincidental.

This photograph (https://sudsjain.com/gallery/) showing Intel Corporation being recognized by the City Council on Aug. 30, 2022 (Agenda Item 22-954) for providing At-Home COVID test kits to first responders in Santa Clara, epitomizes Watanabe’s attitude towards people she doesn’t like. Our former Assistant Chief of Police, Dan Winter, who later became the head of security at Intel, came to our City Council meeting to receive our appreciation of Intel’s generosity. You can clearly see in the photograph that all the Council members EXCEPT Watanabe got off the dais to take a photo with Winter. The story behind this is that Dan Winter ran against Pat Nikolai in 2020. Watanabe strongly supported Pat Nikolai against Dan Winter. Nikolai ended up winning unopposed after Dan Winter dropped out of the race. 

Once, in Nov 2022 when we were in closed session, Watanabe accused Anthony Becker of threatening her and being abusive when she walked out of the closed session meeting followed by Lisa Gillmor. As reported by Santa Clara News Online, Watanabe claimed she was so disturbed that she was shaking in her seat for 3 hours afterwards. Interestingly, an outside investigation found that Anthony did not threaten Watanabe. I can’t speak for how Watanabe was actually feeling but I would expect that a politician who had been on the Santa Clara City Council for 6 years would have thicker skin especially since Anthony Becker didn’t actually threaten her.

I often write statements at Council meetings in advance so as to be more concise and clear. Watanabe has falsely accused me in public at the dais of having other people write my statements.

I recently reviewed Watanabe’s FPPC Form 460 campaign finances filings. Both forms are chock full of errors with signatures of both Watanabe’s treasurer and Watanabe herself testifying under perjury to the accuracy.  One example from her Sept 24^th filing states in on page 3 that monetary contributions for the period were $8302.79 where the supporting page 4 lists monetary contributions of only $4432.09. How could someone so careless with her campaign statements be trusted to be Mayor of a City with a $1.7 billion overall budget? I have also filed a complaint alleging that Watanabe accepted donations over the legal limits. Even Watanabe’s amended form does not seem to correct the violation. This is pending but it’s not the first time that she couldn’t properly file her financial statements . She was fined $614 in the 2016 election for not reporting her expenditures on time.

To understand how little Watanabe understands about free speech, I direct people to the interview that Anthony Becker attempted with her at the Art and Wine Festival with Watanabe ending up calling the police.

I also strongly recommend that people read Roger Kint’s comments on the following San Jose Spotlight article regarding that “interview” at the Art and Wine Festival.

Remember, Watanabe and Gillmor were two of the biggest boosters for Measure J which resulted in the City owning an NFL stadium and renting it to the 49ers for six months a year. Karen Hardy was one of the key people behind Santa Clara Plays Fair which opposed Measure J. The original contracts which were approved by Gillmor were terrible, particularly with respect to Public Safety and buffet costs. Now Kelly Cox and Watanabe are complaining about not having enough money for Capital Expenses (CapEx) but the City owns the Stadium and never allocated enough money in the contracts for capital repairs. I blame Watanabe’s mentor, Lisa Gillmor for not understanding the financials nor the contracts. 

Electing Kathy Watanabe to be mayor of Santa Clara would be terrible for Santa Clara and would certainly increase divisiveness on the City Council as she has clearly demonstrated over and over a pattern of hostility to other councilmembers.