An investigator and the city’s human resources department decided only to search city software when trying to determine who at city hall leaked confidential information about the FIFA World Cup.
A city-hired independent investigator, San Francisco-based Renne Public Law Group (RPLG), presented its findings during a special item held ahead of the Santa Clara City Council’s Oct. 20 meeting. Those findings concluded that nobody at city hall used city software to leak a 2023 confidential memo. That memo, from City Attorney Glen Googins, detailed how hosting the FIFA World Cup at Levi’s Stadium could cost the city millions of dollars.
In a response to questions submitted after the meeting, Janine De la Vega, the city’s public information officer, wrote that City Manager Jovan Grogan and Googins initiated the investigation. Since Grogan and Googins had access to the leaked information, they turned over the investigation to the HR department, which retained RPLG.
“After the investigator was briefed on the background, she recommended a scope of work, and that recommendation aligned with the original request,” De la Vega wrote. “The investigator and the City agreed that a forensic analysis of the City’s email system was the appropriate step because email was the method by which the privileged memorandum was transmitted to the City Council in the first place.”
Had the investigation of city software revealed that someone had or “may have” leaked information, city officials would have returned to the city council to seek additional direction, De la Vega wrote. Had the investigation ousted a culprit, Grogan would have taken “appropriate personnel action.”
Charla Welch, the forensic investigator with RPLG, told the council at the meeting that there was no direct evidence of a leak on city software, let alone the preponderance of evidence needed to identify the culprit.
Material attached to the meeting agenda contained only RPLG’s seven-slide presentation — two of which were title slides — not a report. The investigation examined city calendars, emails, Microsoft Outlook and Teams messages.
The city expects a written summary of the report in the “coming weeks,” De la Vega wrote.
“Because this is a confidential personnel matter, the report will not be released publicly, and the City Council has not authorized the release of any related documents,” De la Vega wrote.
Welch did not request access to personal accounts or conduct any interviews.
Council Member Suds Jain questioned why Googins emailed the memo instead of using the city’s secure filing-sharing software, Intralinks.
Intralinks prevents printing and, if the document is photographed, embeds a watermark unique to each recipient.
Googins said there was “no clear answer” as to why the city hasn’t consistently used Intralinks. The city is “still working out the bugs,” he said, adding that emailing the memo was likely out of “convenience.”
Use of Intralinks wouldn’t prevent anybody from taking notes on the document and leaking them, Googins said. City employees had “confidence” that those in possession of the memo would respect its confidentiality, he added.
However, in her written response, De la Vega offered a different explanation.
“At the time the memorandum was distributed, the City had not fully implemented the City’s new confidential document sharing system,” she wrote. “It was being used on a trial basis.”
Council Member Karen Hardy said her city email is set up to prevent printing, so she often forwards things like parking permits to her personal email so she can print them.
During former Santa Clara Vice Mayor Anthony Becker’s perjury trial, Jason Malinsky, the case’s lead prosecutor, told the court that, in her statement, Mayor Lisa Gillmor said she also frequently forwards documents to her personal email so she can print them.
City Manager Jovan Grogan repeatedly assured the council that the decision to email the memo was unrelated to Gillmor and Watanabe’s refusal to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the World Cup.
He conceded that city calendars are on the “honor system.”
“The honor system only keeps honest people honest,” Council Member Kevin Park said.
He also questioned why only city software was examined, noting that people often take notes during closed sessions. He repeatedly asked why the investigator didn’t look into council members’ relationships with news reporters.
In the city’s written responses, De la Vega offered the same explanation to questions about media relationships that Grogan offered for why the investigator didn’t search personal accounts: it was “outside the scope of the investigation.”
Park’s comment about relationships alludes to Gillmor and former Council Member Kathy Watanabe frequently speaking to the same San Francisco Chronicle reporters — Ron Kroichick and Lance Williams — who wrote the article where information from the confidential memo appeared.
Failing to explore such relationships, Park said, “ignores the largest way that leaks happen.”
“We have lots of ways to share information to our personal devices … At some point you are also looking at behaviors,” he said.
Park said nobody ever questioned him about the leak.
Karen Carrera, a partner at RPLG, told the council the city retained her firm in March.
Aracely Azevedo, assistant city manager, blamed the investigation’s delay on “miscommunication” and “administrative error,” pointing to turnover in the city’s IT department.
Becker took to the lectern during public comments to lambast the city. Nobody questioned him during the investigation either, he said, calling its timing “convenient” considering it kicked off soon after he began calling for it at council meetings. By only searching city software, he said, city employees ignored the investigation’s purpose.
“Is this incompetence or sabotage? Because it feels more and more like sabotage, because incompetence seems more excusable, but sabotage is not,” he said.
He called the investigation “phony” and a “waste of time,” adding that he was tired of the “double standards” at city hall.
Grogan said the investigation had “zero” council input and that internal concerns caused city employees to initiate it. He called the characterization that the council initiated the investigation “factually inaccurate … point-blank, end of story.”
Park accused Grogan of talking out of both sides of his mouth, noting conflicting statements about how the investigation was independent while maintaining the city employees from which it was supposedly independent initiated it.
The city paid RPLG $14,349.50 to conduct the investigation.
Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com