Free Republic

After four hours of impassioned debate, the San Jose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to impose its most severe punishment on Mayor Ron Gonzales for misleading the council over a contract with Norcal Waste Systems. The council voted 10-0 to censure Gonzales, who repeatedly apologized and said he would spend the final year of his term "earning back the city's trust." The city also voted 9-2 to drop an independent investigation into the affair. The three-month, $100,000 independent probe essentially backed up a Santa Clara County grand jury report from June that said Gonzales cut a deal with Norcal that...

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales said he was trying to be a ``get-it-done kind of mayor'' when he failed to tell his colleagues on the City Council that there was a labor problem with a Norcal Waste Systems contract that ended up costing the city an extra $11.25 million. Gonzales made his comments today, his first attempt to explain his motives in the controversial Norcal matter, before the city council took up the issue of whether to level the city's first-ever censure of a mayor. ``I've always tried to carry myself as a get-it-done kind of mayor,'' said Gonzales in...