Free Republic

Yet another chapter unfolded Thursday in San Jose's months-long technology scandal involving Cisco Systems. The woman at the center of the controversy -- the city's former chief information officer, Wandzia Grycz -- filed a wrongful termination claim against San Jose alleging City Manager Del Borgsdorf and his deputies made Grycz the scapegoat in the botched deal. The controversy has called into question the leadership of the city's highest-ranking officials and threatened the planned June opening of the new City Hall. Grycz resigned her $174,000-a-year post under pressure in August after a city audit found she and others had flouted city...

An independent investigator has concluded that there is ``undisputed, direct'' evidence that San Jose's top administrator knew of clandestine communication between his staff and Cisco Systems that tainted an $8 million technology contract last year. The third report in two weeks issued by San Francisco law firm Hanson Bridgett contains some of the most damning e-mails to date connecting City Manager Del Borgsdorf to problems with the contract, which was ultimately voided because it illegally favored Cisco. Included is an e-mail from Cisco about contract issues that Borgsdorf and his deputy, Ed Shikada, received June 22, three hours before the...

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales said Thursday that he has demanded City Manager Del Borgsdorf explain what he and others in his office knew of concerns about favoritism in a multimillion-dollar technology contract after an independent investigator this week concluded all of Borgsdorf's aides knew and the city manager himself ``more likely than not'' also had been briefed. Borgsdorf for months has denied that he or any member of his staff had been warned of serious legal problems with an $8 million contract to install Cisco Systems equipment in the new City Hall. However, an independent investigator said Tuesday that...

An independent investigator has found evidence that at least one high-level City Hall official was aware of concerns about favoritism in a multimillion-dollar technology contract months before the concerns turned into a public scandal, but failed to sound alarms. The long-awaited independent report into San Jose's bungled $8 million deal to buy Cisco Systems equipment for its new City Hall was released Monday. It contradicts two previous internal city probes that determined just three mid-level employees -- all of whom have since been disciplined -- were responsible for potential problems created by a close relationship city technology officials had forged...

A sweeping civil investigation released Monday into San Jose's bungled $8 million deal to install Cisco Systems equipment in the new downtown City Hall found that at least one official in the City Manager's Office knew of alleged problems with the contract before the technology scandal enveloped city government last summer. The report also provides the strongest evidence to date that City Manager Del Borgsdorf knew of at least some of Cisco's early involvement in developing the contract. According to the report, Borgsdorf was at a May meeting with a Cisco vice president in which the lucrative network and phone...

Seeking to end a searing, months-long controversy, San Jose City Manager Del Borgsdorf on Friday concluded his investigation into the city's bungled City Hall technology deal with Cisco Systems by laying all blame on three administrators who already have resigned or been demoted. ``You ought to have the confidence, and competence, at the department head level,'' Borgsdorf said. ``The standard of performance at that level was unacceptable.'' In releasing a nine-page summary of a personnel investigation conducted last month, Borgsdorf said he believed there was nothing he or his immediate deputies did wrong as the city's technology and purchasing managers...