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San Jose will save millions of dollars, getting a substantially more robust computer network at a lower cost after city leaders were forced to fairly bid a contract that had improperly favored Cisco Systems in the new City Hall. The city council in August was forced to rip up and start over with the $8 million contract after a Mercury News investigation exposed apparent favoritism toward the company and a subsequent city audit revealed San Jose had gone so far as to let the company write the list of 18,000 Cisco parts the city would buy. The new low bidder,...

Saying they remain deeply troubled, San Jose City Council members nonetheless voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end one of the broadest probes in city government history. Council members said they were unsure they'd ever find absolute proof top administrators were culpable in the city's bungled $8 million technology deal involving Cisco Systems. The 9-1 vote -- Councilman Dave Cortese dissented -- orders the city's independent investigator to cease reviewing the Cisco deal and all but ensures City Manager Del Borgsdorf and City Attorney Rick Doyle will survive the worst scandal to rock San Jose government in 20 years. A criminal investigation...

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...

Three weeks ago, San Jose's city council got its latest big-ticket surprise from Mayor Ron Gonzales -- this time, an additional $11.7 million he said was needed for the city's garbage hauler to pay higher labor costs the company didn't expect when it submitted its low bid. Here's what Gonzales didn't tell his colleagues. In order to keep the contract with eventual winner Norcal on track, the mayor's office offered Norcal assurances of his support for higher compensation than the contract would call for. This promise was made not years later, as the mayor has said, but before the council...

As one of the broadest probes of wrongdoing in the history of San Jose government begins, ethical and legal scholars are questioning if the independent investigator assigned by the city to conduct the inquiry is fit to do so -- especially if it means looking into the actions of City Attorney Rick Doyle. Doyle's office has paid the outside investigator -- San Francisco law firm Hanson Bridgett -- more than $174,000 over the past four years to examine ethics complaints filed with the city. The council last week chose the firm to investigate whether the mayor, city manager, Doyle or...

Launching one of the broadest probes of wrongdoing in San Jose government history, the city council Tuesday appointed an independent investigator to determine if the mayor, city manager, city attorney or any council member acted inappropriately in San Jose's bungled deal to install Cisco Systems' equipment in the new City Hall. The sweeping civil investigation of San Jose's top elected officials came as Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy said his criminal inquiry into the failed $8 million deal has expanded into a full-fledged investigation. ...(snip) Mayor Ron Gonzales said that for the city's part, turning the matter over...

Six months before the San Jose-Cisco Systems controversy went public, Leon Nix knew the city risked violating its own rules by favoring the networking company's products in its new City Hall. But he feared speaking out, thinking his bosses might come after him. Now it appears he may have been right. On a January morning, Nix, then the project's budget analyst, reluctantly sent an e-mail to his boss pointing out potential problems with the $8 million contract. A week later, he was taken off the project without being told why. Today, as officials wonder where the truth lies in the...

What began in June with a controversy over an $8 million technology contract has escalated into a scandal exposing high-level management failures at San Jose City Hall. ``It's becoming clear that both the city manager and the city attorney have been running very dysfunctional offices,'' Councilman Dave Cortese said late last week, after more revelations surfaced about favoritism and collusion in the failed deal to buy Cisco Systems networking and telephone equipment for the new City Hall. ``At a tremendous cost to the city, they let that condition fester, and now it's a big-time problem and a big-time cost to...

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...

The legal dogs of war were loosed this week on San Jose's new City Hall, the Taj Gonzales, snarling over how and when city officials lied on costs or got too chummy with Cisco. It began Monday when the McManis, Faulkner & Morgan law firm revived a lawsuit brought by the late Al Ruffo to control the Taj's costs. It continued Tuesday when the city council, led by the mayor himself, requested a criminal probe by District Attorney George Kennedy. We should rejoice, right? The lawyers will bring us closer to knowing the building's real costs and the city's questionable...

I am not a Luddite when it comes to technology. I know how to use the Internet. I've toyed with digital photography. I even use a small WiFi device. In Silicon Valley, this puts me somewhere in the middle of the thundering herd. But on one topic, you can call me a cave man -- spending government money on cutting-edge technology. The scrawls on my cave wall say no, a hundred different ways. The immediate case in point is the Taj Gonzales, the new San Jose City Hall downtown. For the past couple of months, you've been reading about how...