In an escalation of the tension between labor and business allegiances on the San Jose City Council, two progressive councilmembers on Tuesday said they intend to introduce a resolution that will strengthen free speech protections for the city’s elected officials.
Councilmembers Omar Torres and Peter Ortiz said the resolution is a response to what they called politically motivated and racist attacks by organizations associated with the business community — in what they see as an effort to muzzle their support for local unionization efforts.
But it goes deeper than that. The City Council has been tussling for months with divisive issues, including housing and homelessness, that have raised the stakes — and the tempers — of councilmembers, constituents and their communities.
The proposed resolution, for which they provided no details, comes just a week after the city attorney in Los Angeles warned elected officials that getting involved in labor disputes could lead to councilmembers needing to recuse themselves from certain votes and possibly expose the city up to legal issues.
Both Torres and Ortiz, who are Latino, have been involved in monthslong dispute between the City Council’s business and labor blocs over housing policy and union organization at a local recycling company.
Ortiz, who represents east side neighborhoods, said during a Tuesday news conference at City Hall that criticism of their efforts represents “a common tactic, with a long history of being weaponized to discredit the progressive movements of people of color throughout this country’s history,”
Torres, who represents part of downtown, said purported attacks against him were “unfortunate but not unexpected.”
The dust-up began in March after Ortiz, Torres and Councilmember Domingo Candelas penned a letter of support to unionizing employees at Premier Recycling Co. on Phelan Avenue. In the letter, they wrote, “We have heard concerns of safety & wage theft claims, falsification of (union) votes, unwarranted surveillance and a general environment of hostility, division and divisiveness among other unfair labor practices.”
The letter, written on March 23, was then posted to the local, pro-business blog of the nonprofit Opportunity Now Silicon Valley. In its blog post, which included a Q&A with former San Jose councilmember Pete Constant, the nonprofit was critical of Ortiz, Torres and Domingo’s involvement with the unionization efforts, specifically their use of the city’s official letterhead that accompanied the letter.
The blog also claims that San Jose’s city attorney Nora Frimann said the councilmembers shouldn’t have used the letterhead but characterized the situation as “simply a misunderstanding.”Frimann did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Teamsters 853 union said about 25 Premier Recycling employees are currently in negotiations with the company.
Premier Recycle Vice President Brock Hill wrote in a statement that it was “incomprehensible that these councilmembers used City stationery to bully our business in an official capacity.”
“We rightly believe the City agrees with the Councilmembers letter, as it was written on official letterhead from the City of San Jose. Instead of providing an apology for the reprehensible action, the Councilmembers doubled down,” Hill wrote.
The fight over the unionization followed another incident at the end of April during a fiery debate over the Community Opportunity to Purchase, or COPA, program, an initiative that would have given a qualified nonprofit the right to a first offer on a residential property.
In his comments to the council in support of the program, Ortiz called any dissent against it an “act of violence.”
Shortly after, Mayor Matt Mahan said to the council that Ortiz’s comment made him “a little nervous” and urged the community to tone down the rhetoric. The council eventually rejected the program.
“These corporate interests chose to rely on racial stereotypes and dog whistles to accuse us and this movement of intimidation, bullying and even inciting violence,” Ortiz said Tuesday. “The aim (is) to portray our leadership as criminal or violent, to distract us from the just demands and needs of working people and renters in this city.”
“It is a tactic that the defenders of the status quo love to use,” he said during the press conference.
Around the time of the COPA debate another dispute was brewing at City Hall on whether to put more money towards interim housing instead of permanent affordable housing, a major policy priority for Mahan.
On June 7, opponents of the mayor’s position protested at the headquarters of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors, which was supporting Mahan’s proposal for funding interim housing. (The council later voted to shift some money towards Mahan’s interim options, though millions less than he originally asked for.)
In a July 14 letter penned to City Manager Jennifer McGuire, the realtor’s trade association denounced Ortiz’s comments during the COPA discussion and alleged that protestors in June were aggressive with their staff.
“Many of the individuals who were in attendance at the April 25 Council Meeting and had cheered loudly for Councilmember Ortiz’s comments showed up at our office on June 7,” wrote Gina Zari, government affairs director of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors. “The theme of what Councilmember Ortiz said in his comments on April 25 was repeated by the protesters at the incident in our office.”
Zari requested that Ortiz retract his April comments and condemn the June protestors. In an interview, the realtor organization’s CEO Neil Collins said, “If any councilmember tried to incite violence, they should be called out. This has nothing to do with racism or limiting of freedom of speech.”
A spokesperson for the city manager’s office deferred a request for comment to the city attorney.
In a response to the realty trade association’s letter, a spokesperson for Ortiz said the councilmember “stands by what he said” and “won’t be conceding to any of the actions outlined in the letter.”