San Jose Mayor Faces Questions Over Wife's Property Near Google Land Deal
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) -- San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo did not disclose that he had a financial interest in a condominium in a complex on 3rd Street in downtown San Jose prior to some preliminary votes on a land deal with Google.
The condo is about one mile from the planned downtown Google campus. The property was originally owned by his wife, who he married in 2013.
As first reported by San Jose Spotlight, the mayor voted twice to move the Google deal forward without disclosing that he was a part owner of the property which the couple was renting out.
"I take very seriously my obligation to disclose everything. And we take a lot of time to do it. In this case, I screwed up," Liccardo told KPIX 5.
Liccardo said he discovered his mistake in 2018.
"When I realized my mistake a year ago, I filed a public disclosure about the condo ownership," Liccardo said.
Liccardo filed disclosures with the state Fair Political Practices Commission but admitted they were late.
The mayor and his wife sold the condo ten months before the City Council approved a $110 million city land sale with Google. The mayor also said that he owns another home downtown, where he and his wife currently live.
"My mistake, I filed this late," Liccardo said.
But for groups protesting the Google deal, the mayor's failure to disclose is one more reason to doubt the deal has been transparent.
"It is a big story," said Sandy Perry, who is the president of the Affordable Housing Network. "In our opinion, it's kind of an example of what's wrong with this whole deal, the way it was done. It was done in a closed meeting. The public was banned from the meeting when they voted to sell the public land," Perry said.
She was referring to how the City Council chambers was cleared by police after protesters chanted and chained themselves to the seats on the night of the final vote in December of 2018.
Several protesters were arrested and the vote took place in a nearly empty chamber.
But the mayor said the condo property had already been sold by then for an undisclosed profit.
"If I had really wanted to make money, I would have held onto the property until after the council vote in December, but we did not," Liccardo said.
The mayor also said it is a well-known fact that he has owned downtown property on his own for years. In fact, Liccardo lives just a couple of blocks away from downtown San Jose.