After spending $ 145,000 on a Washington communications consultant to boost his national profile in two years, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo extended his contract again by four months, to the value of $ 30,000.
Stephanie Craig’s Apeiron Strategies Group was hired for the first time by Liccardo’s office in 2018 and charges the city for posting opinion pieces in major national media under Liccardo’s signature. Sources in the mayor’s inner circle say that Craig is actually an integral part of the mayor’s communications team.
An ethics expert told the San José Spotlight that there is nothing wrong with paying for this kind of media attention. But others question how much Craig’s work benefits the city and how much of it is aimed only at improving Liccardo’s public image.
Last November, the city extended Craig’s $ 7,500 per month contract until June 2021, increasing his total compensation from $ 187,000 to $ 229,000 since the contract began in 2018. The mayor’s office hired Craig for a temporary part-time in 2018, when Liccardo was making regular trips to Washington.
Although Craig started out as a temporary deal before a global pandemic attack that drained the city’s coffers, the contract has already been extended four times.
Invoices obtained by San José Spotlight through a request for public records show that the mayor’s office has relied heavily on Craig since October 2018 to create a national profile for Liccardo and some of his initiatives. Craig was hired at the time the mayor left an important FCC advisory committee in January 2018. She spent 25 hours receiving an article from the mayor published in the New York Times that November about her resignation.
Last June, Craig charged the city with another opinion piece in the Times, in addition to an interview the mayor gave to the Wall Street Journal and an article that appeared in Mercury News under Liccardo’s signature.
A longtime advocate of government responsibility told the San José Spotlight that the issue is complicated by the fact that Liccardo can personally benefit.
“It’s obviously an ethical issue at some level,” said John Sims, an emeritus professor at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento. “At the heart of the matter is how much the city benefits from the work that this communications consultant does for the mayor. To the extent that a mayor is using city funds to promote the mayor’s interests and not those of the city, this is inappropriate. “
Without a thorough audit of Craig’s work for the mayor’s office, Sims said it is difficult to separate what is good for taxpayers from what is just a blessing for Liccardo.
But John Pelissero, a senior scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and a political scientist, told San José Spotlight that it is not uncommon for local governments or outside companies to engage in public relations.
Liccardo’s contract with Craig may raise questions, but this is political, not ethical, said Pelissero.
“Contractors are hired by cities and states for a variety of reasons, including reputation management and general government promotion,” said Pelissero. “One may disagree with how the mayor spends money, but this is a political issue, not an ethical one.”
Ann Ravel, a longtime attorney for the local government who ran for a California Senate seat last fall with Liccardo’s endorsement, agreed that the benefits of hiring a public relations consultant would be shared between the city and the mayor.
“It is one of those things that, depending on what exactly she is doing, can raise legitimate ethical issues,” said Ravel. “Putting op-eds in national publications or putting the mayor on TV – although it may benefit you personally and politically – is not going to make you a movie star. But it also makes the national public recognize that San Jose is an important place for the country ”.
The extension of the contract comes at a time of doubt about what lies ahead for Liccardo, which ends in 2022.
The mayor faces a difficult end to his term as mayor. He lost the impulse to create a strong form of government for mayor that would grant him more powers and extend his term for two years. He lost most of the board that would guarantee the approval of his agenda. And he may lose his ability to appoint legislators to committees, one of the mayor’s key functions.
Two of his allies and major political fund-raisers – Carl Guardino and Matt Mahood – are no longer leading the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Silicon Valley Organization, respectively. The SVO PAC, which supported Liccardo financially, ended.
Liccardo recently started a law organization called Solutions San Jose to gain some power and control, although it remains to be seen how it will raise funds and what long-term policies it will defend.
A spokeswoman for Liccardo insisted that taxpayers benefit from a more visible mayor on the national scene.
Liccardo did not agree with the interview.
“San Jose has consistently and historically failed to gain weight in the national media,” said spokeswoman Rachel Davis. “It is the tenth largest city in the country with a less prominent national profile than cities with a third of its size. This undermines our ability to secure philanthropic dollars from national foundations, to draw the attention of Congress and the federal administration to funding priorities and to be a place for (private) investment. ”
Contact Adam F. Hutton at [email protected] or follow @adamfhutton on twitter.