To Pledge or Not to Pledge

We thought we’d give you another update on the status of the pledge we asked your Councilmembers to sign to recommit to making public safety their top priority.

The scorecard as of our last post: Mayor Reed and seven Councilmembers signed on; Councilmemer Oliverio abstained; and Councilmembers Herrera and Liccardo had not responded.

We’re happy to announce that Councilmember Herrera’s office called to let us know she will make signing the pledge one of her first acts when the Council returns from their Summer recess.

We also saw that Councilmember Oliverio mentioned the pledge in his blog on another website. He explained that he doesn’t sign pledges for interest groups because he doesn’t want to promise anything he may not be able to deliver.

I understand where he’s coming from. But an overwhelming majority of San Jose’s residents regularly list public safety as their top priority. Are the people of San Jose an interest group?

We’re only asking our leaders to reflect the support our public safety officers receive from the community. It’s a pledge of principle.

Later on in his blog, Pierluigi mentions that he’s already got his own public safety pledge posted on his city website. We went there and looked around but couldn’t find it. Maybe he’ll post a link in his blog today. We’ll let you know.

P.S. In case you were wondering, Councilmember Liccardo still has yet to respond.

Pledge Recap

One week ago on this blog, San Jose Police Officers' Association President Bobby Lopez posted a challenge he issued to Mayor Reed and the entire City Council. He asked that our city leaders sign a pledge to:

• Return San Jose to the rank of “Safest Big City in America” within the next five years;

• Support our officers by refraining from knee-jerk reactions to activist complaints, particularly from those who lack expertise; and

• Involve more neighborhood leaders on committees and task forces regarding public safety.

We noted that not every member of the Council had signed or committed to sign the pledge. In the comments that followed Sgt. Lopez's post, our readers asked that we reveal the names of councilmembers who had not signed on. In the interest of sunshine and open government, we feel it's only fair to do so:

Signed pledge
Mayor Chuck Reed
Vice Mayor Judy Chirco
Councilmember Pete Constant
Councilmember Ash Kalra
Councilmember Kansen Chu
Councilmember Nora Campos
Councilmember Madison Nguyen
Councilmember Nancy Pyle

No response
Councilmember Sam Liccardo
Councilmember Rose Hererra

Other
Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio responded to our request to say that he does not sign pledges as a matter of principle.

NOTE: The Mayor and Council were contacted multiple times regarding the pledge after Sgt. Lopez hand delivered it at a City Council meeting.