{"id":2444161,"date":"2025-06-07T06:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T10:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/san-jose-mayor-city-council-clash-over-pay-for-play-performance\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T06:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T10:29:11","slug":"san-jose-mayor-city-council-clash-over-pay-for-play-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/san-jose-mayor-city-council-clash-over-pay-for-play-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose mayor, City Council clash over &#8216;pay-for-play&#8217; performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsan-jose-mayor-city-council-clash-over-pay-for-play-performance%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2444161&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In San Jose, a conflict has emerged between Mayor Matt Mahan and several City Council members regarding a proposed pay-for-performance initiative. This proposal suggests that a portion of elected officials&#8217; salaries should be tied to their success in achieving specific performance metrics.If the collective performance of the mayor and <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >council members falls short<\/a> of set targets, their salaries could be reduced by 5% based on the level of achievement.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents, including five council members, argue that this policy could skew priorities towards the mayor&#8217;s popular projects, possibly neglecting less visible issues faced by constituents. They express concerns that such measures resemble authoritarian tactics aimed at discouraging dissent within a democratic framework. In response, Mahan has defended the initiative by emphasizing the need for accountability among elected officials and pushing back against what he perceives as misuse of the term &#8220;authoritarianism&#8221; among his fellow Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters of the proposal, like Councilman George Casey, argue it could bridge the gap between politicians and the public by demonstrating a commitment to accountability and real results. Currently, the salary of council members and the mayor is set by an independent commission, and the final discussion on the proposed initiative is scheduled for June 10.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">San Jose mayor, City Council clash over pay-for-performance proposal<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2106075\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sanjoseca.gov\/your-government\/departments-offices\/mayor-and-city-council\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"San Jose council members\">San Jose City Council members<\/a>&nbsp;are pushing back on Mayor<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3416789\/matt-mahan-san-jose-mayor-gavin-newsom-homeless-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Mayor Matt Mahan\"> Matt Mahan<\/a>&lsquo;s proposal to hold elected officials accountable by tying a percentage of their pay to performance metrics.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If Mahan and the City Council members&rsquo; collective performance falls below 100% of the adopted targets for the city, 5% of their salaries will be proportionately reduced based on the actual achievement of the prioritized targets.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3434397\/why-lawful-deportations-shot-down-court\/\">Why even lawful deportations are being shot down in court<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/supreme-court\/3434450\/supreme-court-order-list-mistakenly-emailed-early\/\">Supreme Court mistakenly emails order list three days early<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3434423\/trump-musk-foreign-affairs-too-busy\/\">Trump too &#8216;busy&#8217; with foreign affairs to think about Elon Musk after feud: &#8216;I just wish him well&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan sits at his desk in City Hall, May 5, 2025. (Barnini Chakraborty\/Washington Examiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This is not sitting well with at least five City Council members, who said the policy could lead some to focus more on the mayor&rsquo;s popular priorities rather than addressing the lesser-known specific needs of their constituents.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s straight out of the toolkit of authoritarian governments where they&rsquo;re trying to quell dissent,&rdquo; Councilman David Cohen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/news\/bayarea\/article\/san-jose-councilmembers-push-back-on-pay-tied-to-20364120.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"told\">told<\/a> <em>SFGate<\/em>. &ldquo;In a representative democracy where we have 11 elected officials trying to make decisions, every vote shouldn&rsquo;t be unanimous. We should accept the fact that people have different ideas on how to get to the solution.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Mahan hit back at the criticism, saying he&rsquo;s &ldquo;tired of my fellow Democrats crying authoritarianism whenever they disagree with something &mdash; that is something that shouldn&rsquo;t be taken lightly or used as a catchall for discontent.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The point of our Pay for Performance initiative is not that we agree on every program or policy &mdash; the point is that we agree on outcomes and hold ourselves accountable for reaching them,&rdquo; he posted on X. &ldquo;We all have different ideas about how to end homelessness or increase community safety but the fact that we have to meet those goals shouldn&rsquo;t be up for debate &mdash; it&rsquo;s what our community has demanded again and again.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&rsquo;m tired of my fellow Democrats crying authoritarianism whenever they disagree with something &mdash; that is something that shouldn&rsquo;t be taken lightly or used as a catchall for discontent. <\/p>\n<p>The point of our Pay for Performance initiative is not that we agree on every program or&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Vht5fHXUb4\">pic.twitter.com\/Vht5fHXUb4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mayor Matt Mahan (@MattMahanSJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattMahanSJ\/status\/1930377141193191444?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script> <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&ldquo;The fear-mongering needs to stop &mdash; accountability for our elected officials needs to start. I hope San Jose voters are paying attention to which of their leaders are ready to be held accountable and which ones don&rsquo;t want their pay tied to progress on the issues you elected them to solve. I certainly am,&rdquo; Mahan continued.<\/p>\n<p>When the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3421170\/san-jose-way-arresting-homeless-encampment-sweeps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"interviewed Mahan in May\">interviewed Mahan in May<\/a>, the mayor spoke freely about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3416789\/matt-mahan-san-jose-mayor-gavin-newsom-homeless-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"disconnect\">disconnect<\/a> between some City Council members and the problems plaguing the city.<\/p>\n<p>Mahan, a former startup tech executive, said he was &ldquo;flabbergasted&rdquo; and &ldquo;incredibly disillusioned&rdquo; by how little was getting done in the city&rsquo;s government.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There is plenty of wealth here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We should have the resources to make meaningful progress. But then I get to City Hall, and people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-san-jose-way-mayor-matt-mahan-isnt-afraid-to-ruffle-feathers\/\" title=\"The ... way: ... isn&#039;t afraid to ruffle feathers\">literally giving 20-minute speeches<\/a> on the dais. Political speeches. They don&rsquo;t even offer solutions. They&rsquo;re often demonizing people and coming up with these random boogeymen like it&rsquo;s the fault of tech or developers or it&rsquo;s the media.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Mahan won his first term as mayor in 2022 with 51.3% of the vote after residents pushed to move the mayoral&nbsp;election to align with the presidential&nbsp;one to&nbsp;increase voter&nbsp;turnout. Two years later, he won a four-year term, securing 87% of the vote.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tennessee-gop-establishment-pushes-bill-to-hamstring-challengers-and-doxx-conservative-donors\/\" title=\"Tennessee GOP Establishment Pushes Bill To Hamstring Challengers And Doxx Conservative Donors\">holding elected officials accountable<\/a> for their actions is something everyone should support because it promotes greater transparency.<\/p>\n<p>One person on board with Mahan&rsquo;s proposal is Councilman George Casey, who said performance measures already exist in the public and private sector.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a level of malaise and apathy folks have toward our political process, and the disconnect they believe exists between local politicians and actual issues that are important to them,&rdquo; Casey said. &ldquo;Demonstrating to them that we have skin in the game, hopefully, will engender some sort of revitalization or reinvigorate them and let them know that we are serious about the issues that are important to them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Currently, City Council members&rsquo; and the mayor&rsquo;s salaries are determined by the four-member Salary Setting Commission, which operates independently. The commission reviews and sets pay every five years, with annual cost-of-living increases subject to a 5% ceiling. Before 2018, City Council members approved their salaries, but that changed when voters passed Measure U, transferring that authority to the commission. The city&rsquo;s Civil Service Commission appoints commissioners.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3421170\/san-jose-way-arresting-homeless-encampment-sweeps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"THE SAN JOSE WAY: ARRESTING THE HOMELESS AND ENCAMPMENT SWEEPS\">THE SAN JOSE WAY: ARRESTING THE HOMELESS AND ENCAMPMENT SWEEPS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Under the proposed Pay for Performance plan, the commission&rsquo;s authority would be overridden. However, it would receive an annual report detailing City Council members&rsquo; performance after the City Council first reviews and approves the report.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal is set for a final City Council discussion on June 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_2106075\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"2106075\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>San Jose mayor and City Council dispute pay-for-performance plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2646,"featured_media":2444162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_8269-1-scaled-1024x665.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[33772,4602,56716,7980,55923],"class_list":["post-2444161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-city-council","tag-mayor","tag-pay-for-play","tag-performance","tag-san-jose"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_8269-1-scaled-1024x665.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444165,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444161\/revisions\/2444165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2444162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}