← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · madrussian
Thread ID: 11903 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2004-01-15
2004-01-15 00:01 | User Profile
You have to admire the gall of these cucarachas openly fighting the racial war, and you have to get puzzled by the whites oblivious to the reality and blindly parroting the pc mantra. But since the zhids have set up the limits of "respectable" discourse and made everyone swear allegiance to the axiom that the best candidate for the job always means that all the minorities will be represented equally to their numbers (except those pesky superhuman benevolent zhids who deserve to occupy positions of power
disproportionately to their numbers), and so the cucarachas practicing their racial war are more "respectable" and "mainstream" than a white simply stating that there is such a thing as white interests.
[url]http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7707445.htm[/url]
CITY'S SENIOR-LEVEL STAFF POSITIONS REMAIN LARGELY WHITE
By Edwin Garcia Mercury News
[img]http://www.mercurynews.com/images/mercurynews/mercurynews/7708/59418851300.jpg[/img] First row: Katy Allen, Leslye Corsiglia, Mark Danaj, Rob Davis. Second row: Wandzia Grycz, Alex Gurza, Stephen Haase, Jim Helmer. Third row: Sara Hensley, Jim Holgersson, Peter Jensen, Scott Johnson. Fourth row: Paul Krutko, Mark Linder, Jose Obregon, Ed Overton. Fifth row: Terry Roberts, Deanna Santana, Ed Shikada.
San Jose touts itself as a diverse place to live and work, becoming one of the first cities in the nation without a racial or ethnic majority. But you wouldn't know it by looking at the top officials hired to run city government, who remain overwhelmingly white.
Since they took office in 1999, Mayor Ron Gonzales and City Manager Del Borgsdorf have filled 23 senior-level positions, five of which today are held by members of minority groups. Tuesday, the city council officially hired Rob Davis as San Jose's next police chief, a white department veteran handpicked by Borgsdorf after a five-month national search.
While Gonzales and Borgsdorf assert they want a workforce that ``reflects the community,'' they say they face several challenges in diversifying the highest ranks of city government: a shortage of qualified candidates, the region's high cost of living and a state law that prohibits hiring based on race.
It's not for the lack of effort,'' said Gonzales, who in January 1999 became the city's first Latino mayor in more than a century and tapped Borgsdorf, his first hire, as the city's top appointed official.The city's track record, in terms of striving to have a workforce that represents its population, is one that we've been committed to since Day 1 of my administration.''
Minority advocacy groups and leaders of the city's ethnic employee associations, however, say they're surprised that a City Hall that promotes San Jose's rich cultural identity to the outside world could be nearly homogenous on the inside.
They also point out that a number of key minority officials have left in recent years, including a deputy city manager and an acting public works director, sometimes after being passed up for promotions. Several now work in top positions at smaller cities.
I'm not sure why the ball has been dropped on equality, but we need to be let into the game, people of color,'' said Rick Callender, head of the local NAACP chapter who has expressed to numerous city officials his concerns about diversity.And not just African-Americans, but Latinos have been left out of the game, Asians have been left out of the game.''
Worried about the matter, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People last year announced plans to commission a ``diversity report card'' on the top-level hiring record of San Jose and other local cities, which is expected to get under way soon, Callender said.
**After the NAACP announced its intention, La Raza Roundtable, a group of Latino leaders, wrote a scathing letter to Gonzales, Borgsdorf and the city council about the lack of diversity among the city's top posts.
La Raza Roundtable's chairman, Victor Garza, later suggested the city hire recruitment firms with a reputation for finding minority candidates. Borgsdorf has done do so in his ongoing search for a fire chief.**
Among the jobs Borgsdorf has filled with people of Latino, Asian or African-American descent include two deputy city managers, an assistant to the city manager and three heads of departments or offices. One of the deputies has since left.
A week after the Mercury News raised questions about the city's hiring record, the council Tuesday named a Latina senior staff member to the post of acting city clerk; three other positions are held by temporary appointees.
Filling top ranks
The mayor and the city council appoint the top six city officials, including the city manager. Borgsdorf, in turn, hires 31 senior officials, although Gonzales routinely influences those decisions.
Eight of those 37 positions, or about 22 percent, are filled by members of racial or ethnic minorities. Thirteen are women, five of whom were hired since Borgsdorf became city manager. Diversity among the upper ranks decreases significantly depending on how the positions are parsed: Of the city's 17 departments, which deal with concerns from parks to public safety, one is headed by a Latino, one by an African-American and five by a woman.
By comparison, Santa Clara County government's appointed senior staff is 45 percent members of a minority group.
Gonzales attributes the city's low diversity numbers to ``fewer minorities going into public service.'' Overall, however, more than four of 10 full-time city employees are either African-American, Latino, Asian-American or American Indian, according to statistics the city compiles for the federal government. That figure also inches closer toward San Jose's 18-and-older population, which is 58 percent non-white.
Some Latino activists over the years have criticized Gonzales for not including more Latinos in his administration.
**We have elected the mayor, who's Latino,'' said Dolores Marquez, a longtime San Jose resident and the vice president of the local chapter of the Mexican American Political Association.It does surprise me that when we do get people up there, they forget who they are and how we got them there.''
Gonzales deflects the criticism by asserting that his job ``is to serve all the people of San Jose.''**
San Jose has not always faced criticism for a lack of diversity. Former Mayor Susan Hammer's administration appointed several minority-group members to high-profile positions, including a black city manager, black fire chief and Latino police chief.
``All of a sudden we went through a dry spell, and we're still in it,'' said Hewitt Joyner Jr. who helped found of the African-American Municipal Employees Association in 1986.
The leader of the Hispanic Association of City Employees, Cynthia Bojorquez, who is an assistant to the city manager, said the ethnic organizations should share the responsibility by helping their members rise to the upper ranks. She wants her organization to teach skills that deal with management and internal politics.
We're here to provide a public service; people need to feel comfortable coming to us, and us going into their neighborhoods,'' Bojorquez said of the importance of diversity.If we don't understand where they come from, how are we supposed to serve them?''
Recruitment hurdles
Borgsdorf, who is praised throughout City Hall for hiring women for some key positions that typically have gone to men, such as public works director, acknowledged in an interview last week the challenges in attempting to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of senior staff.
In the end, he said, hiring comes down to finding the best qualified candidate, which is difficult when few minority hopefuls send job applications to San Jose.
``My argument to myself is, if you know your current diversity isn't where you'd like it to be, knowing that would not change my picking the absolute best candidate for that position,'' Borgsdorf said.
Borgsdorf recently began exploring the creation of a training and development program to groom city workers for management ranks, which he hopes will increase the pool of qualified minority candidates for top-level openings.
He concedes the city missed a window of opportunity to start the program, when the budget was brimming during the economic boom: ``We didn't, and we should have.''
Councilman David Cortese, 47, a lifelong resident of East San Jose, said the council shares responsibility for being lax on diversity when it considers candidates for top jobs, or when it ratifies recommendations from the city manager.
**Cortese plans to sit down with the mayor in the coming days to suggest establishing a ``diversity committee'' to be involved in the recruitment process.
The city must do better than eight minority employees in top positions, he said.
That's called de facto discrimination,'' Cortese said.There may be no intentional discrimination going on, but as a matter of fact there's a bias in the system.''**
Contact Edwin Garcia at [email]egarcia@mercurynews.com[/email] or (408) 920-5432.
2004-01-15 04:18 | User Profile
It's so refreshing to see that [B]the real world[/B] sees beyond color and anatomy and is committed to the betterment of their environments.
This is one of a zillion articles to wave in the face of the starred-and-striped rahrah, garden-variety conservative, and neocon to remind them that this country isn't yours.
2004-01-15 17:44 | User Profile
Here's their response, Robbie:
"It shouldn't matter what color the San Jose government workers are --- so long as they're the best-qualified for the job. All this affirmative action stuff is silly. We're all the same under the skin. Look at Bush's cabinet: He's got TWO blacks, Rice and Powell, and they are great. He didn't go for skin color, he went for talent, and he got it. I think you racists need to get over yourselves and forget about skin color. You sound like the liberal racists who want affirmative action." Etc.
In other words, they don't get it. And they're not going to, either. "Conservatives" are even less likely than liberals to start seeing the light, I think, because they've been trained to play nice in the backyard but NEVER to go over the fence.
2004-01-19 03:30 | User Profile
The moral/egalitarian myth knows no bounds. We did everything we could to recruit minorities, and it didn't work. We must be to blame!