San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo's Flood Of Excuses | San Jose Flood

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo's Flood Of Excuses | San Jose Flood
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo's Flood Of Excuses The San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News have done extensive reporting and provided evidence that San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is directly to blame to for failing to evacuate citizens in advance of the floods that decimated San Jose during the Presidents Day Weekend. Liccardo wanted to point his finger, and all the blame, on the Santa Clare Valley Water District. But good news reporting, and thoughtful editorials, have pointed the finger right back at him. Liccardo was personally responsible for the flooding of disadvantaged Latino and Vietnamese neighborhoods because he and his staff were “afraid they would scare people” by evacuating too soon, according the news reports of the Mercury News. Now the San Francisco Chronicle editorial page has called out Liccardo for his ‘blame game’ and said the thousands that were impacted by the floods were harmed because of his inaction, ineptitude and his failure of leadership as San Jose’s mayor. Sam Liccardo should resign. Here is what the San Francisco Chronicle said about his failure to be a leader that can be trusted and believed: link: http://ift.tt/2o7qvqN It’s among the more damning facts of the February San Jose flood that while the city’s Happy Hollow Zoo managed to evacuate meerkats, lemurs and the rest of its menagerie without losing an animal as nearby Coyote Creek overflowed, thousands of human residents got their first warning not from city authorities notifying them to seek higher ground, but from the water at their doors. Santa Clara Valley Water District Chairman John Varela noted the discrepancy this week in response to a strongly worded letter from Mayor Sam Liccardo, who has faulted water district data for the city’s failure to alert and evacuate residents in advance of the flood. Varela pointed out that flood warnings from the district, the National Weather Service and others made the gravity of the situation sufficiently clear to zookeepers as well as Santa Clara County. “The city-owned Happy Hollow Zoo evacuated, and the county took evacuation/closure actions at two of its facilities,” Varela wrote. “The zoo and county had the same data as the city, and they acted.” While Liccardo and other San Jose officials have repeatedly said they accept responsibility for failing to warn those in harm’s way, hundreds of whom have been unable to return home, they have at the same time repeatedly blamed the oversight on the district’s underestimation of the precise flow that Coyote Creek could handle. But water district officials noted that to be effective, evacuations must be ordered well before a stream reaches flood stage. Moreover, the district’s Anderson Reservoir had reached capacity, and well-predicted rainstorms were soaking the already saturated region. In that context, the mayor’s legalistic focus on one piece of water district data still smacks of scapegoating and deflection.
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