mcgovern rowen

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Since his unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Santa Clara City Council last year, attorney John Mlnarik has been on the legal warpath. To date, Mlnarik has sued: a couple whose <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/ci_24097983/internal-affairs-should-political-figures-start-online-petitions" title="diminutive dog allegedly nipped him on the hand" target="_blank">diminutive dog allegedly nipped him on the hand</a> while he was campaigning; blogger and political operative James Rowen for defamation; and a former employee, attorney Elena Rivkin Franz,

who supposedly misused company resources to start her own firm and

steal clients. The last two targets on that list are fighting back,

however, and the <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/tag/FPPC/" title="Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)" target="_blank">Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)</a>—the

state political watchdog—could have an interest in their allegations.

In a cross-complaint going to court Thursday, Franz claims that Mlnarik

not only engaged in gender discrimination but that he also forced staff

at his firm, Mlnarik Law Group, to walk precincts. Franz says Mlnarik’s

firm even created a separate billing code for campaign work. When she

voiced ethical concerns, Franz claims, her pay was docked and she was

told to work from home to be closer to her young children. Shortly

thereafter, she resigned. But this isn’t the only allegation of Mlnarik

paying campaign staff off the books. Rowen, whom Mlnarik is suing for

$390,000, told <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/the_fly" title="Fly" target="_blank">Fly</a>

that the attorney gave him envelopes of cash to do his bidding—a

violation of campaign law. The eccentric author of Mission City Lantern

of adds that he would take a lie detector test to prove it. Mlnarik did

not respond for comment. Raising even more alarms, multiple sources in

Santa Clara politics tell Fly that labor-aligned political consultant Ed McGovern worked on Mlnarik and Santa Clara Councilmember Debi Davis’ campaigns, but disclosure forms for both show McGovern was never officially paid a dime. <a href="http://sanjoseinside.com/images/uploads/Santa_Clara_Rules.pdf" title="Santa Clara’s campaign expenditure limit caps at $36,800" target="_blank">Santa Clara’s campaign expenditure limit caps at $36,800</a>,

leaving little room for paid advisors—at least officially. Mlnarik did

not return a call for comment. As previously noted, McGovern has worked

free of charge under questionable circumstances before—such as when <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/3_13_13_xavier_campos_george_shirakawa_campaign/" title="he pro-bono’d" target="blank">he pro-bono’d</a> San Jose Councilman Xavier Campos’ campaign in 2010 while billing Assemblysister Nora Campos $45K. One associate of McGovern’s who definitely did work on Mlnarik’s campaign is Kevin Moore, a former vice mayor of Santa Clara. Moore volunteered for Mlnarik’s camp to walk precincts and gave him <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypcs94QXUkQ" title="a glowing endorsement" target="blank">a glowing endorsement</a> but the two apparently had a falling out.
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The Daily Fetch takes no prisoners—at least that’s what political consultant and lobbyist Dustin DeRollo

told Fly when denying he has any role in producing the anonymous links

blog. In the past six months, the Fetch—under new ownership—has taken a

decidedly aggressive tone in going after everyone from Mayor Chuck Reed, his City Council allies and defeated county supervisorial candidate Teresa Alvarado to Metro

and its staff. But one group that has received far less criticism from

the blog is the organized labor machine and its elected allies, such as Cindy Chavez. So, when DeRollo’s name turned up as the <a href="http://sanjoseinside.com/images/uploads/Daily_Fetch_Figones_Failure.pdf" title="quasi-editor of a PDF the site posted" target="_blank">quasi-editor of a PDF the site posted</a> for a story last week, speculation in Silicon Valley political circles percolated that he and his business partner, Tom Saggau,

have been orchestrating the site. Both men say that couldn’t be further

from the truth, claiming DeRollo was improperly ratted out as a source

for a story he expected not to lead back to him. “I sent it in as a

story idea off the record and on background,” DeRollo said. “I’ve never

had this happen to me, so it’s frustrating.” The claim of innocence is a

little suspicious—Fetch has at times read like a Saggau and DeRollo

press release for clients, such as the San Jose police union and the

Government Attorneys Association—but there is also reason to believe the

pair: the duo were “<a href="http://www.thedailyfetch.com/2013/05/20/daily-fetch-5-20-13-saggau-derollo-shirakawa-and-rural-metroon-life-support/" title="lampooned" target="_blank">lampooned</a>,”

as Saggau put it, in May for their affiliation to George Shirakawa Jr.

and getting the county to sign up with Rural Metro, which is now on the <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/7_24_13_county_supervisors_rural_metro_contract/" title="verge of bankruptcy" target="_blank">verge of bankruptcy</a>. Others have suspected political consultant Ed McGovern—who

ran Chavez’s recent campaign and runs in San Mateo county circles, an

area the blog also “covers”—took control of the site earlier this year.

McGovern didn’t return requests for comment last week but did answer his

phone Tuesday when discovery of the DeRollo document started making the

rounds. McGovern denied any involvement in the site but couldn’t vouch

for his staff, which he says consists of just one person whom he refused

to name. Could there be some circling of the wagons going on here? One

thing is for certain, the blog does have enough institutional knowledge

that it reminds Fly of the website San Jose Revealed, which turned out

to be operated by Philip Bump, a South Bay Labor Council operative who has since moved on to write for The Atlantic. Metro/San Jose Inside bought the <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/san_jose_revealed_revealed/" title="San Jose Revealed" target="_blank">San Jose Revealed</a> domain name earlier this year to remind people that the Internet forgets nothing.

UPDATE: The Daily Fetch provided this email response after a

request for comment on who runs the site: “The Daily Fetch has a long

standing policy not to discuss or reveal our sources, except when we do

really stupid inadvertent things like what was revealed today. As for

the identities of the Fetch staff, we like to think of ourselves not as

writers, but as philosophers always seeking the truth.”
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Xavier Campos is a public servant who doesn’t like to talk to the

media. For this reason, and maybe a few others, the San Jose councilman

refused to answer <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/the_fly" title="Fly" target="blank">Fly</a>‘s questions about his former campaign treasurer, Linda Delgado, who handled <a href="http://sanjoseinside.com/images/uploads/Xavier_Campos_Campaign_2010.pdf" title="accounting duties for his council race in 2010" target="blank">accounting duties for his council race in 2010</a>.

Treasurers aren’t usually a hot topic of conversation, but Delgado also

happens to be one of the absentee accountants who facilitated George Shirakawa‘s embezzlement of more than $100K in campaign contributions. She also has a child with the <a href="http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/3_6_13_george_shirakawa_jr_investigation_metro/" title="felony-charged former county supervisor" target="_blank">felony-charged former county supervisor</a>.

What makes the situation all the more disconcerting is that Campos, a

former Shirakawa staff member, followed the disgraced supervisor’s lead

in failing to close out the council campaign account in a timely manner,

despite repeated <a href="http://sanjoseinside.com/images/uploads/Xavier_Campos_City_Clerk.jpg" title="attempts by the City Clerk's office" target="_blank">attempts by the City Clerk’s office</a>

to get Campos to come in line. But that all changed last October, when

Shirakawa got a tip that San Jose Inside was looking into his misuse of

public funds. A few days after Shirakawa started reimbursing the county

to cover his tracks, Campos filed forms with the city on Oct. 15 to drop

Delgado and have himself named treasurer. The councilman then amended

several campaign disclosure forms—you know, because no one was actually

handling proper treasurer duties two years ago—before he forgave a

nearly $10K personal loan he gave his campaign a week before the 2010

election. He then <a href="http://sanjoseinside.com/images/uploads/Xavier_Campos_Termination.pdf" title="terminated the account" target="_blank">terminated the account</a>. Adding a layer of opaqueness to the situation, Campos hired Ed McGovern

as his campaign consultant in 2010 but didn’t pay him a dime for his

work. McGovern says he and the Campos family are old friends, which is

why he pro-bono’d Campos. But the consultant was not so charitable on

the campaign of Xavier’s big sis, Nora Campos, who was charged more than $45K to help her win a State Assembly seat that year.
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