Posted on 06/21/2005 2:00:08 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Prosecutors last week declined to file criminal charges in the case of San Jose's favoritism toward Cisco Systems in the technology contract for the new City Hall. But a civil suit from the highest-ranking person to lose her job over the scandal that surfaced a year ago now threatens to do what five previous probes did not: force San Jose's top officials to testify under oath about what they knew about the deal.
Wandzia Grycz, 53, the city's former chief information officer and self-described ``scapegoat'' in the $8 million contract that favored Cisco phone and network equipment for the new downtown City Hall, has filed a civil suit against the city alleging wrongful termination, invasion of privacy, defamation and malpractice by a deputy city attorney.
Grycz's lawyers said Monday that while they have yet to begin preparing a list of city officials to depose, City Manager Del Borgsdorf and his deputies almost surely will be called. Officials from Mayor Ron Gonzales' office -- and possibly even the mayor himself -- could also be called, Grycz's lawyers said.
``It's my experience that when there are substantial internal investigations into a matter like this they are almost always distorted for the higher-ups who want to achieve a certain result,'' said Grycz's attorney Michael Sorgen. ``When you do interviews under oath you sometimes force people to give you a more complete picture of the truth.''
--snip--
Grycz, who did not return a phone call to her home Monday, resigned her $174,000-a-year post under pressure in August after a city audit found she and two others had flouted city laws by designing the $8 million Internet phone-and-network contract with Cisco so that only the company's equipment would be installed in the new building.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
This woman was making 14,500 a month. Not bad!
Gonzalez was probably doing top down C&C on the whole deal - a bit of a kick back to his buddies at Cisco for their help with his campaign.
Rare to see a "public servant" not take the paid leave route. Either a very principled government employee (endanger species) or dirty as hell. The envelope please............
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