☆ CM Peter Ortiz falsely accuses colleagues of violent class animosities; Mayor Mahan rebukes him
Any hopes that Sylvia Arenas' exit from the SJ City Council would signal the end of wild comments from the dais were dashed on 4.25 as District 5's CM Peter Ortiz picked up Arenas' mantle with gusto. Ortiz proclaimed that votes against a memo to expand SJ's housing preservation efforts were "violence against working families." Mayor Matt Mahan took exception to Ortiz' incendiary claim, but Ortiz was undeterred. In an Opp Now exclusive, the team unpacks Ortiz’s falsehoods and reframes them to reveal unreasonable hyperbole and unseemly bullying.
By the time the 4.25 Council meeting convened, it was clear that the Housing Dept's efforts to pass COPA—an ordinance which aimed to greatly privilege nonprofits in the real estate market—was going down. In anticipation of COPA's imminent defeat, Ortiz and other CMs floated a last-minute Preservation Housing memo that attempted to salvage a subset of COPA's elements.
Here are the key interchanges at the 4.25 Council meeting:
Ortiz in support of the Preservation Memo: (approx timestamp: 6:24:10)
"Know that today's vote will seal the fate for many individuals in my district and in our working class communities, and that neglecting a good preservation policy, at the end of the day, is an act of violence for working class families."
Mayor Matt Mahan summing up discussion: (approx timestamp 7:33:20)
"But I do hope we can keep the rhetoric down and remember that everybody on this council is coming at this with the intention of wanting to have a stronger, more inclusive community. So I do get a little nervous when we imply that a vote against COPA is somehow an act of violence against the community here."
Ortiz responding to Mahan's concerns: (approx timestamp: 7:36:44)
"It’s easy to come around and go to events in District 5 and take pictures. But you leave District 5 at the end of the day. My families have to stay there, living on couches; living on floors, sleeping in sleeping bags. This is violence. Displacement is violence. It’s active violence against working people. And to say it’s not is a fallacy. So, I disagree with you, Mayor, and you chose to quote me, and you’re going to get a response when you mention what I say."
Mahan response:
"You’re very much entitled to your opinion. I will continue to take exception to the idea that anybody’s vote against COPA here is an act of violence."
Ortiz:
"My words were for Preservation, not COPA. I know COPA is not passing."
Analysis:
Politicians are just like all of us: In the hustle and bustle of living and talking, we say things that we don't mean, that come out wrong. But the combustible nature of Ortiz' comments—coupled with his refusal to walk them back when given the opportunity—place them beyond some understandable, everyday faux pas. And helps explain why Mahan and others felt obliged to push back.
Here are three ways Ortiz crossed the line of acceptable political discourse:
First, Ortiz made patently false claims.
Even if you accept the by-no-means-clear assertion that the city's Preservation efforts (and Ortiz' memo) actually help alleviate displacement, the way Ortiz equates displacement with violence is overwrought and inaccurate. Displacement happens when people, for whatever reason, can no longer stay in their current residence or neighborhood. Everybody on the council and all good-faith residents agree that displacement can lead to disruption, discontinuity, and financial and emotional difficulties—and as a result should be alleviated. But difficulties are just not the same as "active violence," and to insinuate that anyone voting against the Preservation Memo is committing that violence is an inaccurate smear.
This is especially true when one considers that the City and Housing Department already have compassionate policies in place that aim to provide that alleviation for displaced residents, ranging from the Tenant Protection Ordinance to San Jose's Ellis Act.
Second, Ortiz overstated—wildly.
Ortiz suggests that opposing his preservation memo would disadvantage hundreds of thousands of residents—that it's violence "against working families." This is extreme hyperbole. There are probably somewhere north of 300,000 renters in San Jose. The Housing Department concedes it can't quantify the number of people displaced annually, but it eyeballs that it's "in the thousands."
Third, Ortiz contributed to a degraded political culture.
When language becomes weaponized, when "violence" comes to mean anything you oppose, when Oceania has always been at war with East Asia, some menacing behavior can be unleashed.
On the one hand, it's hard not to read Ortiz's exaggerations as perpetuating a type of male bullying, in which men in positions of power contort language in a way that helps them belittle and demonize opposition. Indeed, as researchers point out, the aggressive use of strong and offensive words—as well as hate speech—is a classic convention of male bullying (Wang Li), and a pillar of "a toxic patriarchal society" (Wiggett).
On the other hand, we should not forget how overheated and irresponsible language can lead to truly violent attacks on elected officials and core democratic processes. And those attacks, sadly, occur not just on the national level: It was only in the last council term that our mayor's house was vandalized and an incendiary device placed in the front yard of CM Dev Davis.
Watch the whole council meeting here.
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