David Kertes doesn’t have the temperament, judgement nor experience to be Mayor of Santa Clara.
I’m not saying this because he attempted to recall me after he lost to me in the 2024 District 5 City Council election. He was terribly misguided in his reasons for the recall effort and he now admits publicly that it was a mistake. In his letter on Feb 15, 2026 calling off the recall he says:
“$20 million is being directed toward Agnews” – not true. In reality, $20M from a budget surplus was allocated to doing something about City Hall – refurbishing, rebuilding, moving, etc.. There was never any Council commitment to funding Agnews.
Regarding City Manager Compensation: “approving an increased compensation package of $631,000 , exceeding that of more than 60% of Silicon Valley CEOs.” Meanwhile Kertes serves on the Salary setting commission and on April 7, 2025 he voted to increase the Chief of Police total compensation from $532,194 to $562,231 which is an increase of over $30K.
The most telling incident demonstrating Kertes’ temperament was that he hired a lawyer, Peter Bagatelos, to issue a cease and desist letter on September 17, 2025 to 83 year old Mary Grizzle after she and Kertes had lively exchanges on social media. Kertes was attempting to intimidate Mary to prevent her posting articles critical of Kertes.
Kertes spent a lot of energy during the 2024 election and Recall Campaign claiming that I was beholden to the 49ers because they spent a lot of money on my behalf in independent expenditures. I found out later that Kertes actually went to the 49ers in 2024 to ask for their support which I NEVER EVER did and then when they refused to support him, he continued to attack me on 49er independent expenditures. I have NEVER taken any money from any special interest.
Related Santa Clara, which has failed to develop anything on the 240 acres of landfill and golf course after 10 years, created a campaign committee in 2024 to support Kertes’ campaign and spent at least $27,500 to get him elected. Meanwhile Kertes accused me of getting nothing done in the downtown even though we completed the Downtown Precise Plan and Form Based Code in August 2023 after 43 meetings of the Downtown Community Task Force. The City recently issued an RFP to develop 2 blocks of the Downtown.
Kertes touts his business chops and financial acumen for being qualified to be mayor yet, when I looked at his final (Termination) FPPC Form 460 form to close out his Recall Campaign (3/29/2026), I discovered that he still had outstanding debts of $3,135 which interestingly were to the lawyer he hired to go after Mary Grizzle. There is no indication that he ever paid his debts. Did he stiff Peter Bagatelos? Also it seems he ran the entire recall campaign without ever getting an FPPC ID number.
It’s not surprising to me that Kertes’ campaign website shows not a single endorsement from a sitting elected official, not even Lisa Gillmor.
