During his run for mayor in 2022, Matt Mahan played down his political inexperience by hyping up his business background – specifically his founding of two social media companies. He promised voters he would leverage his experience within the technology industry to implement new tools to enhance community engagement, streamline city operations, and provide better service to businesses and residents.
Mahan touted his partnership with former Facebook president Sean Parker. He benefited from huge contributions by various big tech and social media tech executives.
At forum after forum, Mahan preached the power of technology to address a litany of issues facing the city: greater government transparency and accountability, a more equitable provision of core services, fixing the staffing problem in Planning, Bulding and Code Enforcement, assisting law enforcement in keeping communities safe, reducing police overtime. Technology was the key to doing it all.
In short, Mahan marketed himself as a tech bro, not a politico. Yet after two months on the job, Mahan has failed in the most basic of tech tasks – updating the mayor’s website.
Besides a new splash page with Mahan’s photo and his, albeit edited, campaign logo, the mayor’s website continues to list Sam Liccardo as the mayor of San Jose. If you want to find out about Mayor Mahan‘s priorities, his legislative initiatives and accomplishments, the recommendation of his transition committees….well, you’re going to have to search elsewhere.
Even the members of his staff remain a mystery, as none are listed on his website, despite this promise during his campaign:
“One of the most important things we can do is hire a workforce that truly reflects the diversity of our city,” Mahan said at a candidate forum hosted by Sacred Heart Community Service. “That’s something that I have prioritized in my office, and I think it’s important that we are transparently publishing all of our hiring data so people understand exactly what our workforce looks like and how it compares to the city.”
The City of San Jose is currently facing multiple, simultaneous crises – a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis, a staffing crisis – as a result of eight years of poor leadership under former Mayor Sam Liccardo. Many had hoped a new mayoral administration could make progress in these areas where the past administration had failed.
So far, however, with his inaction on even the most basic of issues, like updating his website, Mayor Mahan seems best fit to transform himself from failed tech bro to failed politico.
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