Milpitas council removes Dominguez as vice mayor, appoints Nuñez

MILPITAS — In an unexpected move, a divided Milpitas City Council voted Tuesday night to strip Councilmember Karina Dominguez of her vice mayor title in the middle of a traditionally two-year term, and appointed Councilman Bob Nuñez as the new vice mayor until December.

The idea was proposed by Mayor Rich Tran and supported by Councilmen Anthony Phan and Nuñez. Councilwoman Carmen Montano abstained from the vote, as did Dominguez.

Immediately after the vote, Dominguez left the council chambers, taking to Facebook Live to call Tran sexist, childish and a bully while standing outside city hall, continuing criticisms she had leveled against him late last year when he first raised the idea of changing the vice mayor.

“My name is Karina Dominguez, I am, I was, your vice mayor,” she said.

“Tonight I am calling out the Mayor. I’m calling him out for his childishness, for his pettiness, for his sexist and for his bullying ways of how he did governance tonight. Tonight there was a lack of transparency, a lack of community, and there was a decision made in that council without you being part of it. I cannot, and I will not, be a part of that.”

The council decision was made Tuesday night with few people in attendance. At a contentious Dec. 3 meeting, where Tran faced criticisms from residents and regional leaders about his attempts to remove Dominguez from the role, the council decided the issue of the vice mayorship would be discussed at a meeting on Jan. 21.

The council was hearing an interim update from staff Tuesday on still incomplete community polling about the issue of the vice mayorship, when Tran made the move to nominate Nuñez.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Tran said the move to make the switch falls in line with his style of trying to get things done “expeditiously” at city hall.

Tran had first raised the prospect of switching the title to someone else at a November meeting, without informing Dominguez ahead of time, she claimed.

Dominguez, in an interview after the meeting, said it was a “strategic and political” move by Tran to appoint Nuñez during Tuesday’s meeting.

“I abstained on the vote that was not transparent, that was done earlier than suspected because this was supposed to be before council on the 21st, and it happened tonight,” she said on the Facebook video.

“This is not a business item that should be consuming any more time,” Tran said Wednesday, again claiming the decision was an attempt to have more “shared governance” in the city, comparing the council to the Golden State Warriors.

“And when, in basketball, a person on the court is not producing for the team, in this case, I’ll call it the city of Milpitas, I’ll always look to spread the ball around.”

He said it’s “blatantly clear” Nuñez has come up with more ideas for the city council to discuss to improve the city than Dominguez.

Dominguez pushed back against that claim, saying Tran has effectively cut off all communication with her for months because he doesn’t like “different perspectives,” and won’t even look her in the eye on the dais, which she mentioned again Tuesday night.

“I believe he is facing a lot of criticism in our community and now he is looking for something,” Domniguez said of Tran’s move to oust her from the role.

“This is part of being sexist, you attack the intellectual ability of one of your colleagues, without giving them the opportunity for them to show otherwise or explain their own thought process,” she said.

Political consultant Eric Stroker, who attended the meeting, criticized Tran for what he called “mansplaining and nonsense” in addressing the vice mayorship issue.

“The weakness of your flaccid leadership is on display through this whole process,” Stroker said. And it’s rather disappointing to see Bob Nuñez be willingly played by you because of the insecurities and the problems that you have.”

Dominguez said there may have been “backroom deals” made to get the votes needed.

Asked if he coordinated the move with Nuñez, Tran said he met with Nuñez over the weekend for smoothies and discussed “the opportunity the council would have” on Tuesday, but didn’t tell him in advance he would nominate him.

Nuñez on Tuesday first proposed having two vice mayors in the city, but Tran rejected that idea.

“If you had asked me this morning about this vice mayor role, I would have said there’s no way in hell that I would say yes to that,” Nuñez said at the meeting after being nominated.

“But here we are at 9 o’clock, and so the answer is yes,” he said, noting he had been hired and supervised by many “very strong women” in his career as a bureaucrat and elected official.

“It’s time for me to step into a role that I’ve never had before and see how much of that I retained and how much I can give back and see what I can do to help others.”

He said Tran nominating him surprised him, since the two have had a politically contentious past, including Nuñez running against Tran for mayor in 2018.

“The fact that I would say yes,” Nuñez said, “shocks me still to no end.”