Real estate lobbyist and political maven Jude Barry has emerged from the shadows, playing a possible role in the November election and in a local politician’s perjury trial.
Barry attended a July 19, 7 p.m. meeting on a “Related Santa Clara update” on Mayor Lisa Gillmor’s calendar. Gillmor met with Barry and District 6 council candidate Kelly Cox — four days after Cox filed nomination papers.
Then, at a July 26 hearing, a judge ruled that Jude Barry, a lobbyist for the Related Companies, must turn over documents in Vice Mayor Anthony Becker’s perjury trial.
“We have reason to believe … Jude Barry had access to the report,” defense attorney Chris Montoya said.
Becker’s defense team aims to prove that others leaked the grand jury report before Becker, making it public.
Barry’s relevance in Santa Clara goes back a long way. During his 12 years working for Related, Barry sold political services to the developer-funded Santa Clara police union political action committee. That union was behind the website GrandJuryReport-dot-com.
The union purchased the URL before the grand jury report was made public.
But it doesn’t stop there. Several others whose documents were subpoenaed — including Mayor Lisa Gillmor, Council Member Kathy Watanabe and Stand Up for Santa Clara, an unregistered political committee that claims to be a 501(c)3 but has never provided documentation as proof — also have ties to Barry.
A 12-Year Career in Santa Clara Politics While Lobbying for Related
Barry first entered Santa Clara politics in 2010. The 49ers hired him to work with Gillmor, the committee chair, to push Measure J — the measure that approved the construction of Levi’s Stadium — over the finish line.
Years before, Barry was a political operator in national, state and local politics. He ran former San José Mayor Ron Gonzalez’s campaign, later becoming his chief of staff. In 2009, he started Catapult Strategies, Inc., a public relations consulting firm, just one of his several political-service side businesses.
In 2012, Related hired Barry as a lobbyist. Later that summer, they took their show on the road to city council and local media, lobbying for construction of the most massive mixed-used development in city history.
Working for Related didn’t appear to interfere with Barry’s side businesses.
In 2013, he ran negative campaigns against Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) candidate Chris Stampolis and county school board candidate Anna Song, who opposed the plans of one of Barry’s clients, Los Altos’ Bullis Charter School.
Then, in 2015, Ramona Giwargis, then a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, outed Barry as part of San José mayor Sam Liccardo’s “kitchen cabinet.”
In 2016, Barry found a new home behind the scenes in Santa Clara politics. After Jamie Matthews’ resignation, the council appointed Gillmor, Barry’s partner in the 49ers Measure J campaign, mayor.
That year, Barry’s name appeared on the newly formed Stand Up for Santa Clara’s website. He also advises blogger Robert Haugh, whose blog Gillmor and former council member Teresa O’Neill helped kickstart. Text messages reveal Gillmor suggested the blogger use Barry as an advisor and financial backer.
Stirring the Pot
The 2016 election marked the arrival of big-money PAC campaigns in Santa Clara. Two sources told The Weekly that Barry made phone calls inviting developers to donate to the Santa Clara police union PAC. Related is currently the PAC’s top donor. Election years are also police contract negotiation years.
That year, Barry’s businesses began appearing on the police PAC’s financial reports: VoterPros ($10,215), VoxLoca ($3,000).
Also that year, council candidate John Mlnarik filed Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) complaints, alleging that Davis, O’Neill, Watanabe and Tino Silva — a founder of Stand Up for Santa Clara — failed to report campaign consulting from Barry. The FPPC declined to investigate, and O’Neill defeated Mlnarik.
As a fitting cap to the election, Barry was prominent in a photograph at Silva’s post-election party.
In 2018, the police union PAC used VoxLoca for push polls for Measure A, which would have replaced Santa Clara’s election system with ranked-choice voting.
Barry begins to appear on council calendars discussing business that has nothing to do with Related in 2016, the first year the city published council members’ calendars. In the summer of 2016, he met with O’Neill about “election issues.”
The next year, he took an increasingly visible role in Santa Clara affairs unrelated to his client.
Barry was a sub-contractor to Project Finance Advisory LLC, the company the council hired in 2017 to find a strategy for getting voter approval for a new $250 million Aquatics and Community Center. He met with Council Member Patrick Kolstad and Cynthia Owens, president of the Silicon Valley Aquatic Initiative, about the project.
He also met with Kolstad about a SummerHill development proposal on El Camino Real and Scott Boulevard. He met with Council Member Debi Davis and Gillmor about New York consultant Fred Kent’s “Project for Public Spaces,” and subsequently attended the “Tri-Valley Visioning Dinner” with Davis, Gillmor and City Clerk Hosam Haggag.
Barry also met that year with PR consultant Peter Hillan to discuss an upcoming San Francisco Chronicle interview about a Measure J audit. The following Sunday, the Chronicle published a story on the confidential report.
Barry met with O’Neill about the leaked report, and had an email exchange with her informing her that staff had moved an “Airbnb issue” to Sept. 29. He also asked for recommended invitees to “small group Related meetings.”
Fading Away
Council calendars only show one meeting with Barry since 2017: a 2018 meeting with O’Neill about “St. Thomas Aquinas’ theory of Just War and the Beatitudes.”
However, in 2018, the city hired another Barry business partner, Steve Churchill, to defend the city in a $6 million California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) lawsuit. Churchill lacked CVRA litigation experience, and his firm advised other clients to adopt by-district elections to avoid CVRA lawsuits.
Since then, Barry has left only one footprint at Santa Clara City Hall. In 2020, he gave the police union PAC a $5,000 refund for “overpayment.” There’s no indication of what the refund was for.
Records requests for communications with Barry have produced nothing. However, given that the court granted Becker’s defense attorney’s subpoena for Barry’s documents, it’s reasonable to think that Barry is still pulling some strings in Santa Clara.
Barry is still employed by the Related Companies, which has done little to impede Barry’s side hustles. It then raises the question, what does the company stand to gain from such activities?
