The fired former City Manager of Santa Clara had long raised eyebrows for her salary and benefits package, but now says some of that criticism was stage-managed by 49ers team brass, who did not appreciate her scrutiny of Levi’s Stadium.
The name Deanna Santana probably does not ring a bell for most SFist readers. But her name has appeared in our reports going back years, as she’s a high-level city bureaucrat who has bounced around several Bay Area municipalities, sometimes with controversy.
During that whole “Occupy” movement in the early 2010s, we noted that she commissioned a curiously expensive third-party report while serving as Oakland’s City Administrator, a report that seemed almost specifically designed to absolve police of excessive use-of-force charges. (This angered the hacker group Anonymous enough to doxx her home address.) Santana moved on to being Santa Clara's city manager in the early days of Levi’s Stadium, where she blamed the 49ers for the Rolling Stones’ very public dissatisfaction with the stadium, and found herself fired soon thereafter.
So the 49ers were certainly not fond of having Deanna Santana as Santa Clara city manager. She was controversial for other reasons too. One publication called San Jose Inside was particularly dogged in their criticisms of Santana, notably in a 2020 exposé entitled “Santa Clara Officials Enjoy Chauffeurs, Five-Star Hotels on Taxpayer-Funded Trip to Paris.” That exposé (which oddly does not list an author) correctly pointed out that Santana “makes more than the president of the United States, with $767,605 in annual compensation.”
Though it is also correct to point out how common that is. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of SF city cops and sheriff’s deputies who make more than the US President thanks to their extravagant overtime benefits. And Santana claims in a new lawsuit that the source for that San Jose Inside article may have been surveillance coordinated by the 49ers and their allies at San Jose City Hall, in order to smear her in the press as part of their ongoing PR campaign against oversight of their Levi's Stadium arrangements.
As noted, Santana was fired in 2023, amid much public furor about her salary, though her replacement got roughly the same in a compensation package. And also as noted, Santana is now suing the city of Santa Clara for harassment, retaliation, and stiffing her out of her severance. You can read the details, but it all seems like fairly standard legal dispute stuff that six-figure-salary-type people can afford to hire lawyers for to get better separation packages when they lose their jobs.
But the 49ers angle here is what’s interesting. 49ers CEO and nepo-baby head honcho Jed York has Santa Clara officials he likes, and Santa Clara officials he does not like. Unsurprisingly, the ones he does not like are those who push for stronger oversight of Levi’s Stadium spending.
Deanna Santana was for more oversight, and therefore found herself on Jed York’s shit list. And the Chronicle has some eyebrow-raising allegations about supposed surveillance of Santana, some of which appears to have found its way into San Jose Inside's coverage.
The lawsuit points out one San Jose Inside story in particular. “The story accused Santana of being overpaid and reported that she and her husband had just bought the Pacific Grove home,” according to the Chronicle. “The post was illustrated with a photo of the home, with Santana’s car in the driveway. Both the story and photo were attributed to a writer named Alexander Cicak.”
“Days later, the website reposted the story, replacing the photo of Santana’s house with a photo (credited to Cicak) of a public beach,” the Chron adds. “The website soon reposted the story yet again, this time removing the writer’s name from both the byline and photo credits.”
The lawsuit says the article was posted January 26, 2022. SFist searched the San Jose Inside archives, and at this point, the story is no longer there.
Santana’s lawsuit alleges 49ers top brass were involved with the campaign to oust her. She is asking for financial compensation, though specific dollar amounts are not named.
This could be a story where there are no good guys. Maybe Santana was a little splurgy with city money, maybe the 49ers have bought off a few Santa Clara officials. Both can be true! But for those of us in other Bay Area cities who are not intimately familiar with Santa Clara politics, it kind of makes you wonder if maybe SF isn’t better off with the 49ers no longer playing here, and all of the Jed York money drama that comes with the modern-day 49ers organization.
Image: Deanna J Santana via Facebook
