Extortion Allegations Rock Peninsula City Council

SAN MATEO, CA — It took more than five hours, but San Mateo’s City Council finally found an off-ramp for perhaps one of the biggest political crises of this sleepy Peninsula city’s 128-year history.

A contentious City Council meeting Monday culminated with the election of Amourence Lee as mayor and the appointment of Rich Hedges as councilmember.

San Mateo had been without a mayor for the first time since it became incorporated in 1894 after the council at its Dec. 5 meeting failed to elect one in an election normally regarded as a formality. And it has been a week like no other ever since.

Lee had been widely expected to be elected mayor at the city’s Dec. 5 meeting, following San Mateo’s tradition of appointing the council’s most senior member.

“This process has been tainted by multiple attempts to extort my vote for a candidate in exchange for the mayor’s seat,” Lee said.

But newly elected Councilmember Lisa Diaz Nash, who has emerged as Lee’s most vocal opponent, was joined by newly elected colleague Rob Newsom in a procedural move to postpone the mayoral vote until the council appointed a replacement for Diane Papan, who last month was elected to the state Assembly.

Such a delay could have had consequences in electing the city's next mayor, a process typically viewed as a formality.

Lee alleged at Monday night’s meeting that she had been approached by two people offering her the mayorship in exchange for her vote for a City Council appointee under consideration to replace Papan.

"The reason of this ordering of business has become abundantly clear. When the prescribed sequence is followed, the powers of the mayor cannot be held hostage, or used as a bargaining chip," Lee said.

"Our tradition of the peaceful transfer of power based on rotation of the most senior member is a century-old model that has worked to stay corruption and backdoor dealings that can erode our institutions."

Lee made similar allegations last week but on Monday for the first time identified the candidate as business attorney Cliff Robbins.

Lee said there was no indication Robbins was aware of backroom dealings on his behalf.

“I was propositioned to vote for Mr. Robbins in exchange for becoming mayor,” Lee said at Monday night’s meeting.

“I certainly do not want to believe that that candidate was a willing and unknowing participant in this potential Brown Act violation.”

Lee declined to identify the two people she alleges were acting on behalf of their preferred candidate.

Diaz Nash at Monday’s meeting challenged her colleague to name those she accused of attempting to buy her vote.

“I must ask, who made this” proposition?” Diaz Nash said.

“How in the world can we proceed with this because you’re making the allegation that you’re not backing up with any facts.”

Lee became San Mateo's first Asian American woman to serve on the City Council in 2019, when she was she was selected as an appointment after Deputy Mayor Maureen Freschet resigned.

Lee and her family were the victims of a 2020 attack in which someone through an approximately 3-inch rock through the window of their home.

The attack, which came amid the George Floyd protests, was investigated as a hate crime.

Hedges in a previous role helped lead the desegregation efforts of a Kansas City public swimming pool.