Anthony R. Silva, mayor of Stockton, California, said he was recently detained by DHS at an airport without a warrant and was not allowed to leave until he handed over his computers and passwords.
SAN FRANCISCO, October 5, 2015– Stockton, California Mayor Anthony R. Silva, who was elected in November 2012, said in a statement that he was recently detained by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at the San Francisco International airport on his way home from a trip to China.
Silva’s two laptops and mobile phone were reportedly confiscated, and he said he was not allowed to leave until he relinquished his personal passwords to the devices. According to Silva, officers provided no warrant or court documents at the scene.
Silva’s attorney, Mark Reichel, claimed the confiscation of personal property and passwords was illegal.
Silva noted in a statement that “They indicated that this action to confiscate personal property at the airport was in fact routine and not unusual.” Silva said that he was also told he had “no right for a lawyer to be present” and that being a U.S. citizen did not“entitle me to rights that I probably thought.”
Was this related to Mayor Silva being in politics? Is he a political ally or enemy of Obama, who ultimately controls the DHS? AUN-TV did a search on Anthony Silva and found out he became mayor in a huge upset, and further more he is a rare Republican California Mayor of a large city. So the Obama Administration may see him as a political threat.
The city staffs of the mayors of Concord and Pleasant Hill confirm they were on the same China trip as Silva, but were not stopped or questioned at the airport.
Silva said he has no idea why he was detained and why federal officials took his electronics. (CBS Stockton)
Has he been targeted in any other way? Yes. It ends up he is the only Stockton mayor to ever have his salary cut.
Things got heated at the Stockton City Council meeting on Tuesday night because of proposed cuts to the mayor’s salary.
Mayor Anthony Silva was understandably upset after the cuts, which will take his salary from $104,000 to $72,000, were passed.
City council members will also have their salaries cut by 20 percent.
Silva pointed out that he is the only mayor in Stockton’s history to face cuts to his salary. The mayor said he would have to get a second job in order to feed his family. http://fox40.com/2015/05/19/stockton-city-council-approves-cuts-to-mayor-anthony-silvas-salary/
Why would Obama and Democrats see Anthony Silva as a threat?
There is a good reason. He became mayor based on the terrible crime problems that Stockton had before he took office, when a Democrat was mayor. Stockton was on the top ten most dangerous city list for America. If he were to pull a Rudy Giuliani and solve Stockton’s crime problem like Giuliani did for New York, indeed he is a threat to Democrats. He won office in 2012 and already by 2013 Stockton greatly improved and is no longer on the top ten worst list. As the below article points out there has been amazing progress in Stockton under Silva, an over 50% reduction in murder in one year:
In 2012, the city of Stockton filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, prior to Detroit’s filing in 2013. In the years leading up to its filing, Stockton implemented steep budget cuts to try and get its financial house in order. The police department faced some of the largest cuts, which led to a significant drop in the number of officers on the beat. In 2008, the department budgeted for 441 officers, but by 2012 the total number fell to 331. That year, the violent crime rate reached an 18-year high, with 1,547 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The department’s decreasing budget and growing pension concerns among officers made it difficult both to hire new officers and to retain existing ones.
The chart below shows the change in Stockton’s violent crime rate by category.
| Year | 2013 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Violent Crime Rate | 1208.15 | 1547.95 |
| Murder | 32 | 71 |
| Rape | 91 | 90 |
| Robbery | 1088 | 1556 |
| Aggravated assault | 2411 | 2913 |
The decrease last year brought Stockton’s violent crime rate to the lowest level that the city has seen since 1999. The primary focus of the Stockton Police Department has been to crack down on gangs and illegal guns while helping prevent youth from turning to crime and violence. An important aspect of the police department’s goal is the use ofOperation Ceasefire, which reaches out to at-risk youth to prevent gun violence and provide alternatives to joining gangs. Last year Stockton began implementing the “Marshall Plan” for reducing crime, which is a community-wide effort. Eric Jones, Stockton’s Chief of Police, wants the city to prioritize gun violence in order to reduce crime. Jones told KCRA Sacramento, “First and foremost my focus is on guns and gangs, and the Ceasefire model, which is the stop the violence model, I think is extremely important.” http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/stockton-atlanta-drop-most-dangerous-cities-list/
Here is more info indicating Silva has been targeted, even Silva himself has said “They’re after me.”
STOCKTON – At 11 p.m. on a weeknight, Mayor Anthony Silva paced in the parking lot outside a Methodist church.
His speaking engagement there had ended more than an hour earlier, and the campers he addressed were in their pajamas in the fellowship hall, counting down to lights out.
Silva lingered in the dim, brooding.
“They’re after me,” he said.
Six months after taking office, it has come to this: The 38-year-old mayor is isolated from other members of the City Council and feuding with the city manager. He is the subject of an investigation – about what prosecutors won’t say.
Silva suffered what his own political consultant called a “meltdown” at a public meeting the other week. Due to an abscess, he is missing two teeth.
He fidgeted with his car keys and said he is depressed.
“What should I do?”
Silva, a former school board member and director of the Boys & Girls Club of Stockton, was never expected to become mayor of this city of nearly 300,000 people.
He had to move from a house he still owns outside the city limits to his current residence, a hotel downtown, just to qualify to run, and he finished second in a primary to the incumbent, Ann Johnston, by more than 19 percentage points.
But in the November runoff Silva surged. The general election followed an especially violent summer in Stockton. The Central Valley city posted a record number of homicides last year, and Silva, a Republican, yoked the Democratic incumbent to crime and the city’s bankruptcy.
He won election with more than 59 percent of the vote.
“No one that I talked to before the election – the pundits that you talk to – would have predicted it,” said Bob Benedetti, a political science professor at University of the Pacific in Stockton. Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/state/article3278258.html#storylink=cpy
There is more:
Stockton Mayor Spends Night with City’s Homeless
Stockton Mayor Anthony Silva wants to help Stockton’s homeless survive on the streets, and to prove it, he’s spending the night in a cardboard box.
“I thought I’d come out here for a night and spend a night with the homeless to see what it is that they go through,” said Mayor Silva.
Mayor Silva built the humble abode himself, using duct tape to secure a cardboard roof over his head. The temporary housing also featured blankets, pillows, and a bottle of hand sanitizer. The box was nestled in between a trash can and a chain link fence where South Harrison Street and Church Street meet under the I-5 overpass in Stockton.
“It’s about giving them a light at the end of the tunnel that there is hope, and that’s why I’m out here to give them that hope,” said Silva.
Silva told FOX40 between 14,000 and 16,000 people live homeless in Stockton. He is proposing the creation of a new community resource center for Stockton’s homeless population. He also met with multiple families living in tents under the freeway to ask if they would be interested in forming a tent city. http://fox40.com/2014/05/15/stockton-mayor-spends-night-with-citys-homeless/ He seems very proactive and creative. That increases his danger to certain political interests.
It all seems to add up. Mayor Anthony Silva is a potential new Rudy Giuliani who reduced crime an amazing amount in his first year. He is Hispanic too, a potential future Governor of California.
The harassment and fishing expedition by DHS made no sense. We looked to see if there could be a political motive, and found one the size of a Greyhound bus. Its simple, Mayor Silva is a threat to the Democratic Party because he is succeeding where they failed and there is a tendency for Democrats to become upset when Hispanics, Blacks and women become politically successful outside of their party.
Or maybe its all just a big coincidence.
Well here we go again….BO and his fellow “gangbangers” remind me of the good-ol-days when we had the Clinton crime family in office.
It is a tragedy when the criminals run the asylum.