SAN JOSE — San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo failed to disclose a downtown condominium owned by his wife near a controversial Google development, raising questions about whether his interest in the property would have disqualified him from votes related to the project and other decisions he made.

Under California law, public officials are required to disclose their income, financial interests, properties and investments — including the assets belonging to their spouses — to determine potential conflicts of interest in making decisions.

Liccardo’s wife, Jessica Kohl-Garcia, owned a downtown condominium about a mile from the Google development site since 2005, and when they married in May 2013, he didn’t report that ownership on his annual disclosure s .

He first reported the property in February 2018, when he also amended previous disclosures dating back to 2014.

At that point, the city was well underway with private negotiations with Google over their downtown development. Liccardo had voted to begin public negotiations with the company in June 2017.

City Attorney Rick Doyle said he doesn’t believe there is any conflict, noting the distance between the Google development and condominium is about a mile, well over the 500 foot threshold where, under state law, an official is presumed not to have a conflict unless evidence is presented otherwise.

The couple sold the condo for $745,000 in March 2018, according to public records. The city council voted to approve the sale of city-owned property to Google in December 2018, nine months after the condo was sold. Liccardo didn’t immediately have information on how much he and his wife profited from that sale.

Liccardo said his failure to disclose the property was a mistake.

“The assumption that they had anything to do with each other is unequivocally false, and would not be a conflict of interest under any circumstance anyway,” said Liccardo in an interview Wednesday evening.

Liccardo acknowledged it’s possible the property created conflicts on other votes he made during that five-year period after their marriage and before they sold the property, but said he is unaware of any specific projects or votes that might be affected.

The mayor maintains his votes on the Google development were entirely legal, but said he has asked the state ethics watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission, to clarify potential conflicts involving his wife’s condominium.

FPPC spokesman Jay Wierenga confirmed that Liccardo self-reported a possible violation to the agency’s enforcement division, but did not have details about what he reported.

Questions about the previously undisclosed property arose after a Feb. 16 story by the nonprofit news website San Jose Spotlight. According to Spotlight, Liccardo amended his 2013 forms the day after their reporter contacted him about the issue

The disclosures, known as form 700s, are made under penalty of perjury but are largely self-policed. The city attorney relies on them to advise council members and other public officials about potential legal conflicts that would disqualify them from making decisions.

Asked to explain why he didn’t disclose the property after getting married in May 2013, Liccardo said he annually updated the section related to his stocks and investments, and simply didn’t revisit other sections of the form after he got married.

“That’s what I did year after year, and after we got married it never dawned on me to look at other parts on the form to think about what other assets I should or should not disclose based on being married to Jessica,” said Liccardo.

He says he wasn’t involved in his wife’s management of the condominium, which she rented out, until growing problems with the building’s maintenance prompted a conversation about selling the property.

“At that point it dawned on me, if I’m getting more engaged in this and we’re thinking of selling, and I might benefit from a sale, this is an asset I really should be disclosing on the form 700,” Liccardo said.

Liccardo acknowledged he should have disclosed the property immediately, but said the public was not deprived of knowledge of his financial interests.

He noted the city council vote to sell city property to Google occurred after he disclosed the property in February and after he and his wife sold the condominium in March.

“First, the disclosure was made publicly, ten months before the council voted on the sale of the property to Google,” said Liccardo.

“Secondly, it was never a secret that I own my home in the downtown already,” Liccardo said, referring to the home he and his wife now share. “and like tens of thousands of property owners, economic development in the vicinity is a good thing.”

Bob Stern, who co-authored the state’s Political Reform Act which covers conflicts of interest, said “Clearly he should have disclosed it…the big question is how much [the sale] was affected by the development.”

State law requires officials to recuse themselves from decisions within 500 feet of properties that they own or financially benefit from. There are exceptions up to 1,000 feet, but beyond that distance, officials are presumed to have no conflict unless there’s clear evidence to the contrary.

There’s also an exception that allows an official to vote, when the financial effect of a decision on a public official cannot be distinguished from the effect on the general public.

“Part of it, too, is if everybody’s property goes up, then you don’t have to disqualify yourself, it’s only when your property is fairly close to the development,” Stern said.

Doyle said it can be difficult to isolate rising property values to a single project.

“You’d have to see that it was absolutely clear that this specific project, Google or anything else, would affect the value of the property…and that’s always difficult given that Silicon Valley properties have gone through the roof,” said Doyle. “So do you attribute it to the project or the health of the economy generally?”

Doyle said Liccardo first consulted staff about the condominium property in 2017, around the time he first reported the property on his forms. Doyle said he was otherwise unaware of the condo property until that point and he doesn’t believe there is a conflict.

Violations of the Political Reform Act carry a penalty of up to $5,000 per violation, depending on the seriousness of the violation, an individual’s history of violations, cooperation with authorities, and other factors, according to Wierenga.

Google’s plan to build a new campus by Diridon train station, employing up to 20,000 people, has triggered a sharp jump in prices for commercial real estate in the area, dubbed the “Google effect” by developers.

Sandy Perry, an organizer with the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County who has opposed the Google development, said even if the mayor didn’t violate the law, he believes Liccardo should not have voted on the project because the condo benefited from a rise in property values.

“There may be some technicalities about the number of yards where it’s conflict, so maybe technically he may be off the hook, but it’s just not right,” said Perry.

Liccardo has run afoul of conflict of interest rules in the past. In 2009, Liccardo paid back $461 in tickets to a San Jose Sharks hockey game, after the Mercury News reminded him of a city policy that prohibits officials from accepting sports tickets. The tickets also violated a state limit on individual gifts, which was $390 in 2008.

Contact Thy Vo at 408-200-1055 or tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com.