After months of nervous anticipation, 106 San Jose police officers are getting notices this week that they may be laid off as the reality of the city's dire financial picture cast a gloom over police headquarters and City Hall.

An additional 20 more cops learned they may soon be demoted. And overall, the city could lose about 9 percent of its police force in what could be the first layoffs of officers in the city's history.

City officials have been threatening layoffs for months, and City Manager Deb Figone last week broadcast a total of more than 600 city employees. But that doesn't make the layoff-warning letters any easier to accept.

"I was sold a bill of goods and the city did not hold up their end of the bargain," said J.P. Bottega, a former New York City cop who was recruited by the San Jose Police Department three years ago. "They asked me to make a lot of sacrifices. They asked me to go all in with this city. And I did."

Bottega blames Mayor Chuck Reed and the City Council, which, he said, "doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to make the tough decisions" to protect the city's public safety.

"I pay my mortgage first before I go out to dinner," he said. "Public safety is the mortgage of the city's future."

Budget woes

But Reed and other city officials say they have little choice. San Jose, they note, is in its 10th straight year of budget deficits, largely driven by employee costs outpacing revenues. Officials say half of this year's deficit is driven by soaring employee pension costs, and have asked employees to agree to reduced retirement benefits.


Police Chief Chris Moore has been holding small group meetings in a conference room to notify the officers whose jobs are in peril.

"It's hard to be the chief at a time when we are laying off officers for the first time ever," Moore said. "Our best, brightest and youngest are being forced out of their jobs."

This week Officer Bottega and most members of Team 65, a respected unit that patrols the East Side all night long, will personally be handed letters by Moore warning them that their jobs could end in late June.

On Monday, Figone laid out the bad news contained in a proposed budget she plans to release May 2. That news is the elimination of about 620 positions, about a 10th of the workforce, to close a $115 million deficit.

About 230 other employees are expected to be "bumped" by more senior colleagues into lesser jobs.

And it could get even bloodier.

The estimate of 600-plus jobs targeted for elimination assumes 10 percent pay and benefit concessions from all 11 of the city's employee unions, which would shave $38 million off the deficit. But so far, only firefighters and three civilian employee unions have agreed.

If the city doesn't secure similar concessions from the rest of the workforce, Figone said, an additional 155 cops and 300 other workers will be cut. The council can vote to impose pay cuts for a year on the civilian workforce but not on cops.

The only member of Bottega's six-member team who is not slated to lose his job is Sgt. Dave Woolsey. But he is scheduled to be demoted.

Bottega had been an officer in New York City for years when he saw a recruiting billboard on Manhattan's West Side Highway that spoke of the SJPD's superior professionalism and good salaries. He spoke with his wife, who was from California, and a San Jose police recruiter, Lt. George Beattie.

He liked the idea of lots of trees and working for a department that had an excellent national reputation. So he and his wife sold their house on Long Island in 2008, taking a beating on it, and headed west.

Changing course again

Now, with his wife in graduate school, Bottega looks at his house in Santa Cruz with the chickens and the black lab and figures it, like his job, will soon be gone. At 37, the veteran officer can't realistically go back to NYPD. He gets depressed thinking of how hard he will have to compete against the flood of other cops who are being dumped on the job market.

Even so, Bottega said he is not so cynical and depressed that he has become an empty shirt.

Last month, he pulled over a van with expired plates that seemed to be driving erratically.
Bottega had a moment in which he asked himself if it was worth it. But he knew it was.

The first thing he noticed on the floor of the van was a machete, then a Taser, then they found guns and a homemade explosive. He made the arrest and later received a letter of commendation signed by Chief Moore.

"I've lived an upstanding life to become a police officer. I'm happily married, looking to start a family. In that respect its disappointing. But you can't get upset about things you cannot change. I have to look forward."
That was the inspirational message of Woolsey, who says he came to San Jose from Hollywood hoping to make a difference.

A few months ago Woolsey noticed his patrol team's morale flagging as the rumors of layoffs swirled around the department. Years before, Woolsey had felt depressed about his own police career back in the days of the scandal-plagued LAPD.

So now he grabbed his officers after briefings and in parking lots and told them to keep their heads up.
"If you dwell on things you have no control over, you can get cynical and depressed. It affects every aspect of your life," he told them. "Remember the reasons you became a police officer and hold tight to those beliefs."

He said that to his delight, his officers responded.
"They do this job for a reason," said Woolsey, 40. "Despite morale problems they still want to do the right thing."

Now Woolsey is trying to remind himself why he spent so many Sundays at the library away from his wife and two young children studying to get his sergeant stripes. He and about 19 others may lose them in July.

He knows the pain of Bottega, the rest of his patrol team and other people in other industries in Silicon Valley who are losing their jobs.

But it still hurts.

"I really felt like I've hit that point where it is time for me to lead others and have a positive impact on people I work for and the community I work with," he said. "So this is a morale breaker."

Meanwhile, the union has been compiling a list of the officers who have over the past 16 months left the budget-beleaguered department for such agencies as the Round Rock (Texas) Police Department, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office and the Palo Alto Police Department. The union estimates the city has lost about $2.45 million in training costs.

Jim Unland, the vice president of the officers' union, said the mood at the police department is somber.

"Some of our best people are affected by this," he said. "I fear that once we lose them, we will never get them back."