Liccardo didn’t press the issue that day, but he left puzzled, wondering why his grandfather hadn’t showered him with praise, and what he meant by “those people.” When Liccardo saw his grandfather again a couple of weeks later, he asked him. “He said to me, ‘You know Sam, a lot of people go to Harvard and they think it’s all about themselves. They think they’re smarter than everybody else, that they’ve worked harder than everybody else and they’re better. And you know better than that.’” The elder Liccardo reminded him that his grandmother got up at 4 a.m. each morning to open the store, that his dad worked two jobs to get through college and that his teachers had worked incredibly hard to help him get where he was. “‘When you go to that school, you’ve got to remember it’s not about you,’ he told me. ‘It’s about all those people who helped you get there. And when you graduate, remember it’s about something greater than yourself.’” San Jose’s 65th mayor took the message to heart. Some may say it has effectively shaped the way he has approached his life, his career and his mission as mayor of California’s third-largest city. Liccardo, 45, knows being mayor is not a one-man show. To that end, he has already begun forging significant partnerships with business and community leaders, reaching across the aisle to work on compromises with groups opposed to his views and bringing together the people who can best help him create the changes he believes San Jose residents want to see. PORTOLA HERITAGE By now, the Liccardo story, reported by local news sources, is well-known. It begins long before he was born. A couple of years ago, some of his friends traced 56 South Bay Accent his roots back to Jose Francisco Ortega, a Spanish scout on the Gaspar de Portola expedition in the late 1760s. Ortega is believed to have been the first person of European descent to see the San Francisco Bay. And Liccardo is said to be a direct descendent of Jose’s granddaughter, Maria Ortega, on his mother’s side. Liccardo’s father’s roots are planted in Sicily. The family immigrated and eventually settled in New York, where his grandfather was born. At 17, the elder Sam Liccardo left for California, worked for a Peninsula grocery store chain and built a house on North Fifth Street, where he lived with wife Rosalie and their two sons. In the 1940s, he bought the Notre Dame Market in downtown San Jose. The sign for the market still stands today and was recently given a new coat of paint. “A neighborhood group went out there and painted the sign a couple of months ago. It says, ‘Notre Dame Market, Parking 25 cents.’ “That was back in the good old days when you could park for 25 cents,” says Liccardo. “It’s a pretty familiar story for a lot of folks here in San Jose—immigrant families who came with very little money and no education. He and my grandmother got up early, opened the store and worked long hours. Of course, the great dream was to make sure their children got an education. My grandfather pushed hard and his two sons went on to college, which was a great thing,” he explains. Liccardo was born in Saratoga in April 1970, the youngest of five children, most of whom still live locally, allowing him to see them often. He attended Bellarmine College Prep school, as his father had. His grandparents and parents, Sal and Laura Liccardo, were both heavily involved in fundraising for the school. The younger Sam Liccardo later graduated from Bellarmine, attended Georgetown University and went on to Harvard Law School. ‘SOMETHING GREATER’ After graduating from Harvard, Liccardo settled into life as a private attorney. But eventually the desire to be part of “something greater” compelled him seek a different direction. Friend and community advocate Carl Guardino, who heads the San Jose Leadership Group, remembers this transition well. “I met Sam Liccardo in the summer of 2000, when he set aside his successful private sector law practice to volunteer in helping to lead the BART campaign, Measure B, on the November 2000 countywide ballot,” Guardino recalls. “He ended up working 80-hour weeks for the four-month campaign and did an amazing job. It underscored his character and commitment to community service to place his own life and career on hold for LICCARDO, 45, KNOWS BEING MAYOR IS NOT A ONE-MAN SHOW. After having served as a county prosecutor and then a city councilman, Sam Liccardo became San Jose's 65th mayor in November. COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF MAYOR SAM LICCARDO (2)
South Bay Accent - Jun/Jul 2015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above