Longtime Santa Clara Councilwoman Patricia Mahan will step down from her seat on Feb. 1 due to “serious medical issues,” according to a city press release issued late Thursday afternoon.
Mahan, a two-time breast cancer survivor who took a leave of absence in 2017 to battle cancer again, submitted a resignation letter on Wednesday.
In a phone interview from the hospital, Mahan said she did not know the city would be sending out a press release and was distressed and angry that it shared information about her health condition.
“I wanted this private, this is not a public matter…[They] had no right to release my private health information,” said Mahan, who accused the city manager of violating health privacy laws. “I can’t emphasize how distressing this is and how this impacts my recovery.”
Mahan said she is currently cancer-free but has been in and out of the hospital since Dec. 16 with “life-threatening” health issues and will be facing another big surgery in coming weeks. She said she had only told a few close family members.
“My mother doesn’t even know – she is 95, she is under constant care, and I don’t want to stress her out,” Mahan said. “And now she’ll read about it in the paper.”
City Attorney Brian Doyle said Mahan’s resignation letter submitted to the city’s Human Resources Department cited medical issues as the reason for her departure.
“You’re the first person telling me about this – as far as I know, she didn’t tell anybody not to tell anybody,” Doyle said. “A resignation document [is public] and she put information in there about her medical condition.”
Thursday night, the city released a copy of Mahan’s resignation letter to the HR Department where she referred to “serious medical issues” caused by liver damage from her cancer treatments.
Mahan said she sent the resignation letter to begin the retirement process with the state’s pension system, CalPERS.
The city needed to notify the council and public of her resignation, Doyle said. An item informing the council of Mahan’s resignation is on the agenda for the Jan. 28 council meeting.
The council on Feb. 11 is scheduled to to declare Mahan’s seat vacant. She was last elected in 2016 and her current term would have expired this November.
While Mahan has discussed her battles with cancer publicly in the past, she has done so on her own terms, she said.
“If I’m on the dais, I report I’m cancer free, or if I have cancer,” she said. “But I never wanted this…I asked this to be kept quiet, I asked the administration not to tell anyone.”
Mahan was first elected to the City Council in 1994 and has served terms as both a councilwoman and mayor. In recent months, she has been absent from or participated remotely in several city council meetings.
Rival council members have accused her of using her battles with cancer to gain sympathy during campaigns, including in a 2016 email chain published by the Santa Clara Weekly.
Mayor Lisa Gillmor thanked Mahan for her “significant contributions and service to the Santa Clara community” in Thursday’s news release.
“We respect her decision and are thinking of her and her family as they face a very challenging time ahead,” Gillmor said.
The city’s charter says council vacancies can be filled by appointment within 30 days of a vacancy with four out of five votes of the remaining members. The appointee would serve the rest of the term. If the council cannot agree on an appointment, it would need to hold an election to fill the position.