STORY BY GIL RUBINSTEIN, PHOTO BY ALLISON HUANG
Amid persistent calls for her resignation and a failed attempt at mediation, Los Altos Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng at a council meeting on April 27 denied allegations that she falsely claimed Los Altos activist Kenan Moos threatened her, addressing the allegations directly for the first time since the incident took place.
Lee Eng’s alleged false accusations came after she abstained from a police reform vote in November 2020. Following the vote, she claimed that she had received messages calling her racist from the social justice group Justice Vanguard, which Moos founded.
“I’m getting information or comments from members of Vanguard calling me racist now,” Lee Eng said after the vote. “I don’t appreciate it. I would like to state that I did it because I lacked information, and there were other reasons why I took the position that I have.”
“I voted the way I did, I am representing my concerns due to the lack of information,” she added. “That said, I just want to protect myself and protect my family.”
In the weeks following the incident, it became clear that the only messages sent were from Moos, expressing his disappointment.
“Your name will be all over the papers,” Moos wrote to Lee Eng in the November text. “We know there are racists that supported you. You are trying to delay this. It has nothing to do with budget and you know this. You lied to me in our discussions that you were going to support racial matters. You said you were the only one in favor and it looks like you are the only one against them.”
After Lee Eng publicly accused members of Justice Vanguard, Moos sent a message clarifying his position.
“I just want to be clear,” Moos wrote. “This is no way a threat of any kind. This is me expressing my disappointment.”
Many members of the public and council interpreted Lee Eng’s statement in the November meeting to mean that she felt threatened — Lee Eng denied that she implied that.
“I wanted to explain my vote in order to protect myself and my family after receiving text messages saying that my supporters were racist and promising that my name would be all over the papers,” Lee Eng said at this week’s council meeting. “I am the only female Asian ever elected to serve on the Los Altos City Council. Kenan Moos, his family and his supporters exploited the false narrative that I said he threatened me and that I considered texts he sent to me as threats because he is a young Black man. That is absolutely false.”
Moments after Lee Eng initially accused Moos of threatening her in November, the council immediately condemned it, and have not commented on the accusation or the threat itself since.
Mayor Neysa Fligor ended that silence in a prepared statement at this week’s meeting, apologizing for the hurt the council may have done, and acknowledging that she thought Lee Eng implied a threat was made.
“Although she did not use the word threat, when we all heard her saying that she wanted to make a statement [in case] anything happened to her family, I [took it to mean] something very serious and scary was written in that text message,” Fligor said.
Fligor, echoed by councilmembers Jonathan Weinberg and Sally Meadows, expressed that she did not view the text messages as threatening.
“I did not see anything in the message that would make me believe that something would happen to Councilmember Lee Eng and her family,” Fligor said.
During the public comment section of the meeting, residents who empathized with Moos, as well as his family members spoke out against Lee Eng.
“All you are doing is denying. Denying, denying, denying, that is not what a great leader does, you can’t keep denying, you can’t keep escaping the truth,” said Kevin Moos, father of Kenan Moos after Lee Eng delivered her statement. “You waited five months, let everyone think [Kenan] sent threatening messages. For five months. You are cold hearted, you are a horrible example as a leader.”