Dan Pulcrano

Thinking Small, Like Guinea Pigs

Feb 18, 2010, by Dan Pulcrano Comments (12)

Mayor Chuck Reed delivered a message of fiscal discipline in his State of the City address this morning.

Past San Jose mayors have used the annual State of the City speech to announce big projects or initiatives. Commandeering a broke city, however, limits Chuck Reed to talking about already dry cement like the swoopy new airport terminal or trumpeting minor capital spending projects, such as fixing the convention center’s leaky roof or reopening the Happy Hollow Zoo with a renovated Guinea Pig Island. When it comes to mayoral speeches in San Jose, no detail is too small.

Newsom Stumps in San Jose

Jun 17, 2009, by Dan Pulcrano Politics Comments (19)

Gavin Newsom called for visionary pragmatism—and a constitutional convention—at a Rotary Club meeting today. Felipe Buitrago photo.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom delivered an optimistic message about California’s prospects to members of the San Jose Rotary Club Wednesday. With a Kennedy-esque call to “renew the spirit of imagination” that has defined the state, the candidate for governor called California “a state not just of dreamers, but of doers and entrepreneurs.”

SJPD’s New Club Cop: An Interview With Lt. Larry McGrady

Jun 10, 2009, by Dan Pulcrano Comments (12)

Metro Silicon Valley /SJI interviewed Lt. Larry McGrady about his new job as head of the newly expanded Downtown unit.

More enlightened police strategy appears to be taking hold in downtown San Jose´s entertainment zone. In the past, aggressive law enforcement tactics resulted in large numbers of public-intoxication arrests and lawsuits from club owners and members of the public, as well as packed council hearings, heated public debates over racial profiling and complaints of economic damage to downtown’s business community. Faced with community uproar, fiscal issues and political pressure, SJPD seems to have gotten the message.

America Can Be Better

Oct 15, 2008, by Dan Pulcrano Comments (5)

There’s something profoundly wrong with an economic system that sells homes cheaply then takes them away from young families; that encourages wasteful energy consumption while fuel prices double and ExxonMobil serially breaks corporate profit records ($12bn last quarter). And there’s something immoral about a political order that allows its leaders to invade countries on pretext then fails to hold them accountable; that end-runs international and constitutional principles on torture and incarcerating the innocent while endeavoring to globally spread its values.

Sammy Cohen, Metro Columnist and Jazz Society Founder

Sep 09, 2008, by Dan Pulcrano Comments (3)

Two giants of San Jose’s jazz world died in late August within a week of each other. One was tall and always immaculately dressed, a Bellarmine-educated pianist, raised in the Santa Clara Valley and married into one of its wealthiest and most prominent families. The other was round and simply dressed, a working drummer who kept time for musicians like Cab Calloway and Mike Bloomfield in the hardscrabble clubs of New York and New Orleans. Both were passionate about music. Henry Schiro was the well-dressed impresario who booked performers; Sammy Cohen was the drummer who fought for fair compensation as head of the local musician’s union.