The Fly

The Firefight Isn’t Over

Sep 01, 2010, by The Fly Politics Comments (17)

Some of the headlines in various local rags and websites over the past couple of weeks cast such a golden glow on San Jose’s firefighters union, it was as if Local 230 president Randy Sekany had written them himself: “San Jose Firefighters Quickly Quell Two Blazes.” “Firefighters Respond to Three Blazes in Less Than Two Hours.” “San Jose Firefighters to Expose Fatal Flaws in City’s ‘Dynamic Deployment’ Scheme.”

Coming as they did while the union was locking horns with the city over pay cuts and layoffs, the puff pieces no doubt pleased Sekany and his troops. But on Friday, every news source in town seemed to spin that story in the city’s favor: “San Jose Firefighters Reject City’s Concession Proposal.”

Fire With Fire

Aug 26, 2010, by The Fly Politics Comments (17)

Considering how hard she’s been pushing for Measures V and W, former vice mayor Pat Dando might be having second thoughts about her star turn, back in 2000, in some San Jose Fire Fighter’s Union promotional videos.

Team San Jose in Crisis

Aug 25, 2010, by The Fly Politics, Business Comments (18)

Team San Jose, the peculiar alliance of hoteliers, unions and city bureaucrats that runs the city’s entertainment and convention venues, is facing the biggest crisis in its short, contentious history.

Last Wednesday, finance chief Scott P. Johnson issued a report showing that the quasi-public entity overshot its budget by $750,000, and tangled its bookkeeping so badly that director Dan Fenton can’t even say exactly where the missing money went. Then on Monday, City Councilmember Sam Liccardo turned up the heat, asking city manager Deb Figone to dig into the hotel-tax-funded entity, which is run by Fenton and an executive committee including South Bay Labor Council boss Cindy Chavez.

Curse of Reed

Aug 18, 2010, by The Fly Politics Comments (13)

The city’s fearless and occasionally politically tone-deaf leader, Chuck Reed, was riding high after successfully placing pension reform and binding arbitration on the ballot with a carefully stitched-together coalition that seemed to spell the end of organized labor’s control of the San Jose City Council.

The afterglow was short-lived, however. Reed threw the new majority into chaos with his divisive endorsement of gay marriage opponent Larry Pegram for a council seat, just a day before a California court overturned Prop 8.

The Golden Boot

Aug 12, 2010, by The Fly The Fly Comments (8)

“He seems to be a real gentleman…I don’t know if he is or not. He may have a little wild man in there.”

In this viral YouTube video (http://bit.ly/JodieFisherReel), Jodie Fisher is not speaking about the disgraced former HP CEO Mark Hurd. But it’s one of several snippets from the career of the onetime soft-core porn actress turned smalltime reality TV star turned “corporate customer liaison” that are ironic in context.