Consent Calendar

Posted by Pierluigi Oliverio on Monday, June 29, 2009

The consent calendar on the city council agenda comes after the City’s ceremonial items are completed. The difference between “consent” items and the rest of the agenda is that the consent items are suppose to be composed of “rubber stamp” issues like excused absences for councilmembers, final adoption of ordinances that were already voted on at previous council meetings, etc. As a result, all the consent items are voted on at once.  However, any councilmember or member of the public has the right to “pull” an item from the consent calendar which requires that the item be voted on separately than the rest. 

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Playground Politics

Posted by Pierluigi Oliverio on Monday, June 22, 2009

The 2009-2010 budget passed with full support of the Council in part by draining the City’s reserves (the economic uncertainty reserve has only enough funds to cover 1.5 days of payroll now) and by the negotiated/voluntary salary freezes by two unions CAMP and MEF (thank you).

In the case of MEF the money saved can be used to avoid layoffs and retain library hours. This tradeoff is good for residents and good for those who would have been laid off, since they would face a job market that has the highest unemployment rate since 1941. 

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Horses, Not Houses at Fairgrounds

Posted by Pierluigi Oliverio on Monday, June 15, 2009

Now that Cattelus Development has walked away from developing the Santa Clara Fairgrounds, I hope the County will consider something other than housing.  Perhaps a fee based sports complex or even…a horse track. Currently, the Fairgrounds is home to off-track betting for horseraces, an operation called San Jose Fair Downs. Since gambling already exists at the Fairgrounds, why then not consider a racetrack?

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Survey Says…?

Posted by Pierluigi Oliverio on Monday, June 08, 2009

The results of my Budget Survey are in.

One of my favorite TV game shows was the original Family Feud with Richard Dawson. His big line was, “Survey Says!” when the survey answer was shared with the audience. I am pleased that my Budget Survey drew more than 700 participants. Thank you to those who engaged. It was long...but then our deficit is large, so the survey needed to at least attempt to grasp the entire budget.

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Good Schools & Parents Make Better City

Posted by Pierluigi Oliverio on Monday, June 01, 2009

When I ran for city council I was asked many times, “What are you going to do about the schools?” Unlike Chicago or New York, where the care of the schools falls under city government, San Jose has multiple school districts that have separate elected officials that are responsible for the care of the schools, making the City of San Jose and the school districts completely separate. 

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