KLIV is reporting that a VTA Light Rail train struck and killed a pedestrian last night on the First Street line. Jennie Hwang Loft, VTA’s public information officer, confirmed that a fatality occurred between the Civic Center and Japantown/Ayer stops, but would not confirm that a pedestrian was hit.

Fisker Automotive, designer and builder of boutique hybrid and electric vehicles, came to enemy territory yesterday to debut its Fisker Karma at Santana Row, and to announce the opening of a Silicon Valley retail outlet. But the news was eclipsed by the announcement today that Fisker’s rival, the Silicon Valley-based Tesla Automotive, inked a big-money deal with Daimler Motors.

I walked into the press conference announcing the lineup of this year’s San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival wondering how it would be possible to match last year’s excellent presentations. I needn’t have worried about it. Festival director and Mexican Heritage CEO Marcela Davison Aviles and the festival’s artistic director, Linda Ronstadt, have managed to exceed even the highest of expectations created by the 2008 festival.

Mayor Chuck Reed today called on all City workers to accept a wage and salary freeze this year to avoid 150 layoffs in the face of the City’s $77.5 million budget shortfall.  “I’m calling for all our bargaining units to agree to true zeroes this year,” Reed said in a statement released this morning. He specified that this would mean “no wage increases, no step increases, no merit increases.”

Jude Barry, the ultimate San Jose Insider and longtime statewide political player, posted a cool piece this week on CalBuzz—the new blog hosted by former Merc politics editor Phil Trounstine and former Chron editor Jerry Roberts.

When the Hearst Corp threatened, on Feb. 24, to shutter the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News reported the announcement with hook-line-and-sinker-swallowing gullibility in a story headlined: “S.F. Chronicle may cease operations.” Now, it seems, the Merc‘s owner is prepared to come to the rescue.

You read it here first: The A’s are coming to San Jose. “Lew Wolff knows San Jose.  He’s made major investments in our downtown and knows that a ballpark at the right site will be a major boon to San Jose’s downtown and citywide economy.” That’s from a column by Jude Barry, written for SJI four years ago—on Jan. 11, 2005.

In recent weeks, our friend Jude’s prediction has come closer and closer to fruition, and today the A’s may have taken one more step toward a move to the South Bay.

In the wake of Hearst Corp.’s threat to close the San Francisco Chronicle, some analysts are speculating that the Bay Area’s largest and oldest newspaper might join the ranks of Dean Singleton’s MediaNews empire—which includes the San Jose Mercury News and virtually every other newspaper in the region.

The Transport Politic blog reports today that California’s High Speed Rail project will get a huge boost from the federal stimulus bill. According to the story, HSR is in line to receive $8 billion, “the largest single expenditure on rail in United States history.”

The annual TED conference is often the most interesting of the big national nerdfests, thanks to its bridging of the worlds of high-tech and the arts (the acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design). Generally, the confab’s biggest buzz comes from some new wonder-device (Jeff Han’s touch-screen demonstration from TED 2006 is still a big hit on YouTube). This year, the Big Story is not one gizmo, but two ideas.

Schwarzenegger skips State of the State address.

Citing a “state of emergency” resulting from the state’s dire economic situation and the legislature’s failure to produce a solution, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered a truncated State of the State address this morning. While he clearly put responsibility for the crisis on the legislators he was addressing—even suggesting that pay should be withheld from Assembly members, state Senators and the himself until a solution is found—his tone was mostly upbeat and conciliatory. He congratulated lawmakers for working toward a compromise, and said he is optimistic that they will succeed.

Steve Jobs announced this afternoon that he will be taking a medical leave, due to a mysterious ailment that has left him rail-thin and frail. And so It turns out that Gizmodo was right after all. Or at least partly right.

For more than three years, I have had the pleasure of being the editor of San Jose Inside. It has been a lot of fun and I have learned much about myself and our community and fellow citizens. That’s why today is a sad day for me as it will be the last time I will write as a regular contributor to the site. Alas, I must give up the editorship of SJI to make more time for other projects.

Every serious baseball fan who has traveled a bit has seen the benefit that can come from economic development projects like the San Jose Public Market. During the 1980s and ‘90s, many American cities invested public money to build baseball stadiums in the hope that they would stimulate economic activity. There are now vibrant neighborhoods surrounding ballparks from Washington D.C. to Denver. Often controversial when proposed, these neighborhoods now stand as testament to the wisdom of public-private partnerships in pursuit of urban development. The only downside seems to be the preponderance of newspaper headlines saying (you guessed it): “If You Build It, They Will Come.”

New History San Jose Exhibit Portrays Santa Clara County’s World War II

Those of us younger than 60 usually think of World War II in terms of our fathers or grandfathers battling enemies in far-off Pacific island jungles and snow-covered European fields, or through iconic images of Iwo Jima, D-Day and the atomic bomb. We often forget that the last formally declared U.S. war also absorbed the entire population of our country in a massive coordinated effort to defeat ideologically driven enemies that really did threaten our very existence as a nation. A fascinating new History San Jose (HSJ) exhibition in the Pacific Hotel Gallery at History Park in Kelley Park shows how Santa Clara County, on the western domestic front of the war, played a significant part in that effort and how the war affected the everyday lives of people in the valley.

Food for Thought

While you would be forgiven for thinking the national situation is looking pretty dark on Thanksgiving Day 2008, consider the bleak view President Lincoln must have had from the White House when he declared the national holiday on October 3, 1863.

After a period where it looked like the Union would not be spared, Lincoln finally had a few victories to celebrate, but at a terrible price. A year before, the worst single battle casualties in American history had been suffered at Antietam. The Union forces prevailed and Lee’s army was pushed out of Maryland. It gave Lincoln the strength and political will to issue the Emancipation Proclamation the following week on September 22, 1862.