Cinco de Mayo weekend is a nightmare if you are a resident of downtown San Jose, an employee of a downtown business, or someone attempting to attend a downtown play, concert, movie or other non-Cinco de Mayo event. However, it’s not because of what you might think. It’s true that there are many people and a lot of noise and traffic, but that happens almost every weekend. The problem is the San Jose Police Department who throw up roadblocks at all downtown freeway exits and many city streets, making it virtually impossible to enter downtown from the outside world.

Every day, 110 million gallons of water makes its way through miles of pipes to the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant, on the shores of the Bay in Alviso. This is the water that we flush down toilets, run through dishwashers and washing machines, and every other drop that enters the sanitary sewer system in a 300-square-mile area that includes San Jose, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Saratoga, and Monte Sereno.

When I read that nonprofit developer Neighborhood Housing Services was having trouble selling the 17 condos of their new development just south of downtown, I can’t say I was surprised, given the worsening national mortgage crisis. The main selling point is that these units are considered “affordable housing” for buyers that have a low enough income to qualify for borrower assistance (less than $84,900 for a family of four). Originally offered at $535,000, the two-bedroom condos are now priced at $450,000 and still aren’t selling. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see how anyone could consider $535,000 or $450,000 homes to be affordable on an average family income, even with the incentives.

Mayor Reed’s proposal for green building mandates would make San Jose’s policy the most advanced in California, according to the article by Erin Sherbert in this week’s Metro. The mandates would apply to commercial as well as residential developments. Reed wants to create a renewable-energy-powered San Jose that will reduce consumption in the city by half within the next two decades. Since the average green building saves 50 percent in energy usage, and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent and solid waste by 70 percent, it is an attainable goal.

The plan to develop the County Fairgrounds has disappeared around a blind curve in recent months, but that’s about to change. The 150-acre parcel, where 4-H members have showed off their prize pigs while hopeful housewives displayed their pies, is now hosting a more serious competition, and the prize could be a quarter-billion-dollar development project.

It’s now more than three years and counting since the old San Jose Medical Center was closed, and it’s still getting kicked around in a game of political soccer. Corporate owner Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), who abruptly closed downtown’s only emergency room hospital in December 2004, citing profitability concerns as the reason, wants to pull down the building, sell off the land for development, and walk away with a bucket of gold, leaving all responsibility behind. However, the city council will not approve a rezoning of the site to facilitate the demolition and sale of the land until they have a deal on a location for a new downtown clinic.

Although not rising to the epic proportions of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce in Dickens’s Bleak House, the long legal battle between Sunnyvale neighbors over a private property rights issue with an environmental twist that was concluded last week has important repercussions for the principles that govern California urban life and may bring a change in state law.

We spent the weekend converting San Jose Inside over to a new server. Thanks Edgar, Adrian, Joel and Ivan for your hard work in getting the new site up.

Astute San Jose Inside readers will notice a few subtle changes. A wider screen, a cleaner interface, larger headlines, more contributors and a cartoon on the front page. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same San Jose Inside, moved over to a faster, more robust server that can accommodate our future growth.

If any comments posted over the weekend were lost in the transition, please repost them, and if you catch any errors or have any feedback on the new look, please feel free to post your thoughts or email me.

When I tell people that I’m running for Director of District 2 of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the two reactions I get are “Huh?” and “Didn’t we just have an election?” The first is the more common. The water district is a countywide agency responsible for wholesale water supply, flood control and watershed stewardship. It has a budget of over $360 million a year, and voters don’t know that they have any say over how it’s run.

Faced with a $220 million deficit, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is on the hunt for easy revenue to buoy the sinking ship. Consequently, Supervisor Pete McHugh is targeting east San Jose’s Reid-Hillview Airport for destruction so the 179 acres it occupies can be developed. (He uses the area around Elmwood Correctional Facility as a model for his proposal.) The problem is that the airport is home to 600 small planes and several aviation businesses, and the county has received millions of dollars in grants from the federal government (the FAA) to keep it open for another 20 years.

Digital technology is definitely a two-edged sword, but it has brought many good things to all of us that we never imagined possible.  In a new twist, I have seen a couple of live satellite broadcasts into local movie theatres of musical performances by Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour in the past year. Although I was skeptical that such a thing could compete with a real concert, what I found, in fact, was that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The sound is superior (and not TOO LOUD like a concert), the visuals are much better, there are no crowds or parking problems, and the ticket cost of $10 is a mere fraction of the price of a concert ticket.

As I recently explained, San Jose Inside has joined an alliance with other local news and information outlets that we will be sharing content with, including Metro Newspapers, Boulevards, NBC11, and the Los Gatos Observer. This means that anything that is posted on San Jose Inside might appear in some form in the publications or broadcasts of the other members.

St. Patrick, Ireland’s primary patron saint, died on March 17, 461, in his hideaway at Saul, Downpatrick, near the County Down monastery he founded (now in Northern Ireland).

Born in Wales around 389, a native of Roman Britain, Patrick was abducted and taken to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16 where he worked as a shepherd in County Antrim. He escaped after six years and made his way to continental Europe where he became a pupil of St. Germanus. Made bishop in 431, Patrick was charged with the conversion of the entire island of Ireland to Christianity.

Last weekend, the Merc’s Internal Affairs blog pretended to call for compromise in the Little Saigon battle, while in fact bashing both sides of the debate. The piece began by reporting that “hunger-striker Ly Tong flashed the crowd to reveal his bare chest as security guards hustled him away from the speaker’s podium”—a word choice that shows a touch of disdain for the former war hero and internationally respected human rights activist.

There must be a better way of dealing with California’s budget crisis and $8 billion deficit than by laying off teachers as part of an across-the-board 10 percent spending cut. Our schools are in a pretty sorry state as it is due to inadequate funding. Many teachers that I know have to supply their students with classroom necessities and pay for them out of their own pockets. Now many of these dedicated educators are going to be getting their pink slips.

Today marks a new beginning for San Jose Inside.  We have formed an alliance with Metro Newspapers, Boulevards, NBC11, Topix and the Los Gatos Observer that will create a comprehensive digital-age system to deliver local news, information and opinion, and provide citizen journalists an outlet to bring matters to the attention of the community and discuss issues of importance to residents of San Jose and Silicon Valley.