We hear talk from time to time about partnerships between the public sector and private sector, essentially merging the mutual interests of governments, which serve communities, and private companies, which exist to make profits for shareholders or their private owners. But there is another entrant in the private sector that is often a partner but seems to get left out of the public/private partnership discussion: nonprofits. When it comes to parks, these organizations can make critical contributions.

Day two of the BART strike once again left commuters scrambling, the highways hopelessly jammed and countless people late for work.
 Go to 511.org for real-time updates and suggested ways around the hold-up, which has doubled or tripled commute times for a lot of people who work in and around San Francisco. Employees of the regional transit agency—the fifth most-used rail line in the nation—are on strike because contracts with the agency’s two biggest unions expired and discussions over a renewal fell apart. BART workers want higher wages—23 percent raises over the next four years.

A new survey recently commissioned by the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI) and supported by Californians Against Utilities Stopping Solar Energy (CAUSE) reveals some striking trends in key voting demographics in California and nationwide.

To handle the surge of complaints, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office set up a fraud hotline in Vietnamese and English for customers bilked by a San Jose travel agency. Sunlight Travel, founded in 1996 by Diane Ho, suddenly closed up shop June 5, leaving customers in a lurch. Many of them stand to lose thousands of dollars for flights bought but never booked. Sunlight Travel catered to a lot of Vietnamese clients from its now-closed strip mall storefront on South King Road.

City manager Debra Figone made the correct decision in turning down a raise. What was astounding was that it was ever offered in the first place. Her current compensation is a whopping $227,975 a year. Just the offer of this raise is cause for voters to become irate. It reduces the credibility of public service and confirms taxpayers belief their money is being wasted.

Original Joe’s has become a San Jose institution by serving the best eggplant parmesan in the Bay Area for over 50 years. It has thrived in Downtown San Jose because their owners, the Rocca family, like so many other San Jose businesspeople, know what it takes to compete. As they compete for the loyalty of their patrons, Original Joe’s has helped to support the college tuitions and mortgages of generations of cooks and wait staff.

The San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium in Santa Clara is just a year or so away from its July 2014 opening, but some Santa Clara residents are still fighting the stadium’s construction. Santa Clara Plays Fair, a committee opposed to the newly-named Levi’s Stadium, is organizing its members to appear at the Redevelopment Agency’s Oversight Board meeting Tuesday afternoon.

The city expects to clear up 40 to 60 homeless encampments a year—indefinitely. Annual cost for the cleanups will range around $550,000, and possibly more, if the city approves a contract with Tucker Construction, Inc., at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Other agenda items for the last council meeting of the fiscal year include a settlement for a man struck by a police car, a renewal agreement with the city’s Sacramento lobbying firm and a potential shift to store city data through cloud computing.

Last Friday, Edison International—one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the country—announced that it would permanently retire the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). The decision ended 18 months of uncertainty for Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) customers, after a January 2012 leak caused the plant to be shut down. The shutdown and now retirement of the plant has made our state’s energy future uncertain.

Psycho Donuts scared off some of its vegan customers and incurred the wrath of animal rights groups Friday, National Donut Day, when it gave out free Foie gras donuts to the morning’s first batch of customers. Though California last year outlawed sale of force-fed-until-fat-engorged goose and duck livers, the state doesn’t ban giveaways. This did not sit well with the Internet.

About 47,000 county homeowners will soon find out that their homes are worth more than what they paid for them. Assessor Larry Stone announced in a press release Thursday that the South Bay’s residential property market continues to trend upward.

A proposal for a new construction fee to rake in more money for affordable housing has sharply divided the City Council. Vice Mayor and 2014 mayoral candidate Madison Nguyen and Councilman Don Rocha say San Jose desperately needs another funding source for low-income housing since the state-ordered end of Redevelopment Agencies (RDA). But councilmen Pete Constant and Johnny Khamis strongly disagree. Other issues at Tuesday’s City Council meeting include a public hearing to raise the medical marijuana tax and a fight over a recycling facility near the San Jose Flea Market.

The Great Recession devastated shelters for battered women. And while government funding has declined, the need for such services has drastically increased. This issue will be one of many discussed at Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting, including a federal grant to develop news strategies to find long-term homes for foster children.

San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio pens an open letter to Netflix, which is considering its options on where to expand operations, perhaps outside of Los Gatos. Oliverio makes his case for why the DVD and online movie streaming company should consider its neighbor, San Jose.

My last column described how luck, spunk and political ambition brought the 49ers to Santa Clara. Now it is time for San Jose to step to the plate and get the Oakland Athletics. Let’s start with the positives: A’s owner Lew Wolff wants the team in San Jose and the San Jose establishment wants the A’s in San Jose. So, what is the problem? Politics, pure and simple.

Should the city recruit more department heads from outside or promote from within? Councilman Don Rocha says he thinks the city needs to do a better job casting its net to outside talent.