The Toyota Corporation recently announced that the NUMMI Plant in Fremont will be closed next March.  Last week, a number of NUMMI workers and a handful of politicians held a rally outside of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco office to protest the decision to close down the plan

The Caravan Lounge has poured strong drinks on South Almaden Avenue in downtown San Jose for at least 45 years, but ever since current property owners Jan Chargin and Lynn M. Bohnen asked the Redevelopment Agency in 2007 to buy the building, rumors have run rampant about what would finally happen to the classic dive bar. The San Jose City Council was scheduled to vote today on whether the RDA should fork over $1,120,000 for the property, plus an extra $187,000 in “relocation” costs to current Caravan operator, George Rich.

However, the meeting adjourned 15 minutes ago with no mention of the Caravan.

“We are sorry to say the city is forcing us to move. For now we will be open by appointment only.” So reads a small sign taped to the locked front door of Moto Amore in downtown San Jose. The small scooter sales and service shop, located in the old Tenth Street Pharmacy building, officially started its move to Santa Clara last Monday, following months of what owner John Bettencourt says has been an uphill struggle dealing with San Jose’s code enforcement bureaucracy.

“Have you ever heard that the city is not friendly to downtown small business? Well, every word of it is true,” says Bettencourt, 39. “It’s one thing to say you need a permit, but it’s another thing to make it impossible to get one.”

Traffic may be down considerably at Mineta San Jose International Airport, but that hasn’t affected its quality of service. The $1.3 billion renovation and modernization project has earned Mineta the title of Airport of the Year for 2008.

Just over a month ago, San Jose-based Cisco Systems replaced GM on the Dow Jones list of the nation’s biggest companies. Now the networking and communications giant announced that it will be laying off some 700 people at its corporate headquarters in San Jose. The move is part of a larger strategy, announced in November, to reduce spending by $1 billion in fiscal 2009. At the time, the company announced that it “will be targeting reductions in travel and discretionary-related expenses, including offsites, outside services ... and other activities.” The company is now saying that “this limited restructuring is part of our ongoing, targeted realignment of resources.”

Critics are noting that Cisco’s second corporate headquarters in Bangalore, India, is soon to be expanded to 3,000 workers.

Another downtown club went dark last week as SJPD Chief Rob Davis used the city’s urgency ordinance for the first time, suspending the entertainment permit of the SoFA district’s Club Wet for one month. Recent club closures unrelated to the urgency ordinance include Taste, The Vault Ultralounge and Johnny V’s.  The urgency measure gives the chief broad discretion to close businesses viewed as imminent threats to public safety. The ordinance was passed by the city council two years ago following a shooting incident in the parking lot outside Club Ambassador.

Although it is struggling with a four-year $250 million deficit, BART may yet reach San Jose. The California Transportation Commission will be voting today whether to extend the service. To date, some $400 million has already been allocated to the project, which would add 16.1 miles of track to the line. Today’s vote is for another $40 million, the first installment of an expected $240 million. The total cost is expected to hover around $6.1 billion, much of which will come from federal funding. Santa Clara County voters narrowly approved a 1/8-cent sales tax to help pay for the extension in November.

In the midst of the city’s worst budget crisis and a worldwide recession, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed headed a panel yesterday that focused solely on the city’s upside, and new efforts to stimulate local business. “This is a no-bad-news zone,” Reed announced to a crowd of business leaders, investors, building owners and realtors gathered in the San Jose City Hall Rotunda for lunch.

It’s official. San Jose’s Tied House Cafe and Brewery is gone. But fear not, local beer fans. A new brewery may be taking its place down the street.

Is the Tied House Brewing Co. downtown San Jose"s latest restaurant casualty?

The doors are locked and all the brewing equipment is gone. While the brewery’s web site (tiedhouse.com) says they are closed temporarily for remodeling, Rosemary Colon, assistant manager at the still-open Mt. View location, says the brewpub may not reopen at all.

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.

What do Inlaid Thermoplastic Asphalt Pavement Marking Systems have in common with bollard sleeves and Wilshire round planters? Easy. They’re all part of the SoFA District Year One Development Plan—a cosmetic redesign of South First Street between San Carlos and Reed Street.

Last Tuesday I had the same exact meal as two million people—two eggs, two strips of bacon, two pancakes, and two pieces of sausage. I feel like a jerk saying this, but I have never felt more connected to my fellow Americans, or our collective condition.

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.

In an Aug. 13, 2008, cover story, I channeled the Urban Blight Exploration Junkie and raved over the Pink Elephant Center, that landmark rundown strip mall at the corner of King Road and Virginia in San Jose City Council District 5. I had quacked about the place once before in a previous column, but for that travel feature, titled “Postcards from the Edge of San Jose,” in which I mapped out ignored masterpieces in each district, striking visuals were necessary to properly document the shabby outré ugliness of that East Side monument.

Watch Dog Silicon Valley reported yesterday that Tesla Motors faces new competition in the world of cool electric roadsters, and speculates that the company is unlikely to come to turn San Jose into the green Detroit that some have imagined.