The City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday to decide whether or not it should sell land to owners of the Oakland A’s. The plan is to sell the property for $6.975,227, which is 36.5 percent of the total ballpark site’s current value. The theory, according to ballpark advocates, is the economic benefit of a ballpark would outweigh some combination of corporate, retail offices and housing.

Faced with what they called a back-door ban of San Jose’s collectives, the barely month-old Citizens Coalition for Patient Care (CCPC) turned in more than 47,000 signatures to the city clerk last week, well over the 29,653 signatures needed for a referendum against regulations the City Council passed in September. James Anthony, CCPC chairman, said the organization also registered nearly 8,000 new voters and raised over $200,000 from supporters. The group may need both on their side, as Mayor Chuck Reed proposed raising the Measure U tax on collectives from 7 to 10 percent to cover potential election costs for the referendum.

After a day-long “general strike” in Oakland, which lasted well into early Thursday morning, Occupy Oakland protestors have removed barricades at the port of Oakland entrance. On Wednesday afternoon, a crowd of more than 3,000 people marched to the port of Oakland.

The whole world is keeping tabs on anti-Wall Street protests. On Saturday, the San Francisco occupation marched against police brutality. Four days prior, police arrested more than 100 people in Oakland for camping at City Hall. The militant response by police to protesters angered many, and the iconic takeaway was pictures and video of protester and Iraqi war veteran Scott Olsen lying bloody and dazed, his skull fractured by a tear-gas canister fired by police. This all happened after San Jose police raided the camp at San Jose’s City Hall plaza on Sunday, Oct. 23, arresting eight occupiers. In response, Shaun O’Kelly climbed atop the plaza structure in the dark of night. He now camps on a 5-foot-wide ledge.

Four San Jose councilmembers want City Manager Debra Figone to explain how she hires and ensures diveristy in senior staff positions. Few outside searches take place for qualified candidates, and just as few minorities currently hold director-level positions. As a result, Councilmembers Kansen Chu, Ash Kalra, Nancy Pyle, Xavier Campos and Don Rocha sent a memo to the city’s Open Rules and Government Committee asking for data. They also want a discussion on hiring practices to take place at the council level.

Over the last several months I have written two San Jose Inside columns on the Gates Foundation initiative to fund city/district/charter school collaborative compacts that bring meaningful cooperation and planning to the forefront of communities. Each time, I wrote that I had enormous hope that our collaborative compacts would be validated and funded by Gates. That hope, however, took a hit during a conference call with the foundation Monday.

Tomorrow, the City Council will adopt the 2040 General Plan (GP2040), which charts the growth of San Jose for the next 30 years. The Task Force, of which I am a member, met for over four years and held over 60 public meetings. In hindsight, the GP2040 could have been done sooner, however, the scope was too broad at the start and it should have been focused solely on land use.

San Jose police will commit more security this weekend to the funeral of a Hells Angels member who was shot dead two weeks prior in the same cemetery he is set to be buried. Reports now suggest that the slew of violence that has left two Hells Angels members dead and one evading the law stems from a violent squabble in January 2010 between the Vagos motorcycle club and Hells Angels at a downtown Santa Cruz Starbucks.

San Jose cannabis activists hoping to repeal the city’s new dispensary regulations say they have almost 50,000 petition signatures before today’s deadline. The Citizens Coalition for Patient Care, a group running the petition drive, calls the City Council’s ordinance “unworkable.” The group says it needs 29,653 valid signatures to qualify for a referendum to overturn San Jose’s ordinance.

Last week, during a tour of our downtown Drop-In Center for homeless youth, a donor watched as all our kids piled into a van for a trip to the beach. The donor questioned why we would take youth on an outing, rather than focus on the immediate needs of housing, employment, and education. The tone of the question said more than the words – the donor thought it was frivolous. It occurred to me that he may not be the only one who feels this way. 

Editor’s Note: Jim Unland is a sergeant in the San Jose Police Department and vice president of the Police Officers Association. He wrote this column for San Jose Inside.

Last week the nationally renowned criminologist Chuck Reed said, “There’s nobody that seems to think that there’s a direct connection between the number of officers and the number of homicides.” However, Mayor Reed has also said that gang homicides can be prevented. Every time he says that the number of officers doesn’t matter with regards to the homicide rate, he demonstrates his ignorance as to how the San Jose PD has kept its citizens safe for so many years.

Holy Toledo! Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) actually believe the 2011 rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965—reauthorized in 2002 as No Child Left Behind—can be voted on by the Senate by Thanksgiving and the House by Christmas. No way will this become a reality.

The first member of the Occupy San Jose protests to be cited at City Hall climbed a large wall in the plaza and was still there as of Monday morning. The man, identified by another protester as Shaun O’Kelly, reportedly climbed the wall in protest of other members of the movement being removed from city property.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated from the original version. Occupy San Jose protestors did not relocate from City Hall to St. James Park. The standoff between Occupy San Jose protestors and City Hall resulted in the arrest of eight people early Friday morning. In response, protestors have vowed to continue airing their grievances with the nation’s financial inequalities.

Oakland A’s co-owner Lew Wolff wants to get a stadium built in San Jose, and he’s ready to purchase land in an effort to force MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s hand in deciding if the team can relocate. On Tuesday, the City Council is meeting in closed session to discuss the sale of six properties to Wolff. A deal with Wolff would only make up half of the 14 acres needed for the stadium’s construction.

Some communities get it, and some don’t get it at all. It is truly amazing how things work when there is a vision and people with the talents to carry it out. Right now, a brand new two-story school building, built in record time on one acre of land in a residential neighborhood of San Jose, houses hundreds of K-3 grade students who are eager to learn.