A free community forum on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), sponsored by the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Santa Clara Valley and Councilmember Kansen Chu, will take place at 6:30pm Wednesday at City Hall.
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SJPD Officer Allegedly Lied on Time Sheet
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Team San Jose CEO to Retire Next Year
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Shirakawa Under Investigation
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California’s Fair Political Practices Commission confirmed Friday that it is investigating George Shirakawa Jr.’s failure to file campaign disclosure statements for the past four years. Shirakawa is president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, which oversees a $4 billion annual budget. The campaign law violations were detailed Wednesday in a cover story in the weekly newspaper Metro.
Read More 12Supervisor George Shirakawa Breaks Law by Hiding Campaign Disclosure Documents
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The following is an excerpt from a Metro investigation into Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa. Since taking office in January of 2009, Shirakawa has broken the law by not filing nine campaign disclosure forms showing how he has collected money to pay off a $110,000 debt from the 2008 campaign. In addition to this stunning lack of transparency, forms that Shirakawa did file during that campaign show a policy of nepotism in doling out more than $50,000 in campaign cash to a close friend, two of his daughters and the mother of one of his children.—Editor
Read More 8DACA Could Help Students, Combat Crime
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President Barack Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program, a policy enacted in June that allows illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children to obtain a work permit, a valid Social Security number and a contingent promise of deferred action with regard to deportation. DACA does not provide a path to lawful permanent resident status, U.S. citizenship or legal immigration status. But, perhaps unintentionally, a new study from Stanford suggests that DACA could result in drops in crime nationwide.
Read More 3Marijuana Tax Returns to Rules
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The city collected more than $3.5 million last fiscal year through taxes on medical marijuana collectives. Some city officials want more. Councilmember Sam Liccardo, along with Rose Herrera and Pierluigi Olivero, put forth a plan Monday to put all medical marijuana collectives not paying their Measure U taxes out of business. According to the city’s Department of Finance, in the past fiscal year, 80 of the 158 medical marijuana dispensaries have “never, or only sporadically, paid the medical marijuana tax approved by voters in 2010 through Measure U.”
Read More 9Council Talks City Hall Grand Jury Report
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The City Council meeting Tuesday will open with a commendation ceremony for local Olympian Martilou “Marti” Malloy, who took bronze in Judo in London, and the Association of Former Vietnamese Political Prisoners for their 25 years of support of Vietnamese political prisoners. But once the council gets down to business Tuesday, the mayor and councilmembers will discuss a Grand Jury report that questions the city’s funding structure and transparency in building City Hall.
Read More 4Minimum Wage Effort Dealt Setback
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Groups hoping to increase San Jose’s minimum wage in November through Measure D lost a court fight on two fronts Thursday. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Mark H. Pierce ruled that a line about costs from Measure D’s ballot statement must be taken out because it is misleading. He also rejected arguments that opponents of Measure D should have to change their ballot statement because minimum wage backers “failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the subject arguments are false and misleading.”
Read More 3Kalra Attends DNC in Charlotte
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UPDATE: It turns out San Jose Councilmember Pete Constant did attend the Republican National Convention. Check back for more details.
San Jose City Councilmember Ash Kalra is in Charlotte, North Carolina this week to attend the Democratic National Convention. He is one of almost 6,000 party-nominated delegates. While he is attending the week-long rally, Kalra will be keeping touch with San Jose Inside. At the end of the week, the councilmember will give us a recap of the events, who he interacted with and his impressions of where the party is headed into the November election.
Read More 8Columnist Leigh Weimers Dies
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We’re sad to announce that Leigh Weimers has passed away at the age of 76. Warm and easygoing, Leigh was a much beloved figure in San Jose who wrote a column for the San Jose Mercury News for 47 years. Leigh went into the hospital a month ago for congestive heart failure and was scheduled for heart surgery this week.
Read More 8Graniterock Sunday-punched
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Members of Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 showed up at 4pm Sunday to close the cement and asphalt plant at Graniterock’s A.R. Wilson Quarry. Aggregate Division Manager Jack Leemaster looked none too happy with the surprise when he drove up in a white pickup truck 45 minutes later. “My understanding is they had a pretty good sized order going out tonight,” said one plant worker, resting his placard’s pine stick on his shoulder. “Three hundred tons for night paving.” Twelve hours later, things would get worse for Graniterock. Before Monday crews punched in to start their weeks, picketers descended upon the company’s recycling plant at Monterey Highway and Capitol Expressway, at the sand and gravel facility in Hollister and at Graniterock operations in San Jose’s Berryessa district, Redwood City and South San Francisco.
Read More 2Politics and Friends
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Mayorluigi
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Okay, San Jose Insiders, sharpen your knives. We’re ready for the customary evisceration reserved for those who’ve earned the ire of San Jose’s public employee unions. This week we divine the betting pool for the mayoral prospects of our very own San Jose Inside columnist. Call us crazy, we know, but one shouldn’t count out the dark horse candidate who in 2006 overtook Chamber of Commerce and Labor darlings to clinch the District 6 San Jose City Council seat. Any way you look at it — by vote totals, percentages or being ideologically in sync with voters who overwhelmingly passed Measure B in June — Pierluigi Oliverio is not a force to be dismissed.
Read More 16Decision Time for Rocketship
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Last Wednesday, the SCCOE Board of Trustees postponed a vote on exempting two new Rocketship Education schools from city zoning requirements. The item was continued to Tuesday, Aug, 14. I am not certain how I will vote tomorrow. My decision will be based on what I hear from the speakers and my colleagues. If for one nanosecond I believe this is another move to obstruct the decision in December made by the SCCOE board, I will vote to approve the resolution to exempt the zoning requirements. Rocketship is attempting to do Herculean work on behalf of building a system of 29 charter schools that provides a longer school day, blended learning, home visits by teachers and high academic expectations for all its students. The competition to the traditional public school system should be welcomed by our community, not scorned.
Read More 2Saturday Services Planned for Marine Captain Matt Manoukian
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Services will be held for Captain Matthew P. Manoukian Saturday, Aug. 18 at 3pm in the gymnasium at Mountain View’s St. Francis High School. Manoukian was killed Aug. 10 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province by an Afghan police officer with whom Manoukian had just shared a meal, according to an Associated Press report. The attacker escaped to Taliban protection, a Taliban spokesman said. Manoukian was the son of Santa Clara County Judge Socrates “Pete” Manoukian and state appeals court Associate Justice Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian.
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