My family and I, along with 750 others, celebrated the life of Dan Lairon III on Saturday, May 2 at St. Martin’s Church.  The mass presided over by Father Bob Shinney S.J. was a commemoration of the good work and deeds of a distinguished former Marine and life-long educator.

In an effort to move the city out of the debacle of the IPA selection of Chris Constantin, the Mayor and several Councilmembers have been trading memos regarding the next attempt to hire an IPA, leading up to a potential Cinco de Mayo vote tomorrow. But rushing forward with another hiring process before a full investigation has been done on “IPA-gate” would do San Jose a disservice, and leave lingering suspicions.

Over a month ago I wrote about a budget meeting I led in District 6 with my own presentation on the deficit and alternative solutions. Since then, other council offices have scheduled their meetings. I was curious to hear the opinions from outside my district. So last week I attended the budget meetings in District 10, Almaden/Blossom Valley, and District 8, Evergreen. Both meetings were led by the city manager’s office with its own presentation.

San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum is open for business. All opinions are welcome.

Mayor Chuck Reed is proving that there are limits to his patience. Today, the mayor fired off an unfriendly letter to Councilwoman Nora Campos asking her to publicly apologize for drumming up drama over recent anonymous complaints against former Mayor Tom McEnery.

Roy Avila, the community affairs guy at KICU, yesterday announced his campaign for State Assembly District 23. His letter follows:

Friends and Colleagues,
Through our work in the community together many of you have mentioned that I should run for office someday. Well, I have decided to take your advice: I am running for State Assembly in 2010 here in San Jose, the 23rd District.

By Diane Solomon

Sylvia Soledades looks like many women you might see waiting at bus stops, serving people at fast-food counters and walking on city streets with children in strollers. Thirtysomething, her long dark hair is pulled back into a bun; she wears a loose gray sweater over jeans and neat white sneakers. She credits the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County for helping keep a roof over her head.

Even Mayor Chuck Reed himself seems to believe he might have miscalculated community concerns in San Jose’s most recent controversy—the selection of the newly hired, just-resigned Independent Police Auditor.

Over the weekend, Reed finally confessed that maybe he was wrong about hiring Chris Constantin as the new IPA, knowing full well that his older brother is a San Jose homicide detective. “I didn’t think it was a fatal flaw,” Reed told Fly, adding that he is surprised it turned into such a big deal. “After the public controversy exploded, it was fairly clear that it was [a mistake].”

‘Surge of Charter Schools Coming to Silicon Valley, whether districts like it or not,’ was the title of the April 8, 2009 editorial in the San Jose Mercury News. Are we preparing ourselves for the aftermath of the destruction the surge wave can cause our public school system?

The City Council discussed one of the world’s most precious resources last week; water. The council had its annual meeting with the Santa Clara Valley Water District. In the past, the two organizations have had some turbulent conversations; however, at this meeting we were all on the same page about conservation and the future supply of water.

It’s SJI’s weekly open forum, and thoughts on any topic are welcome for discussion.

Community Members on San Jose’s Public Intoxication Task Force were making a point when they got up and walked out of the door of city hall in the middle of the meeting Wednesday night. Skyler Porras, director of the ACLU, read a statement on behalf of other community groups on the task force, including the NAACP and the La Raza Roundtable, stating that they had nothing further to talk about until the city and police department agreed to release at least half of the 4,000-plus arrest records they have requested

A few days ago, I bumped into five San Jose cops having lunch.  I asked them if I could hear their thoughts about Chief Davis.  (NOTE:  In advance, I indicated to the five officers that our conversation would be “off the record” in that no names would be published, and that I wouldn’t mention the name of the restaurant.).

The five San Jose Police officers didn’t express strong feelings either way towards the Chief.

San Jose and Santa Clara County officials today rolled out a $60,000 campaign to focus attention on the persistent gang problem in this area.

It’s official: the wave of defaults sweeping California and the nation is the result of irresponsible lending practices, which peaked in late 2006, according to a just-released report.

MDA DataQuick, a real estate analyst, reports that three lenders were on the tip of that wave, making a stunning number of bad loans. Between 65 percent and 75 percent of the loans made by the three—ResMAE Mortgage, Master Financial and Ownit Mortgage Solutions—have since gone south, DataQuick reports. They sold almost all of these loans to other banks, which then repackaged them into the now-familiar house-of-cards arrangements that have since collapsed.

The religious right may have won the gay marriage debate, but they just lost the war on porn…in the library. After a long meeting Tuesday night, the San Jose City Council put an end to Councilman Pete Constant’s 19-month-long campaign to install porn filters on library computers throughout the city.