There has been much discussion on this blog, and elsewhere in California, about the state government’s so-called raid on redevelopment funds to help balance the budget. A couple of weeks back, Dan Walters, the longtime Sacramento Bee columnist, weighed in, pouncing on local redevelopment agencies (San Jose’s is one of the biggest) as the epitome of waste, and touting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to take $228 million a year from redevelopment agencies.

Roll call for the emerging Presidential cabinet of the United States of America: National security team…check. Green energy & environmental team…check. Economic team…check. The United States of America now has the star quarterback in President-elect Obama, VP-elect Joseph Biden as the back-up quarterback, pro bowl quality offensive and defensive teams, yet only today will we meet the person who will be nominated for the hugely strategic position integrally related to our national security and global economic survival…the Secretary of Education.

Last week, I attended the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Policy Advisory Committee at the VTA headquarters on North First Street.  This advisory committee is not the official VTA governing board you hear about, but a committee “underneath” the governing board which has a representative from each city in Santa Clara county.

At this meeting, Joseph T. Smith, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of VTA, spoke to the committee about the VTA budget.  As we knew, and he explained further, VTA derives much of its revenue from a sales tax. And because the recession has knocked consumer and corporate spending to the ground, less sales tax revenues are being generated for government bodies like VTA. He is forecasting decreased sales tax revenues in 2009—down 3 percent

Dec. 14: Police arrest a suspect after a club fight.

About ten men were arrested at club closing time at South First and San San Salvador streets in the SoFA district early Sunday morning when several fights spilled into the street and a metal crowd control barrier toppled over. Police standing by quickly grabbed and handcuffed the suspected combatants to maintain order and assure a smooth, safe exit for patrons. After most of the clubgoers left the area, a journalist snapped two iPhone photos of one handcuffed arrestee in the middle of South First Street surrounded by six officers and being held face down on the pavement. An officer who appeared from a distance to be kneeing the suspect in the back decided that was a little too much of the First Amendment for him and ordered the iPhotographer out of shooting distance. The iPhotographer held up SJPD press credentials and snapped one more photo. The officer cited the photojournalist.

Saturday, Dec. 13. This the third-to-last Rants & Raves of 2008. Been quite a year, and it ain’t over yet. Maybe this is a good time and place to look back and remember the worst (that’ll be easy) and the best of it.

Among the thousands of out-of-state checks that flooded into California in support of Prop. 8 last fall was one for $9,999, from Plano, Texas. This contribution to the anti-gay-marriage cause came from Alan Stock, CEO of Cinemark, which owns two national movie theater chains. In coming weeks, Stock will likely be earning a lot more than 10 grand from gay men and their supporters.

When a bright, eager, socially conscious 21 year old tells his family and friends he wants to go into teaching, he most often gets this retort: “Damn…that is a total waste of the good money your parents spent on sending you to college and a squandering of your talents and skills.” How sad. When I told my parents I wanted to be a teacher in 1973, they were proud of my career choice.

You never know what you’ll find in the California Room at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library. Every time I invade the place, I wind up staying at least an extra 30 minutes, because the room is so utterly jammed to the gills with crackpot historical miscellanea. I always wind up rummaging around for something I wasn’t even planning on looking for in the first place. If you aren’t familiar with the cargo of books, pamphlets, maps, old newspaper clippings and photographs within its walls, you should be.

For more than three years, I have had the pleasure of being the editor of San Jose Inside. It has been a lot of fun and I have learned much about myself and our community and fellow citizens. That’s why today is a sad day for me as it will be the last time I will write as a regular contributor to the site. Alas, I must give up the editorship of SJI to make more time for other projects.

Calling someone a communist isn’t exactly like launching the F-Bomb— unless you are a member of the local Vietnamese diaspora. That’s probably why KBLX, the San Francisco–based radio station, recently received some complaints from listeners who say they were offended when a programmer on a 1430 AM Vietnamese radio talk show used “profanity” when talking about Madison Nguyen, the embattled San Jose councilwoman who is facing a March 3 recall election.

Well, we are no longer the safest city in the US—we lost that title two years ago. But much like that absurd slogan, “America’s 10th Largest City,” which some lunatic believed would set us up for great international renown, this title too is not worth the banner that it’s printed on. When it comes right down to it, who cares what a few magazine writers and the guy who makes the banner think? High time to set aside childish things and look to what is important in our city

Saturday, Dec. 6, marked one the most anticipated boxing matches in recent history—dubbed the “dream fight:” pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao versus the sport’s golden boy, Oscar De La Hoya. The fight was, quite unexpectedly, a drubbing. Pacquiao, the smaller boxer, who was not favored going into the fight, handily destroyed the bigger and older De la Hoya, forcing a stoppage going into the ninth round. It was a mauling. It looked like a video game where one guy plays all the time, and the other guy is still trying to figure out what buttons do what.

By Joseph Di Salvo

California spends a lot of money on education—more than $65 billion from all funding sources in 2007-08 for K-12. Yet nearly 40 percent of Latino youth and African-American youth drop out of school prior to high school graduation. Silicon Valley’s drop-out numbers are a little higher than the state average. How disdainful is this in the land of the wealthiest and most educated people on the planet?

Every serious baseball fan who has traveled a bit has seen the benefit that can come from economic development projects like the San Jose Public Market. During the 1980s and ‘90s, many American cities invested public money to build baseball stadiums in the hope that they would stimulate economic activity. There are now vibrant neighborhoods surrounding ballparks from Washington D.C. to Denver. Often controversial when proposed, these neighborhoods now stand as testament to the wisdom of public-private partnerships in pursuit of urban development. The only downside seems to be the preponderance of newspaper headlines saying (you guessed it): “If You Build It, They Will Come.”

By Erin Sherbert
Madison Nguyen rolls up in a Lexus SUV and parks behind Lighthouse Café, a popular Vietnamese coffee shop off King Road. She greets a handful of volunteers, rattling off a few words in Vietnamese as she unlocks the door to the headquarters of her anti-recall campaign. It’s pure coincidence that this small space next door to the coffee shop is the same spot where Nguyen hosted her 2005 victory party, the night she was elected to San Jose’s City Council.

The city of San Jose already had a structural budget deficit without the economy crashing. Our ongoing expenses are higher then revenue coming into the city. Throw on a recession, and the numbers just get worse and our options more drastic to manage a $65 million shortfall. Do we balance the budget by more service cuts to the neighborhoods? Postpone hiring police officers? Delay opening new libraries and community centers? Outsource non-core services? Work furloughs? Layoffs? Eliminate any program or service that overlaps with other government agencies?

The reality is clear and trying to hide from reality is not going to help. Decisions will most likely be ugly, politically unpopular and emotionally draining.