SanJoseInside.com has acquired a previously sealed mayoral grand jury testimony and posted a partial transcript below.

The testimony begins with Deputy District Attorney Julius Finkelstein questioning Mayor Ron Gonzales about his role in the Norcal deal.  WARNING: it is shocking, sometimes offensive but mostly sounds like Aaron Sorkin’s movie A Few Good Men.

Anyone who is a regular reader of Leonard McKay’s columns knows something of our once-idyllic valley before it was paved over and covered with seemingly endless, sprawling housing developments and strip malls. Residents of Santa Clara County have seen the population nearly double to two million since 1970 with no end in sight. With profits to be made, the county is in real danger of losing its remaining open spaces to greedy developers who care nothing about the quality of life of those of us who live here. The Santa Clara County Land Conservation Initiative on the November ballot aims to insure that an adequate amount of our open space remains that way for future generations.

When it comes to advice, almost always listen to your mom. Sometimes you might not believe her, but give it a bit of time. For instance: “When you see a crowd, go the other way.” Just think how many problems you would avoid with that simple act.  “A stitch in time saves nine”—now that’s actually an old wives’ tale, but mom said it too. Get on things early, fix them, and save a lot of pain. There is no shortage to the things your dear mom could save you from if only you would listen

Recently a new shopping mall, San Jose Market Center, opened up right outside of downtown on Coleman Ave and Taylor Street. It boasts retail giants such as Target, PetSmart, Office Depot and Cost Plus, while also offering services such as nails, tanning and even dentistry.  But the interesting thing is now that restaurants are popping up in the Market Center (Panera Bread, Red Brick Pizza, and soon Unamas and Chili’s), people are leaving downtown for the ease and the convenience of the mini-mall.  Is the death toll sounding once again for downtown?

Many years ago, an article appeared in the newspaper about the Great Lion Murder. It was confirmed by historian Larry Campbell (now nearly 100 years old), but neither of us could remember where we saw it. For nearly a decade, I have been searching for the original report. I contacted Paul Lion, descendant of the owners of Lion’s Furniture Store on the corner of Second and San Fernando Streets where the incident took place, but he was unaware of the story. Imagine my surprise when, at a recent Pioneer board meeting, the young lady sitting next to me was Alix Lion, who had a copy of the original story and sent it to me. Here is the original as it appeared in the San Jose Mercury on Wednesday, April 30, 1902:

Swing for the fences!

One of the greatest and most memorable pleasures of my youth was learning to swim and dive and spending each summer immersed in the local public pool in my small southern California hometown where the temperature often exceeded 90 degrees. This is probably a very common memory of baby-boomers who grew up in our state. For me, this love of swimming has followed me through life into near-decrepitude and I can’t imagine my life without it. Unfortunately, the youth of our city do not currently have the same opportunity.

It is time to look at the pros and cons of our summer. Just what exactly are the pluses and minuses that can be attributed to our city as we approach the middle of August? A big plus is the Zero One Festival that is occurring this week.  On the harmony front, once again Music in the Park is drawing big crowds, but the enthusiastic revelers and music lovers are much less a source of business to the downtown bar and restaurant owners than the Downtown Association would like you to believe. Some think that they are barely registering on the Richter scale of monetary activity among the vast majority of the businesses downtown.  And the opinion of the police is that the crowds are too massive and it is not a particularly engaging use of Chavez Plaza.

Because it’s summer and heat waves make me insane, I have been spending a lot of time in our lost-in-the-60s sister town to the south, Santa Cruz.  The more time I spend in the little-beach-town-that-could, the more I realize what we’re missing in San Jose.

May Day of each year was an undeclared school holiday for high school boys as May 1st was the opening day of trout season, and nearly every boy skipped school that day whether they went fishing or not. I always eagerly awaited the opening of fishing season and every school day afternoon, while seated in class, I was afflicted with a tremendous itch to be out in our local trout streams. I was not the only one afflicted as many of my fishing buddies would be equally tormented. There was no football practice, basketball was over and we felt that we could best train for the track team by hurdling over rocks and doing the broad jump across the creek. One of my closest friends was Barney “Max” Barnett, who equally loved fishing. We would squirm until the 2:25 bell rang and by 2:30, we were out the door, heading for the creek. School was officially over at 3:30 but we were long gone by then.

Launches Verbal Tirade at City Staff

During a quick trip to San Jose to promote his next movie “The Passion of the Buzz,” actor Mel Gibson stopped off at City Hall to make his feelings known about what he called a “bogus” San Jose city staff recommendation to renew the Norcal contract.

With the drone of last week’s grand prix still ringing in my ears (a deafening sound like millions of giant bees on the warpath) I am looking forward to the coming month’s events in downtown San Jose that are of an altogether more low-key variety. Whereas the grand prix may make the biggest noise possible (even drowning out the departing jets from SJC) and attract a lot of commercial hoopla and out-of-towners, it is enduring events like Cinequest and the San Jose Jazz Festival that are really important to the local community and region.

Just when I thought it was safe to get out of the political water, I get pulled back in in a surprising way.  The latest turn on the Chamber of Commerce’s political mailers in the mayoral primary shows that monies far beyond the local limits were raised and spent.  The mailers attacked the business-as-usual cronyism at City Hall and the role of the city council, led by Cindy Chavez in the absence of a mayor, in various alleged nefarious and outrageous decisions. The topics were fine but not the implementation. 

I know that the subjects of professional sports franchises, music halls, retail and housing have all been discussed on this blog at length as a few things San Jose is missing.  We all agree that San Jose has the amazing potential to be a great city or no one would waste their time talking about it, but my question is: What do we really need in San Jose?

When I was rummaging around my garage recently, I found an interesting five-foot long box. The garage is packed as it houses two cars, cupboards, power saws, woodworking tools, workbenches, sanders, a sink and, of course, many treasures that I am going to use or may need some day. I was looking for a small umbrella that fastens to a chair when I came across the box.

Starbucks and Prolific Oven Fall to Labor Peace Agreements

On the heels of a vote that supported labor peace agreements over caffeine, the San Jose City Council made the controversial decision to allow themselves to be replaced by labor council bosses in all future votes pertaining to labor issues.