Prior to last week’s council decision to invest in San Pedro Square, the Mercury News Editorial Board posed an important question that deserves the consideration of every citizen in San Jose. The paper asked, “Should decisions to invest redevelopment money be based purely on a direct dollar payback to the city…or should they take into account less tangible goals, such as creating public spaces, encouraging private investment and keeping the charm and atmosphere of those rare, older parts of downtown?”

By Erin Sherbert
The Nov. 4 election was about month away, and with a downtrodden economy, it appeared that a transportation tax like the BART measure was going to need all the help it could get. So San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a leading proponent of the BART tax, made some back-and-forth calls to the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s president, Pat Dando, requesting some face time with her board.

Dando turned him down.

Recently, a blog by The Fly referred to some cops in its title as “Rogues”—few of us who live and work Downtown see it that way.  We admire and appreciate them greatly. But here’s a group of dangerous people that we should be worried about.

Very, very soon, three federal judges will be deciding whether to free 52,000 of California’s 172,000 prison inmates because of overcrowding. And we have to ask the question: “Haven’t we tried this before—and with disastrous results?”

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

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.

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.

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?

Last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference to promote the city’s new campaign to encourage San Francisco residents to keep their consumer dollars in San Francisco. “SHOP SF-Get More” provides San Francisco residents with incentives to do their Christmas shopping within city limits so that San Francisco receives the tax revenues. Where’s San Jose’s “SHOP SJ” campaign?

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.