Yesterday, I attended a roundtable discussion at Google, hosted by the Knight Commission, which was about “Meeting the Public’s Information Needs.” It was very interesting brainstorming, and was the first time I had seen different parts of the media and community landscape in the same room—from managing editors of the Mercury News to folks who had just started neighborhood news websites.

Over the past weekend, San Jose experienced a crime rate similar to one of the most dangerous cities in California. With three shootings within a few hours, San Jose is starting to become less like the “sleepy city” we talk about. Should we be alarmed, or was this violence just an anomaly?

City Raises Business License Fee

I received my business tax renewal notice from the San Jose City Finance Department the other day. It seems that the San Jose City Council “adopted” a new Business Tax Administrative Fee of $22, effective July 1, 2008. Small business owners and sole proprietors are now charged a minimum $172 for the privilege of doing business in San Jose. What is interesting about the increase is the explanation printed on the renewal notice. It reads:

City Hall Diary

San Jose’s population has grown by leaps and bounds and the city has provided more housing—including both market rate and affordable housing—in Santa Clara County and the Bay Area than any other municipality. Once a city filled with orchards, San Jose is now a sprawling suburb and still growing. Although you may see open space in the city, much of it was zoned for housing 2-20 years ago and just hasn’t been built on yet.

This is the weekly open forum where anything goes. What’s on the slab this week?

Operable Pissing Windows Fitted on Raider Route

Are you ready for some Football?! At the dawn of the start of another NFL season, with the prospect of Raider Nation flocking to and from McAfee Stadium, BART sure is.

Silicon Alleys

WE OFTEN HEAR examples of inferiority hang-ups when people from San Jose visit a more celebrated city. It’s the “Why can’t we have this in San Jose?” complex. You hear this all the time. People usually say or think such things whenever they come back from having a good day on the town in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel or La Honda. Whenever they visit a distinctive world-renowned place, they come back frustrated and depressed because their hometown will never be as awesome as those other locales.

Food for Thought

A few years ago, I was in China on business and read in the English language newspaper there about a man who had embezzled the equivalent of $50,000 from some government agency. He was found guilty in court and immediately taken out the back of the courthouse and executed by firing squad. The crime of embezzlement of any amount is punishable by death in China and there is no appeal process. It’s no wonder that this crime is rare in that country. Now I am not holding up the Chinese system of justice as an example of anything to emulate and I certainly do not advocate the death penalty for embezzlement. However, it provides a stark contrast to how we treat “misappropriaters” of public funds in the USA.

Two years ago, San Jose’s Sunshine Reform Task Force began their work on restoring our citizens’ trust with more public participation and scrutiny and real reform. The mayor and the council, who have walked the walk and done much to open up meetings, deserve our thanks. The city now gets agendas out ten days in advance. This is a huge improvement and minimizes the chance of big surprises like the Grand Prix debacle.

The time I knew Obama really had arrived to a younger generation is when his bootleg “Change” shirt was getting more requests at our Hip Hop Co-Op Shop than the Kanye West gear, or all the various shirts with prints of guns, which is like 80 percent of them. The young and hip in San Jose have been taking that iconic image of Obama’s face, and silk-screening their own versions of the shirts, adding symbols, and making new color combinations to match their vintage Air Jordans. They have made Obama theirs to keep.

In Memory of Henry Schiro

Last Friday afternoon I heard “Moon River” played for San Jose arts patron and supporter Henry Shiro at his funeral mass. As most in the community know, Henry spent the better part of thirty years raising money for, participating in, and cheerleading on behalf of San Jose’s arts and culture community, and more specifically, music organizations such as San Jose Jazz, the Children’s Musical Theatre, the Steinway Society, and more recently, the Mexican Heritage Corporation (MHC) and Plaza. They played a sampling of his favorite tunes at the service. Based on the SRO crowd at Friday’s mass, I’d say he succeeded in his mission of community service.  Also, he had great taste in music.

With each Labor Day weekend that comes and goes, we realize that we have not quite had enough of summer and that the chill of winter is not far off.  But more than that, beyond the change of weather and the start of school, it’s the end to the freewheeling, weekends-away, vacations-with-the-kids lifestyle of the summer months.  So here’s to embracing the change that we all dread, and the things we look forward to.  What would you like to see happen this winter in San Jose?

Last week, the San Jose City Council voted to demolish the old library building. Did you read about it in the paper? Neither did I. Where will the city move all of the city employees who work in the building? How much will it all cost? This is a story that should have received coverage.

City Hall Diary

Labor Day is a time that many of us celebrate with BBQs and rest. It’s a day to acknowledge the work of everyone in our society. However, many people work on Labor Day, including but not limited to 9-1-1 dispatchers, grocery store clerks, nurses, and sewage treatment plant workers, etc.

Ranting and raving is becoming quite a tradition on San Jose Inside. This is the place where it all happens so let ‘er rip!

Some Discovered in Mexico

In an interview with SanJoseInside.com late last night, Governor Schwarzenegger reiterated his frustration with Republican legislators by announcing that he had hunted down, captured and dragged several GOP members back to the Capitol to face the $15.2 billion budget shortfall.