The June 3 Election

We are opening up this first of a weekly open thread and we’ll see how it goes. I was thinking that we might begin by discussing Tuesday’s election. How about someone starting us off by telling us who you are supporting in any local race and why. After Tuesday we can discuss the results. Or we can go off in another direction. It’s your decision.

Larry Stone Defends Eating Habits and Other Accusations

A former press secretary for taxman Larry Stone has written a “tell-all” book seriously implicating his former boss with several scathing accusations meant to demean and embarrass the county assessor.

WITH LITERARY TRAVEL on the rise these days, more and more people are feeling the need to follow in their favorite authors’ footsteps or to explore the locales that writers have placed in their novels. Longtime media consultant and video engineer Mark Hager is currently working on a novel about backstage life in Silicon Valley’s corporate venues, and if I’m still around when this thing comes out, I will organize similar tours like the one he and I recently undertook.

Food for Thought

What shall we suppose is the spark that attracts our children’s motivation? Is it the exhilaration of sport?  Is it the need to join in, and be alike? Is it the need to set out, and be different?  Much has been written and legislated in the desire to find the elusive formula that will spark and educate each generation to a sense of responsibility and, if we’re lucky, leadership.

As we commented at the founding of San Jose Inside, our modest effort to change and improve the political landscape in San Jose, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke, writing in eighteenth century England, did not have the need to say “people,” but I will, since our politics has been greatly improved by the advent of the many women in local political firmament. And I will further offer the thought that here in our city, women have often stepped forward and courageously changed the direction of our local government.

As I sat enjoying the rest and relaxation that comes with the Memorial Day holiday, I wondered why we can’t find a way to make three-day weekends a part of our city’s culture. I know it doesn’t seem possible, but think about it hypothetically for a moment. What if we only worked 4 days each week? Would our city benefit?  Yes!

It’s graduation season, and tassels are being turned in high schools, community colleges, vocational programs and universities all over the South Bay. This year, a friend of mine who I first met seven years ago when he was locked up in the max unit of juvenile hall (I was giving writing workshops through a program called “The Beat Within”) got his high school diploma and is now taking classes at De Anza College. He was the kind of youngster that was always quick witted, which probably got him more trouble than anything else, but this year, his gift for gab was rewarded, and he was the commencement speaker at his graduation. He was even on the evening news when they did a segment on graduations, which was a bit of redemption for him since the last time he was on TV, he was kicking in a newspaper stand during Mardi Gras years ago.

City Hall Diary

Last week, the council spent 90 minutes deliberating the sale of a 0.19 acre parcel of surplus downtown property for $450,000. The current tenants, the Arab American Community Center and the Indochinese Refugee Center, are nonprofits who pay $12 a year in rent (month to month) on an expired lease. They were notified in January 2006 about the city’s plans to sell the property.

Complaints of “Gamey” Chicken Marsala

San Jose’s favorite romance, between City Hall peregrine falcons Carlos and Clara, came to an ignominious end yesterday after three employees discovered that they ingested most of the birds after complaining that their weekly Thursday lunch special of chicken marsala tasted “gamey.”

IN THE TRAVEL writing business, one always runs across those service-type articles with titles like “72 Hours in Casablanca,” “A Weekend in Montreal” or “Three Perfect Days in London”—the point being that the reader should be able to easily replicate the author’s experience. Since nobody anywhere has bothered to enlighten us with a “Five Hours in Alviso” exposé, allow me to furnish an example of how just such a piece might begin.

Food for Thought

The new Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) array of interstellar listening devices located near Mt. Lassen should have caught humankind’s attention and imagination. With the special radio telescopes coming online, the Mountain View-based private nonprofit organization is greatly improving its ability to detect evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. SETI’s efforts and the work at the Lick Observatory in discovering planets outside our solar system make Santa Clara County the center of our planet’s search for alien life forms and worlds that can sustain them.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is a favorite quote of many who discuss history. Most likely said first—and best—by poet and philosopher, George Santayana, we should remember it in San Jose.

In the course of the next two weeks, San Jose’s civil and criminal courts will be discussing the use of Tasers by law enforcement. This week in federal court, the Salinas Police Department and Taser International faces a jury in the case of a Salinas man who died after he was stunned 30 times by Taser-wielding police officers.  The trial will be closely watched by San Jose attorneys and future plaintiffs who are aiming for their day in court against Taser International and the San Jose Police Department.

As I picked up the paper on Saturday morning amidst my latte and bagel, I perused the business section to see that the City of San Jose has now approved Santana Row to seek developers to build and lease over 150,000 square feet of office space. I know this site is very downtown-centric and has received flack for it, but am I wrong in getting a quizzical look on my face when I read this?

An Open Letter To Google’s Executives

Dear Google Executive Team:

Why doesn’t Google come to San Jose? The city is making plans to expand its convention center, and the 17-story Sobrato Building is up for sale again (you know, that beautiful, cobalt-blue building that sparkles in the sun).

City Hall Diary

In a prior blog I wrote about the “mystery” of closed session meetings. These meetings occur every Tuesday morning and cover real estate, litigation and labor negotiations. In addition, everything covered at the meetings is confidential. Last week, the city council voted to release a revision of a closed session memo for public distribution called “Confidential Legal Advice Related to Imposition of Appropriate Conditions in Land Use Approval.” This memo was released on May 16 so it could be shared with the general public and the development community.