Boy can these guys dance, and it’s always two-step time in our state legislature when it comes to reform. Whenever they sense that there is a legitimate attempt to enact reform, as in fair redistricting or term limits, there is a headlong, panicked, and bipartisan rush to work together. They blunt the reform and maintain the status quo and vow that “they” will reform themselves.

Ah, Sacramento politics. You gotta love it if you are an incumbent.

The recent news about the resignation of Santa Clara Country Superintendent of Schools Colleen Wilcox can be looked at in two ways, depending on your perspective. First, it is alarming that a school superintendent who is supposed to have our children’s best interests at heart was almost dismissed because of ruthless and manipulative tactics. How is it that someone like Wilcox achieves the high post as a leader for our principals and teachers and put in charge of an office that is supposed to educate young children? Is it any surprise that our school system finds itself cast in such a negative light after news charting the school boss’s behavior like she was the villain Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada hits the front page? It is a sad state of affairs when those that we place in charge of our kids’ future turn out to have qualities that we despise.

This week I am writing about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Most of the time, sadly, we hear these words of good advice but don’t make the conscious effort to apply healthy choices to our usual routines. Perhaps some of you who are reading this may think that writing about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, one which includes “eating right” and “exercising,” may not have anything to do with city government. I politely disagree.

Al Gore Praises the City for Cutting Greenhouse Emissions

In what critics called their biggest fear, the recent vote to ban smoking in public parks has become the “gateway” banishment that has led the city down the dark and addictive road of harsher rules and stiffer regulations culminating in yesterday’s announcement that as of November 1st, breathing will also be forbidden in public.

It has been a year since our good friend, fellow columnist and in-house San Jose historian Leonard McKay passed away suddenly. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t think of him and his preservation work for our community. I certainly miss the almost-daily chats I had with him the last couple of years of his life. I don’t think I ever learned so much from one person in such a short period of time. I would like to take this opportunity to remember my friend Leonard and his efforts to preserve our history—buildings, artifacts, documents and stories—for future generations of San Jose citizens. I am reprinting one of his last columns below as a tribute.

I had hoped it would happen and it did last night. After a dark decade of flawed land-use decisions and “pay to play” mentality at City Hall, Mayor Chuck Reed, aided by two or three thinking council members, got the San Jose City Council to finally jettison the shortsighted and ruinous policy of converting our job-rich tax base lands to housing. Perhaps, just perhaps, the rump members of the “old” discredited group of Gonzales holdovers will get the “halo” effect of sound planning and begin to live up to their fiduciary responsibilities to the people of San Jose. But, as was once said of second marriages, I am, perhaps, letting hope triumph over experience. There is much left to do.

In the news and in the city council chambers, the debate continues about housing vs. jobs in San Jose. Some argue that creating housing before jobs is a little like the cart coming before the horse, while others argue that there needs to be housing here to attract and keep new workers. Is there one that should be in place before the other can follow? I think it is an interesting debate that deserves more airtime.

City Hall Diary

This past Tuesday, the City of San Jose discussed its midyear point, which is where we consider how we should spend or not spend any “extra” money that was not part of the regular budget proposal.  This year approximately $13 million is up for discussion. 

Will Manage Child Labor Production

A notorious rebel group controlling several diamond mines in the gem-rich region of Sierra Leone has made a unique decision to hire former Santa Clara County school chief Colleen Wilcox to run the adolescent stone production unit of the diamond mines.

I was going to write about something completely different this week but my attention was caught by the incident this past weekend where two teenaged boys (16 and 17) were arrested for attacking a high school dance and a young woman’s sixteenth birthday party with homemade chemical bombs. Fortunately, it appears that there were no injuries or damage at the high school, but there easily could have been. However, the bomb tossed into the birthday party exploded in the birthday girl’s face, burning her skin and eyes. She and two of her friends were briefly hospitalized.  I can’t get the image of the peaceful and fun once-in-a-lifetime birthday party celebration disrupted by fright and injury out of my mind. What compelled these boys to do such a horrible thing?

A simple fact that is often forgotten—though it should not be so—is that we have the finest police department in the nation. Such things do not just happen. We have worked hard to keep that description. Chief Rob Davis has continued a tradition of excellence and community relations that began with Joe McNamara in the seventies. This is a succession of competence that needs to be recognized.

When I heard that there were some human cadavers downtown at the Tech Museum, I knew this was something I had to see. After I explained the Body Worlds 2 exhibition to friends, some of them thought it sounded interesting, while others looked at me like I just told them I was going on a tour of the local morgue. In fact, I wasn’t sure if they were that far off.

City Hall Diary

Early Saturday morning, October 6, I hosted a community meeting titled “Preserving Our Historic Neighborhoods: How to make your Neighborhood a Conservation Area.”

Many residents have been vocal about preserving not just their individual homes, but their entire neighborhoods as historic structures and/or areas.  Therefore, the purpose of the forum was to empower and inform residents by giving them options for maintaining their neighborhoods’ character and ambiance.

Politicians Will Take the Place of Mentally Ill

Just hours after the student body of Westmont High School announced that the theme of their annual Halloween haunted house would be the mentally ill, the National Alliance of Mental Health Professionals condemned the attraction as “insensitive” and put enough pressure on the school’s administration to force them to change it.

On Saturday morning, a public workshop will be held at City Hall to help determine what revisions need to be made to the city’s general plan for growth. An Envision San Jose 2040 Task Force has been assembled to review the plan and they are seeking public input to assist them in setting the agenda. Since many of us will find it difficult to attend the meeting on Saturday, I thought we might give our bloggers an opportunity to express their views on the matter here on San Jose Inside where they can be seen by the denizens of City Hall.

I received a good deal of feedback on my blog on the Downtown Association (DTA) last week. Most people were surprised at the lobbying efforts of “their” executive director in favor of clubs, many of those venues being very large and troublesome. Several people were, frankly, astonished. They held the simple, undeniable belief that unless everyone felt comfortable downtown during the evening hours, then the current policy was an immense failure. They echoed the established fact that our garages are unfriendly, unsafe and unusable to the vast majority of our citizens visiting downtown late or staying late.