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?

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.

I lost my father a few months ago. As I sat with him and watched him gently drift off to wherever it is souls go, it struck me that time is the great leveler of all things human. Each of us has only so much of it and that’s it; you can’t buy more even if you are Bill Gates and have all the money in the world. But it was what my father didn’t say in his last hours that really taught me something valuable. He didn’t wish he had spent more time at the office, talking on a cell phone or worrying if Osama or George W. would blow up the world.

It’s summer now. It is also very, very hot. There have been no severe blackouts yet, but it is hard to tell if that situation will last.  In the world of politics, there seems to be a calm that has descended on our city. This quiet is a much-appreciated relief from the tumult and shouting and headlines of the last few months. Many like to pick up the paper and read—nothing.

All the talk about subsidies and too much money spent on the race will hit its peak as the Grand Prix rolls into town this weekend.  But will this oppressive heat keep spectators away from a fun, novel event that brings more new people to San Jose than almost any other event we’ve had in our city’s history? 

Promoters Hope Donkey Will Boost Attendance

In a bid to boost this year’s attendance at the San Jose Grand Prix, race organizers have added more pedestrian bridges, constructed a more competitive course, invited rock legend David Lee Roth and entered a wild North African ass to race side by side with the CHAMP cars.

The panel discussion after the showing of “The Search for the Captain” on Channel 54 Monday night did little to illuminate the matters of public interest directly presented or implied by the film. The panel members tiptoed around the political and selection-process issues related to the Fallon statue rather than confront them, and almost completely ignored the more important wider issues of public art in general. Everyone on the panel, as far as it went, was articulate and intelligent, but rationalizations for some attitudes taken seemed weak, based on faulty logic, or just plain wrongheaded.

In an environment bereft of courageous and selfless acts, the recent decision by our fire chief stands out in fascinating relief.  When Jeff Clet stepped down from his position so that he would not run afoul of the nepotism rules of San Jose, he clearly committed a principled and noteworthy act. He certainly deserves our praise.  The traditions of the San Jose Fire Department are hallowed and have served the city well; they have given many sons, and I hope more daughters, the ability to follow their fathers into a noble and invaluable profession. We need more of this type of service.

It tells you a lot about our society and the way we look at the justice system when, after reading the article on the Ron Gonzales case in the Mercury News on Monday, the first thing I think of is: “Oh God!  He’s going to get off!” The article reports that merely two of the seven, I repeat, seven charges can be disproved by documents already made public. Yet, the article was mostly about lawyers saying this is just the first step to a jury disbelieving the prosecution and the evidence they will present.  Because lawyers these days can find so many loopholes—giving guilty and greedy people the chance to go free because of them—panic rushes up my spine in thinking that Gonzales could get off

Dando and Baron Dealt to New York Red Bull Soccer Team

In a series of lightening quick deals, disgraced soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane, just days after his contract with Spanish soccer power Real Madrid expired, was acquired by the New York Red Bull franchise of Major League Soccer and immediately traded to the San Jose Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee.

One person’s work of art is another’s piece of junk. If you mix politics and public money with this “law” of subjective aesthetics in the production of a commemorative statue, the results can be explosive. The most visible case locally is certainly the controversy over the Fallon statue that was commissioned in 1987 but not put on display until recently. An excellent film on the years-long controversy, “The Search for the Captain,” which focuses on this very issue, will be shown on KTEH Channel 54 on Monday night, July 17, at 9 p.m., followed by a panel discussion at 10 p.m.

With the advent of the summer festival season of events in San Jose—the Grand Prix, Jazz Festival and Zero One Festival—we are indeed approaching a time of fun, enjoyment, and wonderment. Yet, it was not long ago when a visit to our city would be considered out of the question for many in the valley and Bay Area. Not any more.

Is it me or does anyone else feel that this mess with Ron Gonzales is starting to blow over?  Maybe it’s because we get our news on a 24-hour cycle and are so completely inundated with stories like Britney’s dysfunction as a mother and violence around the world, that local news of this caliber can get swept under the carpet and forgotten.  I am not saying people aren’t talking about it anymore, but I feel a sense that people are not as angry as I thought they would be, and that scares me.

Giant Pit Offers Rare Look Into Workings of Political Mind

Following closely on the plans to save the deep pit that allows the public rare glimpses into the bowels of the Hayward Fault in Fremont, several disparate groups in San Jose have come together and vowed to raise money to preserve the giant hole that has opened in Mayor Ron Gonzales’s head.

The Norcal Scandal’s namesake, the waste disposal company at the center of the controversy, has largely been left out of the discussion lately while the mayor’s part in the deal has taken center stage. However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Norcal will have to answer the very serious charges made by the grand jury in court in due course, unless their past history with a similar incident guides us to a different conclusion.

(Editor’s Note: We are reprinting Tom McEnery’s piece that appeared in the Mercury News this past Sunday, July 2, in order to give our readers a chance to comment on it.)

The decision is in, conclusively. This mayor’s tenure has been a total failure and a badly flawed one. The human tragedy is sad; the public one, palpably painful. Remember the words of another official about another very public tragedy, a national one: “There is a cancer on the presidency.” This has been true of the mayor’s office for some time now. It has left an indelible stain on City Hall.