This video of a “smart mob” designed to discourage smoking tobacco, put on by nonprofit Working Partnership USA, was funded with county taxpayer dollars.

Flash mobs are so 2011. But apparently, that’s how the county decided to spend leftover money at the end of last year, which, if memory serves, was 2012. But, wait, these weren’t just any flash mobs—they were “smart mobs.” At its last meeting of 2012, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $40,000 increase in its partnership with nonprofit Working Partnerships USA. The additional funds were retroactively approved to continue an anti-smoking initiative through March 18, 2013.

Larry Esquivel inherited San Jose’s chief of police position without ever putting his name up for consideration. In fact, none of the San Jose Police Department’s deputy chiefs showed a genuine interest in the job, leaving the applicant pool to some uninterested and/or unqualified candidates outside of the area. But Esquivel is learning the ropes, and a perusal of his Twitter account shows a man who loves emoticons, classic cars and ... the Mercury News? Yes, the Mercury News.

Last week, I participated as the alternate for Mayor Chuck Reed on the oversight board for the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency (SARA). The primary focus of the meeting concerned the approval of a one-year extension to the existing Letter of Credit (LOC) with JP Morgan bank. This extension had already been passed by the City Council, but it was still up to the SARA Oversight Board to approve the extension as well.

We all stand on the shoulders of others in the building of a city or a nation. Nowhere is that more true of our valley than in one strip of San Jose called San Pedro Square. A boy named Luis Peralta traveled north from Tubac, in Old Mexico, fully 1,000 miles, and he settled in this area; the DeAnza Party followed. We move from Peralta to Fallon, Masson, Giannini, Disney, Hewlett and Packard, and on to Jobs in a few short steps and some 200 years of San Jose history.

For decades, institutions of higher learning have been at the forefront of social change. San Jose State University’s CommUniverCity San Jose program is an excellent partnership between residents, the campus community and government partners like the city of San Jose and Santa Clara County.

It was striking that George Shirakawa Jr. pleaded guilty Monday in Superior Court with nary a friend or family member there to support him. You never know who your friends are in politics until you are down. The absence of so many spoke volumes.

It will “take a village” to preserve, maintain and expand urban parks in the 21st Century. A key feature of what I call the “new paradigm” of America’s Parks and Trails is that the future lies in forming coalitions—virtual villages—among a variety of interested parties. Re-imagining our parks systems means not counting on government to be the sole caretaker of these community treasures.

Everything since last Tuesday’s election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has reignited my Jesuit instincts. The Jesuit dots have connected in so many ways since last week that I felt compelled to write on Jesuit education today. The question is, can we take the foundational beliefs of Jesuit education and transfer them to traditional public education, while still keeping the imperative separation of church and state?

San Jose has spent approximately $1 billion on affordable housing, which has produced tens of thousands of units being built within our city limits. The city has always done more than its fair share in this area. In fact, San Jose has carried the region—to its own economic detriment—by shouldering most of the affordable housing needs, resulting in fewer jobs.

Habemus Papam! We have a Pope! The centuries-old tradition of locking 115 men in a room until they make a decision still works today. This brings us to an old idea for getting rid of gridlock in our political system.

I received a phone call last year from a resident who lived near Almaden Winery Park. She told me that she wanted to plant some rose trees in the park, and that she had been referred to San Jose Parks Foundation for help.

Is Ro Khanna the Next Big Thing in valley politics? The 36-year-old Yale-educated Wilson Sonsini lawyer now sits on one of the Bay Area’s largest political war chests. Khanna won’t say definitively whether he’ll run for Mike Honda’s congressional seat — only that he’s “considering where I can best serve and make an impact.” He doesn’t discourage speculation either and keeps a busy schedule meeting with people who could help him with a run. Khanna admits his interest in Honda’s seat is “not a secret,”

With its vastly superior public education system, will Boston surpass Silicon Valley as the global leader of technological innovation? It’s a distinct possibility unless we get our act together. Boston is poised to win, considering the current fights focus on turf instead of better educational results for our children.

The day begins like any other in beautiful Silicon Valley: children are on their way to school, commuters are stuck in traffic, etc. Our carefree existence then suddenly gives way to a terrorist attack at a high-profile technology company. People are killed, injured, power is out, phone service is down, and a pursuit is underway for those who have set out to harm us. Police and fire departments across the region and in neighboring counties attempt to communicate and provide mutual aid, as an “all hands on deck” approach is required to tackle the catastrophic situation as it unfolds. But in this scenario, one of the main issues is that there is no way to for all personnel to effectively communicate with other agencies in real time.

Like all the portraits Carter took of friends or people who attended events he chronicled, San Jose has never looked better. “It’s a panorama of ten or so shots stitched together in Photoshop with a nice sky dropped in and a special filter applied to give it a painted quality,” Carter explained. “There’s an eight […]

After months of reading about the horrors of sequestration, most folks didn’t even blink when President Obama signed the document ordering the cuts beginning March 1, 2013. Call it “sequestration fatigue,” but the hype leading up to the date was akin to the expectation of all computers crashing on Y2K. While I have heard some pundits call the 2.3 percent reduction in Federal government spending “budget dust,” the cuts target certain departments and programs and leaves others alone.