The citywide Community Budget meetings started last week with the city manager and other city department heads in attendance to answer questions. Ten public meetings will be held with one meeting in each Council district.

Today, almost 1 percent of children (1 in 110) are diagnosed with Autism. Autism is a growing epidemic, and the American medical industry and educational system is behind the curve. In an effort to help meet the challenge, the local chapter of Autism Speaks is hosting a Walk-A-Thon here in San Jose next month to raise money and awareness for the cause.

Whatever happened to the ability to compromise for the sake of the whole? We are drowning in a sea of debt and it will get worse without a solution soon, but not one Republican wants to throw out a life preserver to the children and schools of California, which account for 54 percent of the state’s budget. Not one!

Rather, the Republicans seem content on a doomsday scenario. If there is no continuing/new revenue and it must be a “cuts-only” budget students will be in school only seven months and on vacation for five months. How sad for our children. How selfish can we be?

In society we have chosen to give up some of our liberty or ability to do anything we want for the the trade off of having more opportunity under law. If we do not like the rules of society than we can move away to a remote mountain and have more freedom, but one would give up certain benefits we have in society based on law.

Press reports indicate that San Jose’s old city hall property site, with an assigned value of $10 million, will be transferred to the Santa Clara County Government as part of a debt settlement between the county and the San Jose Redevelopment Agency.  But the old city hall property belonged to the city, not the RDA.  Is the plan to transfer the old city hall complex to the county government a lawful action?

San Jose City Councilmember Pete Constant is the closest thing that this city has to a Tea Party Republican in local politics. Or at least he was. In a surprising announcement late last night, Constant said that he is abandoning the Republican Party and registering as a Democrat.

Is anyone in public education championing progressive reform today? Are local school boards and superintendents working to only improve Academic Performance Index scores and Adequate Yearly Progress goals at the expense of gutting classrooms from meaningful intellectual inquiry? I learned last week that there is still tremendous passion for progressive reform in Santa Clara County for our public schools. For that I am grateful and reinvigorated.

Last week the council took up the firefighters union contract with more than 100 firefighters in attendance. I thought I would share why I voted no. First, I think it is clear that if you have worked in city government over the years that things are drastically changing due to structural budget deficits. Second, if you are new to working in city government, you will most likely not have the same career as those before you.

Mr. Doug McNea passed away last weekend. One headline read, “San Jose Tax Activist Doug McNea Dies At GOP Convention.” The label, “Tax Activist” doesn’t do the man justice. Doug McNea was a man of principle who stood up for his ideas. He also stood up for others. Doug was active in the fight to save the Tropicana Shopping Center when the city tried to take it over through eminent domain.

Thomas Freidman in his column in the NY Times on Sunday summed up my feelings perfectly with respect to the federal budget impasse. He wrote: “So far, the GOP is calling for cuts in the things we need to invest more in—like education and infrastructure—while leaving largely untouched things we need to reduce, like entitlements and defense spending. A country that invests more in its elderly than its youth, more in nursing homes than schools, will neither invent the future nor own it.”

The vote on the convention center has been covered extensively, but a resident I spoke to asked me to please share my view on San Jose Inside. As we know, the Council vote was unanimous in supporting the renovation and expansion.  Although I cannot speak for my colleagues, I would say there were four major constituencies who advocated for the renovation and expansion of the convention center.

By now, the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, could have, and many say, should have, made a decision as to whether or not the A’s should be permitted to move to San Jose.  The A’s ownership group wants to make the move, and San Jose city officials have been working to assemble the land for a new stadium.  What’s the hang up?

I know you care deeply about the success of our nation’s educational systems and the student clients they serve. You and your boss advocate for an education system that is second to none. Early childhood education can be the great equalizer between poor and wealthy families. The $21,495,317 that Santa Clara County receives in federal funding for Early Head Start and Head Start saves the taxpayer at least four times that much, if Head Start did not exist.

The 2010 Census data came out and the good news, from my perspective, is the population of San Jose is not one million people but instead 945,942. However, I am told there is under-counting as some residents do not want to be counted. Our population growth rate has slowed to 5.7 percent as opposed to 37 percent in the 1970’s. The average people per household city wide is 3.14, however the average number of people per household in District 5 is 4.5.

The mayor on libraries and community centers vs. SJPD’s retirement benefits, the problems with contracting out city services, the grounding of the police chopper, and the importance of citizen involvement.

UPDATED 2:30pm Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and Councilmembers Rose Herrera, Sam Liccardo and Pete Constant proposed today shutting down 90 percent of the marijuana businesses in San Jose. The City’s Rules Committee will hear the proposal tomorrow, March 9. If approved, the ordinance will be sent to the City Council on March 29, 2011.