It is pretty common to hear from residents, when discussing our City budget: “But i pay my property taxes.” As I have covered before on a prior blog post, your property tax bill does not flow 100 percent to the City. Much of it is taken by the school districts, County, community colleges and special districts. (This does not include various parcel taxes, school bonds, hospital bonds, that are collected via your property tax bill.) Even with all these other government entities taking nearly 90 percent of your property tax, this remaining portion is the number-one source of revenue, by a large measure, for the City of San Jose.

You would think that providing for the needs of children would be everyone’s top priority. But that’s not always the case in the City of San Jose.

You’d think the City of San Jose would make a super effort to encourage people to visit the area. Not our city.

Everything comes down to the quality of our public education system and the manner to which a society treats its children. We reap what we sow. Too often in public schools for some children we are sowing the seeds of despair not hope. The racial achievement gap is a case in point.

As we ponder the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King and his commitment to the raising up of all God’s children we must come together with a strong bipartisan consensus on developing a plan so as not to leave any child behind anymore. Every dollar spent in the implementation of this plan, and we do know what works and what to do, will reap $4 in savings to the econom

The City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 San Jose residents. Residents will be asked survey questions about the budget and city services from Jan 13 to Jan 17.

The budget deficits at every level of government have created an atmosphere where everything is up for review. There are no longer any sacred cows when it comes to government spending. Taking a second look at the value of redevelopment agencies has become a current hot topic for discussion.

This new-year, 2011, will be the year for a new federal program for the reform movement in public education. Or will it? Will we punt once more since the problem appears to be intractable and no clear consensus has emerged on where we need to go from here? The history is instructive.

The City of San Jose has adopted Civil Service Rules that state what is and what is not allowed in regards to employment. The City Charter allows for changes to Civil Service Rules by a Council vote, and does not necessarily require a city-wide election.

More than a year ago, the San Jose City Council was presented with renewing its Microsoft desktop licenses. This can be an expensive line item. We have spent over seven figures in the past for licensing alone on this item.  I thought to myself, and later spoke at the Council meeting, that there is no real competition for this purchase we were about to approve and wondered if we could do better. In the end, we got a government discount from a Microsoft reseller, but it was not truly competitive since Microsoft did not have any competition at City Hall.

Best of times? Worst of times? Both? How did our fair city do in 2010? What were the highlights and low points from where you sit? (Holiday bonus points for the SJI commentator who comes up with the best high-point for the year: What’s the one thing that happened over the past 12 months that made you glad you got out of bed that morning?) 

I ended last week’s column with this wish, “vote yes on increasing funding for the children in 2011.”  For me the yearning is as serious as life and death. How we treat our children will be correlated with the quality of our lives in the future. And for me the future is now.

San Jose is currently looking to find a Director of Economic Development.  As The City embarks on this search, what qualities do you feel this person should have? Should they have a background of some particular flavor like commercial real estate, a housing developer, former elected official, lobbyist, economist, academic, small business, large business, tech background, etc? Should they be currently employed at another city? Should it be a local city or further away? Should it be a young person with a limited track record but strong potential or someone with a strong track record making San Jose their final stop?

It’s a holiday reprise of the always popular Rants & Raves, where SJI’s contributors set the agenda, determine the topic and reel off the spiel of their choice. What’s on your mind?

Two weeks before Mark Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” The Mercury News reported on Zuckerberg’s intention to donate much of his wealth to charity. I’d like to offer the following suggestions to Mark, and to any other billionaires looking for charity investment ideas.

In eleven days we celebrate the first day of the new year. For Californians it is the most critical year for our future as a state, at least in my lifetime, in my opinion.

Few can argue that quality public education is the means for us to reduce crime, increase employment, grow the economy and decrease poverty. California schools have $20 billion less than was promised by the legislature three years ago. Therefore, we can no longer continue to slash funds from already under-resourced institutions without peril to our children, their teachers and our future. This insanity must stop in 2011 with the help of Governor-elect Jerry Brown’s leadership.

Last year, the council was faced with cutting the aquatics program down from ten pools to two due to the budget deficit. Stuck between a rock and a hard place the council invoked the “Unique Service Purchase” clause.