Prior to Mayor Reed, the City of San Jose would amend the General Plan (GP) approximately seven to twelve times a year; which equates to about once every month, give or take. During this time, about 1,200 acres of industrial land were converted to residential housing. As a result, the City lost 1,200 acres of land that could have been home to jobs. A sizable percentage of the 1,200 acres was in my district.

In San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum, comments on any topic are welcome.

Young Bay Area artist Wayne Jiang was born in Guangzhou, China, and came to the United States at age 15. He earned his degree in illustration at SJSU and works as a fine artist and graphic designer. He now lives in Pacifica, but his period of residence in San Jose has resulted in a group of loving images of the city that are now on display at the Leonard and David McKay Gallery at Pasetta House in History Park.

Tonight it is purported that we will hear the president in front of cadets from West Point tell the nation and the world that we will commit an additional 30,000 US troops to the war in Afghanistan at a cost of $1 million per soldier per year. I don’t profess to know what is best for the world and our ultimate safety as a nation, however I do know our national security is threatened significantly by our failing public schools.

A couple of weeks ago I put together my own web based Redevelopment Budget survey. I shared financial information in bullet point form in the introduction and then gave information throughout the survey. In some cases I would state the dollar amount given to a particular program and then ask a question. More than 600 people completed the survey, which required that each question be answered. The survey could not be taken twice.

As with most issues that involve money, the feedback to my survey was mixed

Last week, by chance I saw some of the highlights of US Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the decision to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several other of the 9/11 terrorist suspects’ trials to a court in New York. During his testimony, Mr. Holder was asked a pointed question by Sen. Lindsey Graham that, to my surprise, went missing from the Bay Area’s major newspapers’ following day coverage.

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”
Edward Sandford Martin

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I write this week about appreciation, especially for the teachers making a difference in the lives of the children.

Last week, at the city council meeting, I removed an item from the consent calendar on the agenda for discussion. As you may remember from my blog about San Jose’s million-dollar golf nets, consent calendar items do not have individual discussion, but rather are voted on all at the same time. If one wants to discuss a consent item, you have to “remove” it for discussion.

The item I removed was asking $993,876 for the library to spend over the course of seven years on an online tutoring service for kids.

This is a special Sunday edition of SJI’s open forum. Any topic is fair game. What’s on your mind?

As the saying goes, “All of the best things in life are free.”  Next week, San Jose merchants will have a new opportunity to promote their businesses and attract new customers.  And…it’s free.

I hope that the various viewpoints expressed on my blog the last few weeks have been instructive to readers and leaders. It is obvious we have a schism of opinion relative to race and the elimination of the achievement gap. The polarity of responses mirrors the divide we have on many issues in this great country.

I trust it is not too presumptuous of me to postulate that we who reside in San Jose want all children, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity or religion to have pathways to a successful life. Can we all agree on this outcome?

Last week, the council had public hearings regarding the upcoming 2009-2010 Redevelopment budget. Mayor Reed ensured that the public had both a day and night session to attend, allowing more people to participate. In addition, tonight (Nov. 16) at 6pm the mayor is hosting an additional public meeting at City Hall to garner feedback on the RDA budget. 

During last week’s public hearings, the usual lobbyists—those who are paid to speak at council meetings on behalf of special interests—attended and spoke. The lobbyists have also been known to orchestrate the other speakers, giving them colored stickers to wear and scripts to read from.

On Halloween night, a twelve year old was shot in the head and a thirteen year old was stabbed.  The response on the part of the San Jose Police force was swift.  Several suspects were taken into custody within 36 hours.

Days later, 150 people gathered together to protest these acts of violence.  Big deal…there should have been 15,000 people marching, from all four corners of San Jose, demanding an end to “turf-related violence.”

Historically, civil rights issues have been a struggle. Yet solvable they are. My epiphany after last week’s unexpected tsunami of racist comments on SJI in response to my post was, sadly, that we have not come as far as I thought we had as an enlightened community. However, the bright rays of hope that we can still succeed in the goal of eliminating the achievement gap were built into the altruistic beliefs spoken by the students who are engaged in their quest to become teachers for the children in San Jose.

Last week, the council had a special meeting to discuss the upcoming $96 million budget shortfall. $96 million is the equivalent of eliminating all library, park and community center positions citywide. My fellow councilmembers and I gave the city manager direction on how best we think the budget gap could be closed.

Year after year, the citizens of San Jose are told that their city government faces a “structural” deficit and that additional cuts in city services will have to be made to balance the budget. Whose budget is it really?