The Public Safety, Finance And Strategic Support Committee took up the topic of unnecessary force in conjunction with drunk-in-public arrests. The police department, along with the city auditor, city manager and Independent Police Auditor, spent approximately 500 hours going through paper to pull out data. Inherently, a paper system is cumbersome and takes time to extrapolate data. Although we have a records management system, it is antiquated and unable to make queries that a modern system would, and it was not set up to manage certain historic data. This issue is indicative of our city’s lack of investment in information technology. 

Mayor Chuck Reed has nominated Madison Nguyen to be vice mayor, three weeks after she won a surprisingly close race to hold onto her District 7 council seat. The move seems to confirm a shift of loyalties for Nguyen, a onetime ally of the South Bay Labor Council. She was the swing vote in the council’s decision to put Measures V and W on the ballot—a move SBLC vehemently opposed.

Longtime local pol-turned-mass-transit-fanboy Rod Diridon suddenly has a fight on his hands. His pet project, the California High Speed Rail Authority, has come under attack from U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis, soon-to-be head of the House Appropriations Committee. It’s not that Lewis doesn’t like trains—this is purely political gamesmanship.

I was correctly quoted by Internal Affairs in the Sunday Merc as saying “we did look like clowns.” I probably should have said our Nov. 17 SCC Office of Education Board meeting was more like bad Kubuki theater, a little dance and a lot of misplaced drama.

Like most people paying attention to the District 7 council race, Fly was surprised that the runoff between councilmember Madison Nguyen and Republican furniture-store owner Minh Duong ended up being a squeaker. After the revelations about the Chamber-endorsed Duong’s pile of bad debts and financial screwups, Fly was expecting that District 7 residents would re-elect the increasingly independent Nguyen by a landslide. Not so.

Julie Constant, the wife of San Jose City Councilmember Pete Constant, officially entered the realm of local politics when she won a spot on the Campbell Union School District Board earlier this month. And already Fly is hearing rumblings that this could be a sign that the mother of five has aspirations for the District 1 seat that is now occupied by her husband’s newly slender derrière.

Educational policy at times ticks like a metronome, however today the stakes are so vitally high for the efficacy of our country and its people that the pendulum can never swing back. We must be on a collective mission to increase rigor and relevance into the curriculum for each and every child, irrespective of the color of their skin.

Forget Meg Whitman…San Jose’s police and fire unions were the biggest losers in this past election.  Meg Whitman can take another $140 million out of petty cash, but San Jose’s police and fire departments may not soon be able to recover from the damage that they have done to their reputations. Frankly, I’m not sure that the rank and file have any idea how much damage they have done to their trust relationship with the San Jose public. The rhetoric employed to try and defeat Measures V and W will likely not be forgotten for quite some time.

In the last few weeks, San Jose City Hall fixture and failed District 9 candidate Jim Cogan‘s Facebook posts have jumped from the occasional cryptic message about being “tired of being sick and sick of being tired,” to a recent barrage of updates referencing ‘90s pop culture.

From Homer Simpson quotes to ruminations on “Reality Bites” and updates on changing his default ring tone to Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” it seemed that JimCo suddenly had a lot of free time on his hands. Turns out that he does.

While Xavier Campos seemed to recover from his scandal-induced loss of the ability to speak this week, all but announcing victory in his tight race Magdalena Carrasco on Tuesday, the Carrasco camp is claiming voter fraud in the Eastside San Jose City Council race. Kevin de León, the LA state assembly member (and Carrasco’s ex), says he’s been hearing from eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted some shenanigans by members of the South Bay Labor Council (SBLC) in District 5.

In the classic Network, released 34 years ago, Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) is at his anchor desk as the cameras go live and he eloquently unleashes his famous neurotic break with reality: “I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your congressman… All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad…I want you to get up right now and go to your window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!’

Today I feel the same as Beale, not related to his abject disgust with the trajectory of the nation, crime in the streets, depression, dirty air, banks, guns and unemployment, although those complaints still exist today. No; for me it is about the state of affairs with public education

Unfortunately, not all housing developments create the same economic value in areas assigned to the Redevelopment Authority (RDA). Last week, the council approved financing for an affordable housing development on North 4th Street in a RDA area. Since the housing developer is a non-profit, the development is exempt from paying property tax

City Redevelopment director Harry Mavrogenes says the embattled Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA) has defaulted on a $500,000 grant.

Magrovenes sent a memo to the Redevelopment Agency’s Board of Directors saying that the MACSA’s Youth Center on the East Side has been receiving redevelopment grants for a preschool program that has never been implemented.

The odds that San Francisco Giants would become World Champions were about as good as those of Jerry Brown being once again elected Governor, Gavin Newsom as Lieutenant Governor, and Larry Aceves as Superintendent of Public Instruction. I proudly advocated through money and mouth in all four of these potentially historic events.

Now I want to turn my attention to building support for an anti-gay bullying policy, while strengthening all anti-bullying efforts in Santa Clara County.

Blue skies and 75-degree temperatures were good news for Democrats, who generally lose a couple of points in bad weather, academic researchers concluded in a recent study.

Still, we have to ask the question, “What were voters smoking?” The state voted not to legalize pot, but in 420-friendly San Jose, we voted to tax it anyway, by a 4-to-1 margin. And we re-elected that crazy ole Jerry Brown over the eBay scold who got confused. “Election?” Meg Whitman must have been saying. “I thought you said auction.” No Meg, high bids don’t win. Maybe someday democracy will come with a blue “Buy It Now” button.

Though trailing to Xavier Campos, District 5 candidate Magdalena Carrasco’s election night party was nonetheless packed with about 100 exuberant wellwishers.

Downtown San Jose councilman Sam Liccardo attempted to set a mood for the evening: “You guys took on the machine, and I know your going to win tonight!,” Liccardo shouted, to a round of applause.