Do the citizens of San Jose have an advocate on the San Jose City Council?  At times like these I’m not so sure.  When it comes to talking about the San Jose City Government budget and the efforts to close the over $116 million deficit, the focus of debate is not about providing for optimum city service levels, it’s about making payroll.  Seriously, no one is really talking about quality of service, they’re talking about salaries and pensions.  In San Jose, the emphasis is on filling pockets instead of potholes!

The patio of San Jose’s Mezcal restaurant was chock full of local public officials and other political celebs last Friday evening for Sam Liccardo’s 40th birthday bash/campaign kick-off party. US Rep. Zoe Lofgren, recently named as a possible candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, made a surprise appearance—no word as to whether she ate any of the restaurant’s famous fried grasshoppers.

I have been totally flummoxed on what in today’s world constitutes a progressive agenda for public education. I believe I am a progressive on many debatable public policy issues. When I attempt to outline a progressive agenda for K-12 education I am personally conflicted now more than ever

Last Wednesday night, the Public Safety committee held a special meeting regarding our police officers. The city manager began by sharing the amount of effort and outreach that has transpired the last few months with city initiatives with regards to our police department.

For the last two years, certain individuals have been lambasting our police force with charges of racial profiling and excessive force. Our police force has more than 400,000 engagements a year with San Jose residents and 99.8 percent of those have no complaints

With all union employees being asked to take a 10 percent pay cut, it stands to reason that the city’s top-paid managers could take a cut of their own. They offered to, without even being asked. Alex Gurza, San Jose’s Director of Employee Relations, says that the city’s top managers are willing to take a 5 percent cut now, with an additional 5 percent cut at some later date. The cuts should be approved by City Council toward the end of the month.

An odd alliance seems to have been forged between the left-leaning South Bay Labor Council boss Cindy Chavez and gang-bashing Republican crime-fighter Dolores Carr. Chavez last month made an impassioned plea to SBLC members for endorsing the district attorney, which reportedly surprised many of the executive board members and union delegates in attendance. According to a source who was present, Chavez stood and railed against challenger Jeff Rosen. Rosen, Chavez reasoned, is endorsed by Sam Liccardo, who is linked to former mayor Tom McEnery  and Deputy District Attorney David Pandori.

The San Jose Silicon Valley ChamberPAC has just announced they are endorsing Magdalena Carrasco for the District 5 city council seat. 

“In this time of economic uncertainty, San Jose needs independent, common sense leaders like Magdalena Carrasco at City Hall,” said incoming ChamberPAC chairperson Joshua Howard in a statement. “Her commitment to neighborhood business and job creation will be a welcome addition to the council.”

A relative outsider to the local political scene, Carrasco beat out other East Side candidates Xavier Campos, Aaron Resendez and J. Manuel Herrera for the chamber’s backing.

Union Leader Randy Sekany pounds the table and rails about the way the city spends money.

“I mean, $150,000 on ergonomic chairs? When you’re firing people? When you’ve cut back how many employees? There’s not a few spare chairs around? Really?”

Sekany circulated a document around City Hall headlined “City Spending Gone Wild,” which details more than $7 million worth of expenditures on a range of items and services, from hybrid Priuses to real estate assessments. The union assembled the numbers in response to City Manager Debra Figone’s request that they take a 10 percent pay cut, reduce the number of engine companies from 34 to 29 and lay off 80-plus sworn firefighters.

In a recent letter to the Mercury News, San Jose resident Pirouz Maghsoudnia questioned the wisdom of giving a public subsidy to a baseball franchise in these troubled economic times.  “The City of San Jose…does not have money to fix its streets, cannot provide police and fire protection for its residents or keep its libraries open, but has millions to bring a baseball franchise to downtown.”  Maghsoudnia points out that taxpayers are being asked to prepare for service cuts while the city is selling assets for $20 million to assemble the lot for the stadium.

After the ousting of Barbara Attard two years ago, a false-start with City Auditor Chris Constantin and a prolonged “interim” period with Shivaun Nurre, the city of San Jose finally has a new independent police auditor—LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County superior court judge and former Palo Alto city councilmember. UPDATED 7pm.

As I fly home on Monday evening to SJO I wish to share some thoughts from two inspiring days at the National School Board Association’s conference in Chicago.

• Public education is in crisis not only in California, but throughout the U.S. Continued cuts in essential personnel is making this the scariest of times. We can no longer afford any more cuts to visual and performing arts education.

Last week, I attended budget meetings in council districts 9 and 10 as well as the labor unions’ budget meeting at the Tully library. The people that attended this meeting were mostly union members and city council staff. It was admitted at the meeting that significant layoffs were inevitable since the deficit is enormous.

Ideas were presented on what money-saving measures could be implemented and what new sources of revenue could be found to balance the $118 million budget gap. Ideas ranged from replacing natural lawns in parks with artificial turf (lower ongoing maintenance costs, but more costly upfront) to turning down the air conditioning at city hall during the summer.

On the back of the surprising endorsement of Sheriff Laurie Smith’s challenger Richard Calderon, Mayor Chuck Reed made the less shocking decision to back District Attorney Dolores Carr in her bid for re-election. As he did when endorsing Calderon, he cited her work with the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force. “She’s been personally engaged in the issues. She doesn’t just send someone to the meeting who sits there and does nothing,” he says.

At a meeting of the High-Speed Rail Authority in San Jose last night, Burlingame mayor Cathy Baylock described the proposed above-ground route as a “monster” that “will destroy the city of Burlingame” by dissecting it into two. Burlingame already has problems with the ground-level Caltrain lines running through the city, she said. While a meeting to discuss the state’s high-speed rail plan was winding down, a local man was killed by a night train running through the city.

Having bewildered city-hall watchers earlier this week with his endorsement of long-shot sheriff candidate Richard Calderon, Mayor Chuck Reed may be getting ready to do it again—by throwing his support to District 9 council candidate Larry Pegram. Though Reed has yet to come out publicly for the former councilmember and conservative Christian activist, Fly hears that political consultant Victor Ajlouny has been strongly hinting to ChamberPAC members that the mayor has Pegram’s back in the race. Not coincidentally, Ajlouny is working for Pegram, as well as Reed and Calderon.

A couple of Sundays ago. the San Jose Mercury News ran a front page story with the headline, “Megasaurus’ $150 Million Bid For Governor.”  What’s a Megasaurus?  Is it fair for the newspaper to attach such a label to Meg Whitman, a serious candidate for Governor of California?