The expansion of the McEnery Convention Center has long been the crown jewel of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency’s list of projects. Then came the budget crisis—city and state—which clobbered potential funding for the project, and caused the proposal to be scaled down by more than half, from $300 million to $140 million. Now Mayor Chuck Reed is asking the most fundamental question of all: Can we really afford to go ahead with the expansion?

There’s a reason people hold on to the remote during all of their favorite programs, and its not just to surf the channels when a commercial comes on. Often, it’s to lower the volume when that same commercial comes on.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Emerson ruled yesterday that limits on campaign contributions by independent political committees violate those committees’ freedom of speech. According to City Attorney Rick Doyle, the ruling effectively invalidates the city’s existing soft-money contribution limits, capping individual contributions to campaigns at $250. In August, the City Council voted to maintain the cap.

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.

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.

Mayor Chuck Reed is in Washington to tell the Administration what he thinks of the stimulus package. The feds probably wish he hadn’t come at all. When asked at a meeting at the Brookings Institute how $79 million in federal stimulus funding has helped San Jose deal with the recession, Reed answered, “It’s been a very minimal impact.”

“The money you give us to put people to work is not creating long-term jobs,” Reed complained

Following a cell phone video that shows SJSU student Phuong Ho being hit with batons and tased by the SJPD officers, the department claimed he was resisting arrest. Enhanced audio of the video taken by one of Ho’s housemates on his cellphone seems to tell a different story.

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.

Groups representing San Jose’s diverse ethnic communities have called for the resignation of Police Chief Rob Davis, claiming that the police use excessive force in dealing with minorities. “There needs to be a change in the culture of the current police force, and we don’t think that Police Chief Davis can make that change,” wrote Richard Konda, executive director of the Asian Law Alliance.

UPDATE: SJPOA President Bobby Lopez says activists calling for Davis to resign are “well-intentioned but misinformed.”

A number of posts over the past week on ProtectSanJose.com,  a blog run by the Police Officers Association (SJPOA), have effectively called into question a series of San Jose Mercury News articles about use of force by SJPD.

The Merc series started with the Oct. 24 posting of a cell-phone video that seems to show SJPD officers beating and Tasing a Vietnamese SJSU exchange student while he is pinned to the floor. The series culminated with a Sunday package a few days later, headlined “Mercury News investigation: San Jose police often use force in resisting-arrest cases.”

Rosa Pérez, Chancellor of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, announced that she will be retiring because of poor health. Pérez has battled respiratory problems in the past. Her retirement will go into effect on June 30, when her current contract expires.

Pérez was something of a trailblazer at SJECC. She is the first Latina to serve as Chancellor on a permanent basis, and she is also one of the nation’s very few openly gay chancellors. But her tenure at the head of SJECC has not been without its controversies. She has come into conflict with the California School Employees Association for downsizing staff because of the economic crisis.

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.