Pam Foley dropped out of the San Jose City Council District 9 race this morning, saying she had decided that cannot balance being a mother, a school board member and a businesswoman while running a campaign. “I’m really, really sad about it,” Foley told Fly—somehow managing to sound extremely confident in resignation: “It was tough because I know I was going to win this race,” she said. “I had everything I needed to win.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has surprisingly reached my desk, in the form of $3.14 million of new revenue to the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE). These funds are one-time only and must be used within 18 months or be returned to the Federal government.

At last Wednesday’s Board meeting, I and my fellow SCCOE trustees were asked to approve a revision of the FY2009-10 budget to incorporate these new funds into our previously approved budget. I voted “aye” reluctantly, with an admonition to County Superintendent Weis and staff that every public dollar is spent wisely with strong accountability measures. It is also our obligation that we make certain that the ARRA funds help stimulate the local economy.

Anyone who’s watched an open meeting of City Council will have seen council members fiddle with their iPhones and Blackberries to check their latest emails or text messages. Councilmember Sam Liccardo now argues that those messages should be disclosed to the public as part of the city’s policy on open governance.

“Council meetings are open to the public for a reason,” Liccardo says, “and if we’re voting on a matter and outside groups are using private means to communicate with us about how we should or shouldn’t vote, the public ought to know what’s being said and who’s saying it.”

Well we’re a day late and a dollar short. The weather’s too nice here in sunny San Jose to stay inside and post, so we recommend you get out and enjoy the sunshine. Take a walk, ride a bike, hike a mountain, visit a park or head to the beach. If there’s anything on your mind on any subject that you’d like to share with fellow San Joseans, though, please share it here.

Lost in the ongoing debate for a national health care system are questions of personal responsibility. If we as a nation accept and require that everyone should receive health care services, shouldn’t there be some minimal standards of responsibility to help the program along?

The San Jose City Council passed a series of resolutions on the topic of campaign contributions yesterday. The most controversial vote revolved around a cap on so-called “soft money”—contributions by individuals or special interest groups that act independently to persuade voters to support one candidate or another. The cap, set at $250, was ruled unconstitutional in federal court in 2006 as a violation of free speech, but this ruling was later overturned on a technicality. The city voted to extend the cap by a vote of 6 to 5.

Was Cesar Chavez a racist?  No, I don’t think so.  But today, people of every political stripe and ethnicity are labeled “racists” for espousing some of the same attitudes towards immigration and immigration law as Cesar Chavez did.

Figures just released by the Sacramento Bee calculate how much local counties, cities, and redevelopment agencies across the state will be forced to pay to cover the $3.7 billion that the state needs to balance its own budget. In Santa Clara County, that sum comes to $185,253,807.

A watershed moment in an acrimonious battle between local labor and business occured Tuesday when the San Jose City Council reversed its vote to rebid the construction of the Educational Park Library and awarded the contract to low bidder Barry Swenson Builder.
The vote was 6 to 5, with union-aligned councilmembers Nora Campos, Kansen Chu, Ash Kalra, Madison Nguyen and Nancy Pyle opposed.

The San Jose City Council will revote on its plan to rebid the $7 million construction contract for an Eastside library. On Friday, Councilmember Rose Herrera submitted a memo calling for reconsideration of the June 23 vote, taken on the eve of the July council recess.

The first council meeting of the new fiscal year will result in discussing the new budgets cuts that must be made due to Sacramento’s raid of cities’ property tax money. Since San Jose does not want to look at delivering services differently, as Chicago and other cities do, then that leaves us with only one option: cut services to San Jose residents.

When the Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger signed his Million Rooftops initiative back in 2006, one of the first people to jump on board was San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who said the city would take 100,000. The following year, Reed announced his Green Vision to reduce the city’s nonrenewable energy use to zero by 2022.

Now the mayor is bringing his initiative much closer to home—his own home, in fact.

The fact that every eligible resident can attend a state university, long a source of pride in California, will soon be a distant memory as a result of massive state budget cuts. As the fall 2009 CSU semester approaches, thousands of college students will return to campus to find fewer instructors, slashed classes, empty dorms and diminished services. Some will be denied university admission altogether.

Do you remember the commercial for Ginsu Knives from the late ‘70s?  It would show a sharp knife on TV cutting through everything from tomatoes to tin cans. The announcer would repeatedly say: “But wait! There’s more!”

Well, just when you thought we had a balanced budget for the City of San Jose, the state of California has said “But wait! There’s more!”

Citing “low morale” and “childish” political infighting on Gilroy’s city council, Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage announced that he will run for mayor of that city. Gage served on Gilroy’s City Council from 1981 to 1997, when he ran for a seat on the county’s Board of Supervisors.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed struck a defiant pose yesterday in response to California’s new state budget. After hammering out a difficult budget of his own to cover the city’s $84 million deficit, Reed was shocked to learn that his city could be handing over as much as $100 million to the state.

His strategy is simple: Sue the state. “We will certainly be joining in with other cities in litigation,” he said.

This was echoed by mayors across California