Jerry DiSalvo to sculpts the pieces he makes in a make-shift studio on his back lawn, according to Mayra Flores De Marcotte in the Willow Glen Resident.
The new city hall is taking making more office space available downtown, Chris O’Brien reports in the Mercury News. That’s something we don’t need, what with vacancy rates at almost 24% in the survey he cites.
Working the TV audience were all three bay area big-city mayors, who got together for a taped interview earlier this week. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, Sandra Gonzales has a recap in the Merc.
Needing more time to work is the panel investigating the garbage deal, Rodney Foo reported.
Moving in new work space is the Willow Glen Farmers’ Market, says the Willow Glen Resident.
Also in the Resident, an update by Michele Leung on those working to replace Jim Beall on the Board of Supervisors.
I saw the Channel 5 interview with the mayors. Couldn’t help notice that Gonzales looked incredibly nervous talking about his future, like he wanted to change the subject and talk more about Newsom and Brown’s future. Maybe it’s because they have something to talk about.
Unfortunately for Ronzales, he has no future. His political star was a figment of his imagination. His “return” to the high tech sector will be highly unlikely. Some company may hand him a mid level job as a “reward” for his past service. Finally, he may be delusional enough to think he can offer some credible service and start “consulting.”
His “legacy” as a unethical leader, with little to show for his eight years in office, will haunt him for a very long time. A rather sad situation….
From the Merc’s mayors story:
Mayor Ron Gonzales—who has a lower profile than fellow Mayors Jerry Brown of Oakland and Gavin Newsom of San Francisco—touted San Jose’s low crime rate compared with its big-city neighbors. He credited the relationship the community has with police officers in addition to the department’s progressive police chiefs over the past several years.
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I wonder if Mayor Newsom cited San Francisco’s panoramic beauty and then credited it to his Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Only someone who listens to politicians for a living could believe that credit for San Jose’s admirably low crime rate should go first to the police department. If Mayor Gonzales truly believes the reasons he cited for the low crime rate then he must also believe that the tragic crime problems in Oakland (and areas of San Francisco) are primarily due to poor police-community relations and clueless police chiefs. Certainly he doesn’t believe that, leaving us only to wonder why he said what he said.
Maybe he just couldn’t think of anything else to brag about. Worse, maybe his administration can’t lay claim to anything else with results so dramatically impressive.
The real reason San Jose is a safe city is, in a way, a mystery. Not a mystery in the traditional, who-done-it sense of the word, but a mystery in the politically-correct sense; you know, a mystery whose solution exists in a place man enters at his own risk: in the harsh, lonely, logical plains of the Forbidden Zone. I ventured there and found the answer, though I must admit I did not get away without injury. I don’t think anyone really does.
More than any other factor, San Jose is safer than Oakland or San Francisco because of the overall quality of our residents; something effected positively by the private sector (those who create and provide things) and far too often negatively by the local government. It was the private sector in the South Bay that attracted enough smart people to settle here and offset California’s otherwise eroding cultural foundation. That fortunate development did not happen in Oakland, and believe me, if the populations of Oakland and San Jose changed places today, this city would explode in violence, San Jose PD would be overwhelmed, and the police chief of Oakland would, overnight, become commendably progressive. Were the experiment last a month or two, property values here would make a U-turn, while the neighborhoods of Oakland—cracked, oil-stained pavement and all—would start to look more like Anytown, USA and less like post-liberation Fallujah.
But, of course, we aren’t supposed to think such things. We are, after all, a sensitized and tolerant people, averse to assigning blame to those we perceive as powerless. And that is, of course, why things have only gotten worse. With the tacit approval of enlightened, excuse-anything progressives, a generation of young women, relying on impulse rather than traditional values, mated indiscriminately and produced an army of undisciplined, testosterone-charged young men who’ve been provided none of the tools necessary to become civilized men. And now, despite stacking them up in prison like cord wood, their remaining presence is so erosive that we must still write-off entire cities, isolated neighborhoods, and hope.
As long as our politicians continue to deceive us, to point not to the real problems and challenges but to comforting bullshit, they will only make things worse.
Finfan, you make an interesting point that the type of resident has everything to do with crime rate. Compare & contrast extreme cases, like Burlingame & Richmond or Saratoga and East Palo Alto (just eyballing it here and hoping the population of these towns is somewhat similar) and the the truth behind the statements you’ve made is unavoidable.
While I feel Chief Davis is a real asset to the SJ force, he nor any chief going back to McNamera can claim responsibility for a low crime rate any more than Gonzo can, and the reverse is true of mayors and chiefs where crime rates are high—they cannot be held entirely responsible. It’s all about the civilized way that most of the people of SJ go about their daily lives and not anything our mayor has done. We live in the world’s biggest suburb, after all, and our crime rate bears that out.
FinFan & Mark T:
SO true.
Hey, did y’all hear the interview of Gonzo broadcast live by KLIV from the COMPAC BBQ last Thursday? Gonzo said with a straight face (it was radio) that he was still seriously considering extending his “24 years of public service” by running for statewide office; but that he was also considering the private sector.
Would you do business with any company that would hire him?