San Jose Inside

A discussion over corporate influence in Milpitas politics took a dark turn last week when Rajeev Madnawat, a candidate for City Council, lobbed a thinly veiled death threat against termed-out Councilman Armando Gomez.

In a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, an aviation expert calls San Jose’s airport curfew insulting, and wonders why city leaders can’t get residents to put up with the noise, like they do in Oakland and San Francisco.

Weeks after San Jose police suspended off-duty work with the 49ers, emails show just how cozy the relationship was between some officers and the team.

Houston, we have a problem. Public education is facing its own Apollo 13 moment. If fundamental issues are not addressed an inevitable catastrophic ending will occur.

While Silicon Valley copes with its dependence on imported water, our neighbors in Santa Cruz are striving to rely entirely on their local water supply.

An initiative that would repeal San Jose’s new medical marijuana regulations garnered enough signatures to make it to the ballot.

In a deal reached Thursday with the Oakland Athletics, San Jose just bought more time to try wooing the team to a new ballpark in downtown.

Stupid local laws and the rise of unfettered independent expenditure committees are making a mockery of the election process. Candidates are no longer in control of their own messages and in many local races they are not relevant to the debate.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed on Wednesday called for a federal investigation into accusations that the police union president abused his authority by thwarting the city’s recruitment efforts. A day later, Reed and his political consultant found themselves on the receiving end of calls for an inquiry.

City and county governments must operate with less money, while citizens still expect the same level of services. Two recent partnerships show great work can still be done in this new paradigm.

Usually, the race for California’s highest public school office lacks suspense. This year is a notable exception.

Deadly encounters between police and citizens have increased in recent years. And while officer-involved shootings are nearly always ruled justified, mistakes are costly—both in lives and in the millions that the public pays to victims and their heirs.

When the next big earthquake strikes, hundreds of buildings in Silicon Valley are prone to collapse. Yet unlike other major Bay Area cities that have adopted policies to incentivize seismic retrofitting—namely Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley and Fremont—San Jose has done nothing to fix the problem. A group of City Council officials want to create a program, similar to those in Oakland and San Francisco, encouraging property owners to make their buildings sturdier.

Santa Clara County announced that it "released" John Vartanian from his position of director of the Department of Child Support Services.

An op-ed by a former San Jose police cadet touched off a debate about whether the head of the Police Officers Association committed an ethical violation by encouraging recruits to drop out. Jim Unland, president of the police union, has denied the allegations.