San Jose Inside

Mike Potter, husband of Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, appears neither ready to forgive nor forget slights real and imagined in the lead-up to last week’s election. At last week’s Democratic Central Committee meeting, Potter blasted the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce for its efforts to help defeat his wife, and/or support her opponent, Teresa Alvarado—perspective dictates the distinction. There’s just one issue with this indignation—Potter’s job as a state and governmental affairs rep for Cisco, one of the largest members of the local Chamber, requires him to work directly with the Chamber and its policy makers.

Almost two weeks before she won the election for Santa Clara County Supervisor’s District 2 seat, ex-labor leader Cindy Chavez said she would not cross a picket line. That promise may get tested early since SEIU 521, the 8,000-employee county union whose contract is up for renewal, strategically postponed negotiations until Aug. 11, after the special election, in hopes of gaining a more favorable outcome. About 6,400 of those union members work at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The day after Chavez was voted in, some technicians in the hospital’s radiology department staged a “sick out,” which is not quite a strike but a coordinated effort to call in sick to work to make a statement. Enough participated that it left the hospital scrambling to schedule replacements.

As a former civics teacher and principal who championed the role of student government, the lack of voter turnout in last week’s Board of Supervisors election concerns me. The race was well covered by the media and more than $1 million was spent to reach voters. And yet, only 20.77 percent of registered voters in District 2 participated in the election.

The office of Attorney General Kamala Harris has informed the county that Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen broke no laws when giving some of his top deputies extra admin leave to make up for lost wages. In a letter to County Executive Jeff Smith, who asked the AG to start a civil investigation in April, Alicia Fowler, a senior assistant attorney general in the Employment and Administrative Mandate division, wrote: “Based on all the information that the county provided to us, including extensive documentation and in-person interviews, we have concluded that there has been no violation of law.”

Operation Cross Country, a three-day nationwide enforcement campaign by the FBI focusing on underage victims of sex trafficking, recently concluded with the rescue of 105 sexually exploited children and the arrests of 150 pimps and other individuals. In the Bay Area, 12 children were rescued from pimps. While the issue is not new for runaway programs, aggressive pimps going after these young people is now more common. Vulnerable youth, especially those on the run, are often preyed upon by pimps. Studies show that runaways are often identified and targeted by pimps within 48 hours of hitting the streets. Runaway programs need to learn how keep young people safe and must work with local law enforcement when victims seek help from runaway shelters.

Small businesses increasingly have become the employers of many San Jose residents—including self-employed entrepreneurs—left behind in the tech boom. One way to address the yawning opportunity gap would focus our municipal energies on lightening the burdens of those small businesses. As we all know, City Hall can get in the way.

George Shirakawa Jr. once counted on Santa Clara County taxpayers and campaign contributors to be his benefactors, as he spent public money and campaign funds on luxury rental cars, gambling junkets, vacations and lavish dinners for staff and political allies. Now, it seems, high-profile developer John Vidovich has assumed the role of financier.

With an A-Team of lobbyists and legislators on the offensive against net metering and the startup solar industry, it would seem to be a case of David vs. Goliath. The good news for those of us on the side of sustainability is that David, or Steve Blank, has a game plan for how solar companies can fight back, claim their share of the market, and secure our energy future.

The San Jose Police Department’s duty manual serves as a bible of sorts when it comes to the rules and regulations for officers. In the 756-page tome that lays out procedures and protocol, five pages are dedicated to interviews and interrogations of witnesses and suspects. Nowhere in the duty manual, however, is there any mention of an interrogation technique that is now receiving criticism from the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s office and local defense attorneys: letters of apology.

UPDATE: Sources within the county have told San Jose Inside that Vinod Sharma will be officially removed from his current position as chief financial officer in two weeks. Sharma will be reassigned to a position in the Valley Medical Center Health and Hospitals System while county administrators work to create new accounting positions. During the 2013-14 budget process, the county allocated money to create these new positions but did not establish official titles. The Board of Supervisors is expected to approve these new positions at its first meeting in September. Sources tell San Jose Inside that Sharma’s salary will be “significantly lower.”

In the height of the Great Recession, the Los Angeles Recreation & Parks Department started a new program that proves progress can be made despite heavy budget cuts. San Jose would be wise to follow a similar path.

In what may turn out to be one of the most expensive races ever for a local county office, Cindy Chavez has captured the District 2 Supervisor seat held by her disgraced former ally, George Shirakawa, Jr. The victory places the largest county government in the global home of leading edge technology—from Teslas to Google Glass—firmly in the hands of an old-fashioned political machine; a classic one that delivers votes, wins elections, rewards its followers and dispenses benefits. Over the next two years, the board will vote on billions of dollars in employee compensation contracts—the county spends $3 billion a year on salaries, benefits and pensions—for the members of the unions who returned the former San Jose city official to public office.

Evan Low can host a blood drive, but can’t donate his own blood. Still, the openly gay mayor of Campbell and openly gay Vice Mayor Rich Waterman will lead an American Red Cross drive this afternoon—both for charity’s sake and to make a statement against the federal ban that prohibits men who admit to having sex with other men from giving blood.

After voting to raise taxes on pot clubs earlier this year, San Jose Councilman Sam Liccardo has found a new vice to tackle: nudie bars. Spurred by the imminent opening of a gentlemen’s club in downtown, Liccardo has asked the city to impose more restrictions on San Jose’s adult establishments. The city already bans nudity in downtown businesses, which leaves us to presume that the Gold Club, slated to open up Aug. 8 in the historic 81 W. Santa Clara St. building, will operate as a bikini bar.

Election nights have morphed into a game of cat and mouse between Fly and Stacey Hendler Ross, PR flack for the South Bay Labor Council. In the county supervisor primary and then the runoff, which took place Tuesday, Hendler Ross has taken to her new role as bouncer. No more than a minute into this week’s election night party for new county Supervisor Cindy Chavez, Hendler Ross grabbed a San Jose Inside reporter by the arm and tried to escort him out before realizing she should use her words. Noting that it was a private party and only “legitimate media” could enter, Hendler Ross also gave an SJI intern the boot, once again stifling the free press. Or so she thought.