San Jose Inside

It was striking that George Shirakawa Jr. pleaded guilty Monday in Superior Court with nary a friend or family member there to support him. You never know who your friends are in politics until you are down. The absence of so many spoke volumes.

Madison Nguyen has ended her soul-search over a run for George Shirakawa Jr.‘s vacant county supervisor seat, deciding she’ll focus on the 2014 mayoral race in San Jose—despite some of her colleagues prodding her to get into the special election. That leaves a field that will likely soon include Cindy Chavez.

It will “take a village” to preserve, maintain and expand urban parks in the 21st Century. A key feature of what I call the “new paradigm” of America’s Parks and Trails is that the future lies in forming coalitions—virtual villages—among a variety of interested parties. Re-imagining our parks systems means not counting on government to be the sole caretaker of these community treasures.

Someone needs to clue in the folks in charge of the South Santa Clara Valley Memorial District about the Brown Act. And its legal obligations to veterans. And basic bookkeeping. And the Internet. This and other items go before the Rules and Open Government Committee on Wednesday.

Santa Clara County Board of Education member Darcie Green says she is resigning from the board “to avoid a long, messy legal battle to defend my seat.” Green was appointed to the board Oct. 17 of last year to fill a vacancy in Board Trustee Area 6, which was created by the resignation of Craig Mann. New district lines were drawn following Mann’s reelection in 2010. In making the appointment, the County Board relied on its legal counsel’s opinion, which turned out to be a mistake.

Everything since last Tuesday’s election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has reignited my Jesuit instincts. The Jesuit dots have connected in so many ways since last week that I felt compelled to write on Jesuit education today. The question is, can we take the foundational beliefs of Jesuit education and transfer them to traditional public education, while still keeping the imperative separation of church and state?

Rocketship schools tout the lofty goal of closing the achievement gap “within our lifetime.” With just two school years down, standardized test scores show that the charter chain is on a faster track to accomplishing its goal that than most schools serving low-income students, many of whom speak English as a second language. In addition to an annual report from Rocketship, the Santa Clara County Board of Education will hear reports on the financial impact of the sequester and a bailout given to Gilroy’s school district.

Hands loosely clenched, the thumb on George Shirakawa, Jr.’s right hand nervously rubbed back and forth across the inside of his index finger, as Judge Philip H. Pennypacker read the charges against the disgraced former county supervisor. “Guilty, your honor,” Shirakawa said Monday, announcing the same plea after each of the 12 criminal charges against him, which include five felonies—four for perjury and one for misappropriation of public funds—and seven misdemeanors.

San Jose has spent approximately $1 billion on affordable housing, which has produced tens of thousands of units being built within our city limits. The city has always done more than its fair share in this area. In fact, San Jose has carried the region—to its own economic detriment—by shouldering most of the affordable housing needs, resulting in fewer jobs.

UPDATE: The Samsung item on this week’s agenda has been deferred to March 26.

An incentives package designed to convince Samsung to make San Jose home to its new North American research headquarters goes before the City Council on Tuesday for final approval. Other items on the agenda include the sale of some small properties, a proposal to extend debt payments to JP Morgan and a labor negotiations update.

Habemus Papam! We have a Pope! The centuries-old tradition of locking 115 men in a room until they make a decision still works today. This brings us to an old idea for getting rid of gridlock in our political system.

I received a phone call last year from a resident who lived near Almaden Winery Park. She told me that she wanted to plant some rose trees in the park, and that she had been referred to San Jose Parks Foundation for help.

Xavier Campos is a public servant who doesn’t like to talk to the media. For this reason, and maybe a few others, the San Jose councilman refused to answer Fly’s questions about his former campaign treasurer, Linda Delgado, who handled accounting duties for his council race in 2010. Treasurers aren’t usually a hot topic of conversation, but Delgado also happens to be one of the absentee accountants who facilitated George Shirakawa’s embezzlement of more than $100K in campaign contributions.

Funds from two local non-profit health care foundations made their way to phone banks and mail campaigns of the South Bay Labor Council in 2012 after routing the money through a Measure A’s campaign committee. Both the VMC Foundation and the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation gave more than a quarter-million dollars each—a total of $539,000—to support an 1/8th cent county sales tax measure, Measure A. At least $90,000 of those monies were transferred to the South Bay Labor Council. An incestuous tangle of organizations, directors and consultants characterized the transactions, with common decision-makers on both the giving and receiving ends. None of the organization are willing to discuss how the funds were used and how decisions were made. Former San Jose vice mayor and South Bay Labor Council CEO Cindy Chavez currently heads up the nonprofit SBLC-linked Working Partnerships USA (WPUSA) and sits on the board for the Health Trust and Santa Clara Family Health Foundation.

Hey, you, bicyclists over the age of 12: Get off the sidewalks. Enough people complained about your scofflaw ways that the city’s about to crack down on the pedestrian-scaring practice. Well, sort of.