San Jose Inside

The City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday to decide whether or not it should sell land to owners of the Oakland A’s. The plan is to sell the property for $6.975,227, which is 36.5 percent of the total ballpark site’s current value. The theory, according to ballpark advocates, is the economic benefit of a ballpark would outweigh some combination of corporate, retail offices and housing.

Faced with what they called a back-door ban of San Jose’s collectives, the barely month-old Citizens Coalition for Patient Care (CCPC) turned in more than 47,000 signatures to the city clerk last week, well over the 29,653 signatures needed for a referendum against regulations the City Council passed in September. James Anthony, CCPC chairman, said the organization also registered nearly 8,000 new voters and raised over $200,000 from supporters. The group may need both on their side, as Mayor Chuck Reed proposed raising the Measure U tax on collectives from 7 to 10 percent to cover potential election costs for the referendum.

After a day-long “general strike” in Oakland, which lasted well into early Thursday morning, Occupy Oakland protestors have removed barricades at the port of Oakland entrance. On Wednesday afternoon, a crowd of more than 3,000 people marched to the port of Oakland.

The media loves big numbers. Headlines reading “California High Speed Rail to Cost $98.5 Billion” are intended to startle the uniformed and easily misled. A look into the numbers and the plan reveals a well-thought out strategy to provide 21st-century transportation to our state.

The whole world is keeping tabs on anti-Wall Street protests. On Saturday, the San Francisco occupation marched against police brutality. Four days prior, police arrested more than 100 people in Oakland for camping at City Hall. The militant response by police to protesters angered many, and the iconic takeaway was pictures and video of protester and Iraqi war veteran Scott Olsen lying bloody and dazed, his skull fractured by a tear-gas canister fired by police. This all happened after San Jose police raided the camp at San Jose’s City Hall plaza on Sunday, Oct. 23, arresting eight occupiers. In response, Shaun O’Kelly climbed atop the plaza structure in the dark of night. He now camps on a 5-foot-wide ledge.

Four San Jose councilmembers want City Manager Debra Figone to explain how she hires and ensures diveristy in senior staff positions. Few outside searches take place for qualified candidates, and just as few minorities currently hold director-level positions. As a result, Councilmembers Kansen Chu, Ash Kalra, Nancy Pyle, Xavier Campos and Don Rocha sent a memo to the city’s Open Rules and Government Committee asking for data. They also want a discussion on hiring practices to take place at the council level.

Over the last several months I have written two San Jose Inside columns on the Gates Foundation initiative to fund city/district/charter school collaborative compacts that bring meaningful cooperation and planning to the forefront of communities. Each time, I wrote that I had enormous hope that our collaborative compacts would be validated and funded by Gates. That hope, however, took a hit during a conference call with the foundation Monday.

Tomorrow, the City Council will adopt the 2040 General Plan (GP2040), which charts the growth of San Jose for the next 30 years. The Task Force, of which I am a member, met for over four years and held over 60 public meetings. In hindsight, the GP2040 could have been done sooner, however, the scope was too broad at the start and it should have been focused solely on land use.

San Jose police will commit more security this weekend to the funeral of a Hells Angels member who was shot dead two weeks prior in the same cemetery he is set to be buried. Reports now suggest that the slew of violence that has left two Hells Angels members dead and one evading the law stems from a violent squabble in January 2010 between the Vagos motorcycle club and Hells Angels at a downtown Santa Cruz Starbucks.

San Jose’s roads are the worst in the county and among the bottom third for cities in the Bay Area. And it appears they’re only going to get worse. A report given to the City Council from Transportation Director Hans Larsen says San Jose is currently able to fund just 15 percent of the nearly billion dollars it will take to maintain roads over the next decade. That will result in an $860 million backlog.

San Jose cannabis activists hoping to repeal the city’s new dispensary regulations say they have almost 50,000 petition signatures before today’s deadline. The Citizens Coalition for Patient Care, a group running the petition drive, calls the City Council’s ordinance “unworkable.” The group says it needs 29,653 valid signatures to qualify for a referendum to overturn San Jose’s ordinance.

Sheriff Laurie Smith always tells me she has the best job in the world, so why would she ever run for mayor of San Jose? It is hard to argue with logic like that—which is one reason she would make a great mayor. Smith, who lives in San Jose, is the most popular public figure in county government for good reason.

Last week, during a tour of our downtown Drop-In Center for homeless youth, a donor watched as all our kids piled into a van for a trip to the beach. The donor questioned why we would take youth on an outing, rather than focus on the immediate needs of housing, employment, and education. The tone of the question said more than the words – the donor thought it was frivolous. It occurred to me that he may not be the only one who feels this way. 

The state redistricting committee threw a wrench in the careers of politicians throughout California this summer by redrawing the lines. As a result, one unexpected race will pit two local, union-friendly Democrats—Jim Beall and Joe Coto—against each other in the newly established 15th State Senate District.

Editor’s Note: Jim Unland is a sergeant in the San Jose Police Department and vice president of the Police Officers Association. He wrote this column for San Jose Inside.

Last week the nationally renowned criminologist Chuck Reed said, “There’s nobody that seems to think that there’s a direct connection between the number of officers and the number of homicides.” However, Mayor Reed has also said that gang homicides can be prevented. Every time he says that the number of officers doesn’t matter with regards to the homicide rate, he demonstrates his ignorance as to how the San Jose PD has kept its citizens safe for so many years.