San Jose Inside

Everything comes down to the quality of our public education system and the manner to which a society treats its children. We reap what we sow. Too often in public schools for some children we are sowing the seeds of despair not hope. The racial achievement gap is a case in point.

As we ponder the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King and his commitment to the raising up of all God’s children we must come together with a strong bipartisan consensus on developing a plan so as not to leave any child behind anymore. Every dollar spent in the implementation of this plan, and we do know what works and what to do, will reap $4 in savings to the econom

It looks to be a two-man race in determining who will be the next chief of police in San Jose. Reports state City Manager Debra Figone will make her decision by early February, and the final candidates appear to be acting police chief Christopher Moore and Oakland’s current chief of police, Anthony Batts.

The City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 San Jose residents. Residents will be asked survey questions about the budget and city services from Jan 13 to Jan 17.

The budget deficits at every level of government have created an atmosphere where everything is up for review. There are no longer any sacred cows when it comes to government spending. Taking a second look at the value of redevelopment agencies has become a current hot topic for discussion.

The Coalition for Justice and Accountability, a citizens group which includes Silicon Valley DeBug’s Raj Jayadev, released a report Wednesday about what people in San Jose would like from the city’s next chief of police. The report also requests more openness in the process. The city has been guarded on releasing the names of candidates.

Sen. Joe Simitian admits the hard truth is that life is going to get worse for many Californians before it gets better. That is doubly true, he says, if Brown is unable to win voter approval for some new tax revenue.

Will the last one out shut off the lights—and sound? Four downtown nightclubs—Wet, Pearl, Toons and Motif—have “closed for remodeling,” taken a break or gone dark for good in recent days. The closures follow a series of enforcement actions, and more could be on the way

This new-year, 2011, will be the year for a new federal program for the reform movement in public education. Or will it? Will we punt once more since the problem appears to be intractable and no clear consensus has emerged on where we need to go from here? The history is instructive.

The City of San Jose has adopted Civil Service Rules that state what is and what is not allowed in regards to employment. The City Charter allows for changes to Civil Service Rules by a Council vote, and does not necessarily require a city-wide election.

It started with a fruit stand more than seven decades ago, and emerged as one of the landmark local grocery stores in San Jose, with branches in Silver Creek and Santa Clara. On February 8, Cosentino’s will be shutting its doors one last time. The reason, according to Dominic Cosentino, is not just the economy but the shifting purchasing habits of Americans over the last few decades: “Everything is favoring the big-box stores today.”

Times have changed since Jerry Brown was last Governor. These days he’s faced with a $28 billion deficit and the realization that he’s going to have to cut somewhere. One possibility is the state’s Redevelopment Agencies, which consume about $5.5 billion in property tax revenues. It won’t be easy. While transferring that money to schools, for instance, could prove popular, the same voters who elected him also approved Proposition 22, which prevents the state from raiding local funds.

An investigator from the district attorney’s office who has been spearheading recent raids on local medical marijuana dispensaries says every pot club in Santa Clara County is operating outside the law. Dean Ackemann, who has been responsible for obtaining search warrants for the task force that has been conducting armed raids in recent months, said that in his opinion every dispensary in the county should be shut down. “The search warrants and the investigations are not going to stop,” Ackemann vowed.
But he may be wrong

More than a year ago, the San Jose City Council was presented with renewing its Microsoft desktop licenses. This can be an expensive line item. We have spent over seven figures in the past for licensing alone on this item.  I thought to myself, and later spoke at the Council meeting, that there is no real competition for this purchase we were about to approve and wondered if we could do better. In the end, we got a government discount from a Microsoft reseller, but it was not truly competitive since Microsoft did not have any competition at City Hall.

Best of times? Worst of times? Both? How did our fair city do in 2010? What were the highlights and low points from where you sit? (Holiday bonus points for the SJI commentator who comes up with the best high-point for the year: What’s the one thing that happened over the past 12 months that made you glad you got out of bed that morning?) 

I ended last week’s column with this wish, “vote yes on increasing funding for the children in 2011.”  For me the yearning is as serious as life and death. How we treat our children will be correlated with the quality of our lives in the future. And for me the future is now.