San Jose Inside

An emotional District 4 Supervisor Ken Yeager delivered the State of the County address earlier this morning as the first openly gay President of the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors.

Before a crowded hall of high-profile local officials—including District Attorney Dolores Carr, Sheriff Laurie Smith, District 1 candidates Teresa Alvarado and Forrest Williams, and the mayors of San Jose, Santa Clara and Campbell—Yeager recalled being a 26–year–old staffer for former county supervisor Susanne Wilson on Aug. 6, 1979, the day the board heard fiery arguments against a ban on discrimination against gays for housing or employment.

According to Carolyn Bucior, who is writing a memoir about substitute teaching, 5.2 percent of teachers nationwide are absent on any given day, a rate three times as high as that of other professionals and one and a half times higher than teachers in Britain. Regular full-time teachers receive 10 sick days per year, by collective bargaining agreement.

By the time a student completes 12th grade he has had substitute teachers for almost one year of his 13 years of schooling.

As this week brings news of our local unemployment rate just beginning to taper downward, local businesses are peering out from their frozen dens for the first signs of Spring.  That’s of little solace to thousands of our families still losing their homes and jobs, but it does raise a crucial question as we try to get people back to work: how can we best communicate to businesses that they should make San José the place to grow?

Due to the structural budget deficit and the decline of tax revenues coming into the city, the January police academy has been postponed indefinitely. By postponing the academy the city saves money but risks neighborhood safety.

This is SJI’s weekly open forum, where opinions on any topic are welcome. What’s on your mind?

By Lou Alexander

Lou Alexander was the advertising manager of the Mercury News for 20 years, and retired in 2003. — Editor

A couple of people have asked me for my take on the announcement that the parent company of MediaNews has reached a deal with its senior creditors to carry out a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of a financial restructuring. I doubt this bankruptcy will make much difference in the day-to-day work lives of people who work at the SJMN and other MediaNews newspapers, at least for the moment.  The company’s material says there will be no layoffs as a result of this action. And the same guys will be in charge.

I continue to be amazed, and at times, amused by the quality and tone of some of the arguments being made by some politicians and fans wanting to bring the A’s to San Jose.  One of the central arguments being put forward is that the Giants don’t have a “right” to deny the people of San Jose a baseball team.  In fact, they do.  Major League Baseball extended the territorial rights to Santa Clara County to the San Francisco Giants.  That’s a fact, and nothing’s going to change that, unless, and until, the baseball owners change their minds and vote to reverse their decision.  Not likely.

Chris Constantin, a performance auditor for the City of San Jose and local political figure, announced today that he is leaving the area. In a letter to colleagues, he said he is taking a job as Deputy City Auditor in San Diego.

Constantin made news last year when he was appointed by the City Council to serve as the Independent Police Auditor. He resigned the post a week later, after it was revealed that his brother is an SJPD officer.

For a couple of weeks leading up to Monday’s MLK Day “Freedom Train” event, there was a story going around that San Jose/ Silicon Valley NAACP president Reverend Jethroe Moore II made some rather offensive remarks during a radio interview. The rumor was sparked by two anonymous comments on San Jose Inside and Protect San Jose, claiming that during a segment on radio station KLIV, Moore said “the MLK taking money from the POA is like the Jews taking money from the Nazis.”

The news that the Mercury News would have its fourth owner in four years came as a shock to Mercury employees, though not entirely a surprise. MediaNews’ debt service issues were well known, and a first quarter restructuring was anticipated. Unlike past announcements, however, the shoe-dropping came without warning. “This thing blindsided everyone in the newsroom,” one knowledgeable insider said.  The announcement arrived, along with an FAQ, at 4:30pm Friday, as the staff was getting ready to head out for a three-day weekend.

Why is public education failing too many of its client students? Why does the achievement gap still persist in most of our schools? Taking the macro view I wonder: Is this a systems problem or a human capital problem? Or both? On Friday of last week I attended the professional development seminar sponsored by the Santa Clara County Office of Education and SJ2020. During the morning presentation by nationally renowned researcher Dr. Robert Marzano, the 250 conference attendees learned he believes it is a systems problem not a teacher capital problem.

The City of San Jose has contracted with a public opinion survey company to poll residents on the city’s budget in a project fondly known as “the City of San Jose Budget Prioritization Survey.” The control group of the survey is 900 residents representing the entire City.  They will be contacted by home and cell phones.

The San Jose Mercury News’ owner will seek bankruptcy protection in a major restructuring of the company’s ownership and debt, news agencies reported Friday night. The Chapter 11 filing will slice holding company Affiliated Media’s debt from $930 million to $165 million. The negotiated transaction will cost executives Dean Singleton and Jody Lodovic ownership control.

Equity in the struggling newspaper group will be issued to 116 creditors, a group led by Bank of America Corp. Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, will see its $400 million investment in MediaNews wiped out in the proceedings, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that Hearst declined comment.

It’s San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum, where readers set the agenda for topics of discussion. What’s on your mind?
NOTE: If you would like your commentary to be considered for publication in this week’s Metro, please include your full name and city of residence.

San Francisco pedestrians always know when they are walking by an Academy of Art University branch. Oone finds young, eclectically dressed hipsters, all loaded down with easels and tool boxes, many smoking American Spirits: art students. This modish scene may soon be re-created on the streets of downtown San Jose as the San Francisco-based AAU, the largest art design school in the country, is looking for a home in Silicon Valley.