San Jose Inside

It is well known that the city of San Jose is on its way to banning single-use plastic bags starting in Jan 2011. An ordinance will come back to Council in 2010 for final adoption which will contain different options. The most problematic option I could see is a fee put on single-use bags.

Having Joan Baez open the series of high-profile weekend concerts might seem an odd choice at first, but it turns out to have been a brilliant programming decision. Her bicultural background (her physicist father Albert Baez was from Puebla, Mexico), local residence and iconic stature as an international political activist and singer certainly provide her with the credentials to fit the festival opener role. However, the great service she performed for the festival as a whole in her concert was to strategically place the traditions of Spanish-language songs (from Mexico, Spain, Chile and other Latin American countries) firmly within the context of her explorations of the “Great American Songbook,” thus affirming her own dual cultural background while illustrating and informing the intellectual and philosophical cultural crossroads the festival has become. 

It’s San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum, where thoughts on any topic are welcome. What’s on your mind?

The San Jose City Council is moving forward with its efforts to reduce the volume of plastic bags being used (and discarded) in the city.  By now, everyone’s heard, that an estimated one million plastic bags end up in San Francisco Bay every year. 

Perhaps bringing re-useable bags to the grocery store will soon become a common practice and habit that requires very little thinking.  And, perhaps the new requirements will generate measurable results.  But I do think that there are a couple of questions surrounding this issues that have received very little attention so far.

It has been announced that 2009 San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival Artistic Director Linda Ronstadt will be singing with Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano in Cesar Chavez Plaza around 5 p.m. this Sunday evening, September 27, to close the annual, all-day Feria del Mariachi.

At the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, 24 staff members are about to get laid off—out of a total staff of 109. The decision, called “heart-wrenching” by Agency head Harry Mavrogenes, was the inevitable outcome of a state raid on the RDA’s funds in an effort to cover Sacramento’s own deficit. This year the state is grabbing $62 million; next year it plans to take another $13 million. All of this is in addition to the $13 million that the state took in 2008. The layoffs will save the RDA about $3.1 million.

In a few weeks it will be 20 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake that rocked the Bay Area at 5:04 P.M. on Oct. 17, 1989. Tragically sixty-three people were killed on that fateful day, however the infrastructure damage done by the shaking has been repaired, even better than before

San Jose Earthquakes owner Lew Wolff was the keynote speaker at the Soccer Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SSVCF) annual dinner at the Fairmont Hotel Saturday night. At a highly anticipated event, Wolff showed a 10-minute video presentation that included architectural designs of what the proposed soccer stadium across Coleman Avenue from the Mineta San Jose International Airport will look like, once corporate sponsorships are finally secured. SSVCF is a not a booster club—they are not technically affiliated with the Earthquakes.

Last week, at the Council meeting, there was a contentious land use item. A housing developer is asking the council to approve a rezoning of land to allow a 117-unit affordable Shared Room Occupancy (SRO).

Currently, there are business owners, adjacent property owners, and residents who do not support this project. I have been a councilmember for more than two years and I have never seen each of these groups on the same page. Ninety-five percent of the adjacent property owners are against the rezoning. They took the time to file and get their signatures notarized for a zoning protest application and therefore it requires eight council votes to approve the project instead of six.

It’s Saturday, Sept. 19, and this is SJI’s open forum—the last of the summer of ‘09. What’s on your mind?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the greenest of them all? San Francisco claims it is, but so do Seattle, Portland, and even Detroit, home of the Big Three automakers. Since he came into office, Mayor Chuck Reed has been pitching San Jose is as the nation’s green capital, and he will prove it to anyone who doubts him.

There’s been a lot of chatter about the reasons why Van Jones had to leave his position as the green-jobs czar for the White House. One theory has it that Fox’s Glen Beck is to blame for his constant hammering about Van Jones’ past controversial statements. The line advanced here was that Beck was seeking revenge for being made the target of a boycott by the group, Color For Change (co-founded by Jones). Color For Change lobbied a number of advertisers to stop sponsoring Beck’s show.

The San Jose City Council continued its overwhelming support of bringing major league baseball to San Jose at Tuesday’s council meeting, voting unanimously to approve the findings of an economic impact report on the potential ballpark.

Deputy DA Jeff Rosen (left), prosecuted murder defendant Paul Garcia, in handcuffs (right). Photo: Los Gatos Observer

Deputy DA Jeff Rosen and Assistant DA Rolanda Pierre-Dixon appear to be testing the agua to run against District Attorney Dolores Carr. And Rosen, according the the county registrar’s office, just pulled papers of intention to run and organize a committee. The Mercury News, which has been riding Carr’s derriere ever since she defeated Karen Sinunu, appears to be goading Rosen into the race. This wasn’t always the case. The Mercury included Rosen as one of its poster boys for prosecutorial misconduct in its “Tainted Trials” series. The daily cited an appellate court decision finding that Rosen ignored a judge’s orders when cross-examining a defendant.

Last week, the federal government reported that 556 people have died of Swine Flu in the United States so far this year.  The Center For Disease Control recently cautioned that as many as 90,000 Americans could die from the disease if precautionary methods and practices are not set in place and followed