San Jose Inside

SJI’s Rants & Raves has an open-door policy, especially in summertime: All opinions on any topic are welcome.

For local hotels and other downtown businesses, the $300 million McEnery Convention Center renovation project is vital for San Jose to remain competitive with nearby towns such as Santa Clara and San Mateo. Last year hotel owners even attempted to raise $150 million in private funds in order to keep the project on track. But with California’s budget crisis forcing state legislators to find new sources of money to close the gaping budget deficit, redevelopment projects such as this are an easy target.

Although it is struggling with a four-year $250 million deficit, BART may yet reach San Jose. The California Transportation Commission will be voting today whether to extend the service. To date, some $400 million has already been allocated to the project, which would add 16.1 miles of track to the line. Today’s vote is for another $40 million, the first installment of an expected $240 million. The total cost is expected to hover around $6.1 billion, much of which will come from federal funding. Santa Clara County voters narrowly approved a 1/8-cent sales tax to help pay for the extension in November.

Santa Clara County Prosecutor Ben Field announced yesterday that he would be leaving the District Attorney’s Office to work for the South Bay Labor Council. The announcement comes after a State Bar judge issued a harshly worded report recommending that Field be suspended for four years for ethical misconduct. Charges included withholding evidence from defense attorneys and disobeying a judge’s orders.

Former San Jose mayor Ron Gonzalez has been named as a potential candidate to head the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, a small but highly visible charity that caters to the needs of the local Latino community.

Gonzales had a meteoric rise in Santa Clara County, starting with his selection as the first Latino mayor of Sunnyvale. He later served as a county supervisor and was elected mayor of San Jose with a promise to rebuild the city’s neglected neighborhoods. Seen as a rising star in the local Latino community, Gonzales was tapped as a keynote speaker at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. But all was not well for Gonzales. In the coming years he had a well-publicized romance with an aide and was charged with backroom lobbying. Though Gonzales later married the aide and the charges against him were dismissed, Gonzales left office with his reputation tarnished.

The 2nd Annual Rose, White and Blue Parade put on by the Alameda Business Association (ABA) with assistance from the Redevelopment Agency, was a fun-filled day for everyone on Saturday, July 4.  In 1896, The Alameda (one of San Jose’s historical streets, dubbed the “Beautiful Way”) was home to the Carnival of Roses, which continued with The Fiesta de Las Rosas Parade in the ‘20s. At that time, it was second to only Pasadena in it’s size. However, this tradition like the trolley car that used to roll down The Alameda and the historic Hanchett Park Pillars faded away.

Through the motivation of the ABA, the parade was reborn last year, with former San Jose mayors Susan Hammer and Janet Gray Hayes as the grand marshals.

Happy 4th of July from SJI’s Rants & Raves. Thoughts and comments on patriotism, citizenship, independence and (yes) fireworks are welcome, as are thoughts on any topic.

San Jose State University recently announced the results of its annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The contest is named for Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, fondly remembered for a bastardization of the opening words of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Lt. Jose Salcido will be leaving the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office after more than three decades to become a senior policy advisor to San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. Salcido is currently the sheriff’s liaison to the county Department of Corrections and has taken out papers to run for sheriff. The mayor, who has known Salcido for 12 years, says the new appointee will be doing “community outreach’ on “community issues” and will advise him on law enforcement policy issues.

Over the years, San Jose Stage Company’s annual political-theater event, Monday Night Live, has gotten less vicious in its political satire while amping up sex humor and punctuating skits with F-bombs. Last year, library porn filter champion Pete Constant achieved notoriety by donning a kinky S&M ball-gag. Constant bravely returned to the scene of the crime on Monday with another, slightly less risque, dominatrix-themed skit. But his aide, Jim Cogan, a council candidate himself, showed the lengths to which aspiring officeholders will go for public attention.

What a week it was, and I am not just talking about Michael Jackson’s tragic and sad death…A newly released Civil Grand Jury Report titled, “Who Really Benefits from Educational Dollars?” (Hint: It’s not the students), and the calculated demise of the 117-year-old school/district known as Montebello, were discussion points at weekend gatherings.

The consent calendar on the city council agenda comes after the City’s ceremonial items are completed. The difference between “consent” items and the rest of the agenda is that the consent items are suppose to be composed of “rubber stamp” issues like excused absences for councilmembers, final adoption of ordinances that were already voted on at previous council meetings, etc. As a result, all the consent items are voted on at once.  However, any councilmember or member of the public has the right to “pull” an item from the consent calendar which requires that the item be voted on separately than the rest.

It’s SJI’s open forum, and today’s topic is anything you want it to be. What’s on your mind?

Mayor Chuck Reed joined eight other mayors of California’s largest cities in Sacramento on Wednesday to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stay away from local tax revenues. Faced with a $24 billion budget deficit, the Governor has proposed taking revenues from the cities’ gas and property taxes and from local transportation funds.