San Jose Inside

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.

Santa Clara County’s poet laureate Nils Peterson may not have written a word of it, but he was proud to announce that the county’s official poem has finally been completed. The poem, entitled “A Family Album; Santa Clara County 2009,” was composed by hundreds of local residents, each of whom contributed a line. Peterson then selected 100 lines and fashioned them into a poem, divided into such sections as Work, People, Our Lives, What Was Lost, What’s Here, and The Look of Our Place.

When it comes to schools and classrooms, the prevailing wisdom is smaller is better. When you ask parents, teachers, administrators or counselors whether 20 students in a classroom is better than 30 for the overall quality of education you usually get an emphatic “yes.”  Unfortunately, the latest California budget crisis has led San Jose Unified’s Board of Education to vote for the elimination of class size reduction in K-3 for most of its elementary schools, on Superintendent Iglesias’ reluctant recommendation.

The 2009-2010 budget passed with full support of the Council in part by draining the City’s reserves (the economic uncertainty reserve has only enough funds to cover 1.5 days of payroll now) and by the negotiated/voluntary salary freezes by two unions CAMP and MEF (thank you).

In the case of MEF the money saved can be used to avoid layoffs and retain library hours. This tradeoff is good for residents and good for those who would have been laid off, since they would face a job market that has the highest unemployment rate since 1941.

All opinions on any topic are welcome on SJI’s weekly open forum. What’s on your mind?

Laurie Smith is widely considered a shoo-in to be re-elected as County Sheriff. She was first elected in 1998 by a fat majority of voters—becoming the first female sheriff in the state—and since then, her popularity has grown steadily. It was no surprise when Jose Salcido, the former head of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association (DSA), announced that he would run against her—he is becoming something of a perennial candidate. But this week, Salcido’s nemesis, former DSA vice president Joe Charvez, threw his hat into the ring as well.

In the midst of the city’s worst budget crisis and a worldwide recession, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed headed a panel yesterday that focused solely on the city’s upside, and new efforts to stimulate local business. “This is a no-bad-news zone,” Reed announced to a crowd of business leaders, investors, building owners and realtors gathered in the San Jose City Hall Rotunda for lunch.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom delivered an optimistic message about California’s prospects to members of the San Jose Rotary Club Wednesday. With a Kennedy-esque call to “renew the spirit of imagination” that has defined the state, the candidate for governor called California “a state not just of dreamers, but of doers and entrepreneurs.”