San Jose Inside

Attentive followers of SJI will notice a subtle change in the front page design:: we’ve begun reorganizing San Jose Inside by topics rather than by writer. This change is reflected in the navigation menu at the top of the page. A drop-down menu appears with the names of regular contributors when a mouse pointer is moved over the “Columnists” tab.

Recently I learned that the Cat Lady of San Jose, Sadie Malone, sadly has passed away. She was the hero who for 16 years cared for several wild cats out in the ivy trenches between the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts and the Guadalupe River. She went out of her way to make sure these cats were always provided for, and out of pure kindheartedness people would regularly donate money for her cause. You could just feel the overflowing compassion involved with such an effort. That Malone died the day after Christmas made the situation even more poignant.

It was somewhat ironic that Councilwoman Nora Campos couldn’t make it to the Rules Committee meeting Wednesday because she was stuck in a meeting regarding the proposed San Pedro Urban Square Market. Ironic because while Campos was talking with the Elections Commission, her colleagues were refusing to help her in her lonely effort to defeat that plan. Updated 3:45

Cell Phones and YouTube Usher in a New Era of Accountability

Through the eye of a cell phone camera, an outraged and shocked public witnessed the shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant at a BART station in Oakland in the early morning hours of the first day of 2009. And now, as a result, a tragically common American story—young black male killed by a police officer—may be headed toward an uncommon ending: justice being served.

The Sword of Damocles hanging by a horse hair over the heads of the legislators in Sacramento is about to drop come Feb. 1.  The two choices have been to increase revenue and/or cut programs/spending in order to dig us out of the grave we starting digging when we passed Proposition 13 over 30 years ago. If I begin from the premise that K-12 education is over 40 percent of the state budget, then education, along with all other state-funded programs, must share in the pain.

If the vote to ban gay marriage in California did anything for the conservative Christian movement, it confirmed that they have just enough political clout to get by in a blue state. It clearly boosted San Jose’s Values Advocacy Council, which worked hard to pass Prop. 8 in the November election. The group isn’t stopping there.

Former San Jose State University literature professor Shelby Steele, now a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is in the news today for taking issue with the GOP’s distribution of a racially inappropriate video, Barack, the Magic Negro.

So Leon Panetta has no experience in intelligence, huh? Could have fooled San Jose attorney Bill Gates, who sat at a desk facing President-elect Obama’s choice for CIA chief for two years in the 1960s at Fort Ord. Gates and Panetta worked together in a military intelligence unit in 1965 and 1966, before Panetta launched a career in politics by joining the staff of U.S. Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel, a moderate California Republican whose head was handed to him when he refused to kowtow to the party’s nascent right wing.

Leon E. Panetta, the former Monterey Bay area congressman and White House chief of staff, is President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to national news reports quoting Democratic insiders. Panetta has degrees in political science and law from Santa Clara University. “He couldn’t have picked a better guy,” says San Jose attorney Bill Gates, a longtime friend.

2008 was certainly a roller-coaster ride. From the rise and fall of oil to the housing market collapse and finally the recession. 2009 will be a challenging year for each and every one one of us.

It’s a brand new year, and 2009 means big changes. Posters this weekend are sounding off about the disappearance of a website known for its anonymous personal attacks on its political adversaries.

Most cities revel in their own pop culture landmarks or specific locales tied to things that celebrities did there. For example, much hoopla survives about the road outside Paso Robles where James Dean crashed and died, the garage that spawned Hewlett-Packard, or that stretch of highway in Malibu where Mel Gibson got his infamous DUI.  San Jose has a few similar sites, for example, the house on Jackson Street where Nirvana stayed in 1990.

I will suggest another local landmark which might possibly achieve similar notoriety: the city utilities box at the corner of Fruitdale and Southwest Expressway, where Shepard Fairey, on Aug. 2, 2000, plastered a promotional poster for his art show at Anno Domini the next night.

Another year. They all seem to blend together at a certain point. Part of the problem of getting older, I guess, is the sameness. But it’s also an opportunity. You can see the similarities with a bit of perspective, and enjoy the way things seems so calm and, even, I venture, understandable. When you look at San Jose, you can’t help but getting a warm and positive feeling. Even in the face of the greatest economic downturn in our lifetimes, people remain positive and even hopeful for the new year.

Incoming Councilmember Rose Herrera is already stirring up drama on the 18th floor after she abruptly fired her senior policy analyst Mark Tiernan—two days before the holiday break. It seemed even more odd to some City Hall staffers, considering Tiernan was the lead man on Herrera’s transition team—and was her top pick for chief of staff. So what happened?

Citizens do the City’s job by revitalizing San Jose’s Rose Garden.

The San Jose Mercury News Editorial Board recently applauded the efforts of Terry Reilly and Beverly Hopper, who trained and organized the many volunteers who repaired and rejuvenated the San Jose Rose Garden. Thanks to the volunteers’ hard work, the Rose Garden regained its certification from the All-America Rose Selections organization. The Mercury News pointed out that the volunteers served to rebuild the city’s relationship with volunteers, and wondered if the Friends of the Rose Garden model could be applied to other public spaces that “lack the magic of roses.”

Now, I’m all for volunteering…but should the citizens of San Jose be asked to volunteer and do work that is supposed to be performed by city employees who are paid by taxpayer money?