San Jose Inside

When Linda came to our office two Sundays ago, she was supposed to be escorted by her 25-year-old son Jerry. Jerry has just finished doing five months in prison on a parole violation. He was drunk and asleep at his girlfriend’s family house and her family (who doesn’t like him because he is a parolee) called the cops. When the police came, Jerry ran because he was on parole, and he ended up with a couple of misdemeanors—he was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. He was regretful and embarrassed, but they said it was a parole violation, so he had to serve time at San Quentin.

I know that Mayor Reed has not been in office for very long, but when will we start to see his impact?  It’s true that he has brought back a lot of respect, integrity and honesty to the position of mayor, but as a lifelong resident who feels that watching our local politicians make decisions is like watching paint dry, I want to see some vision—now!

The California High Speed Rail Authority voted to make San Jose one of the stops on the proposed High Speed Train Line. This November, the citizens of California will have the opportunity to decide whether or not to approve the initial round of funding for the project.  Bonds worth $9.9 billion will be needed to get the project going, with an additional $30 billion required in the future.

City Hall Diary

It is the latest City of San Jose acronym. GFSDEPSG stands for the three-year General Fund Structural Deficit Elimination Plan Stakeholder Group. Whew! Try saying that fast even once.

Welcome to everyone’s favorite free-for-all. What’s driving you crazy or making you happy this week?

Intense Immersion Period Planned For Summer Recess

California education officials set a high bar Wednesday for elected state officials:  All California state legislators will be required to pass a standard test for efficiency in English at an 8th grade level in order to serve.

Silicon Alleys

THEY SAY anniversaries are about celebrating the joys of today, the memories of yesterday and the hopes of tomorrow. As you read this, Gordon Biersch is in the middle of a 20th anniversary weeklong sequence of ticketed brewer’s dinners and beer hoedowns that will culminate with a Dionysian blowout this Saturday at the company’s original San Jose brewery and bottling facility on Taylor Street.

Food for Thought

Alcoholism is an insidious disease that knows no boundaries of age, sex, race, economic class, religion, or occupation. It is one of the most destructive forces in our society, not only harming the alcoholic, but everyone around them: spouses, children, family, friends, business partners and co-workers. Like most people, I have seen it and have felt its effects—in my case, a severely alcoholic friend, and my beloved late grandfather. I know firsthand that alcoholics will drive drunk, lie, cheat, steal, and commit fraud and other crimes, and even injure those who love them most, just to get a drink when they “need” one.

The Little Saigon debacle seemed mostly resolved when Mayor Chuck Reed signed a peace deal with protesters in the Vietnamese community that promised that banners displaying the “Little Saigon” name could be flown to officially recognize the Vietnamese retail area. But what wasn’t spelled out was how many banners could go up.

Looking Back to 1988

It was another time when I first became mayor in 1983. There were no first run movie theatres. The finest hotel was the Holiday Inn. The DeAnza and Sainte Claire were shuttered. No shopping, no sports, no pleasant river walks. The parks were seedy and unused. Needless to say, there was no real reason to come downtown except the noble arts groups, a few hardy pioneers like Camera 3 and Eulipia, and our nascent San Jose Museum of Art, gallantly fighting a Dunkirk-like battle, trying to stay alive to win a war.

Pop’s Mini-Mart, at the corner of King and Ocala on the eastside, is getting a facelift. But it isn’t just a cosmetic change; it’s the kind that can change the history and lives of a community that surrounds it. Frank “Poncho” Torres, an accomplished muralist whose work is all over the eastside, has steadily been crafting a masterpiece for the past seven months or so—a wall-sized mural that is a call to end gang violence and to locate this community in a larger cultural moment.

No, I am not going to attempt to rewrite the famous novel (even I am not that full of myself), but rather, start a discussion on something that needs to be discussed: how two cities, San Jose and Los Gatos, can both hold the same type of event, but with drastically different outcomes. 

The other day, on KLIV Radio, they called Joey “Dumbnut” (not his real name), “The Pride of San Jose.”  Mr. Dumbnut is a former winner of that stupid hot dog eating contest that is held every Fourth of July.  I can’t stand those contests.  I think that they are disgusting, and promote a very bad image for American society.

City Hall Diary

A while ago I wrote that I wanted to tour each council district. Well, I got my wish. I have been touring San Jose over the past few months and last Friday I spent the morning with my colleague, Nancy Pyle, who represents District 10.