San Jose Inside

Do you remember your 8th grade graduation? I do. I graduated from Hoover Middle School in 1984 at the Municipal Rose Garden Park in the historic Rose Garden neighborhood. I remember the day perfectly. I wore my best collared shirt with slacks and sported a “bowl-style” haircut.  The sun was shining, the smell of roses lingered in the air, and the freshly-mowed grass was dark green. I remember walking through the pristine gardens with the girl whom I had a crush on. Students and parents took family photos in the gardens with the colorful roses as a natural backdrop.

Partnership Could Give Legal Status to Thousands of Mustelids

In an unlikely partnership that has Ferrets Anonymous members grasping victory from the jaws of defeat, the South Bay Labor Council and the illegal ferret group have joined forces, setting a precedent that has other lobbying organizations redefining what it means to recruit.

With a clear mandate from the voters and armed with his popular reform agenda, Mayor Reed dragged the old-guard San Jose City Council Members by their hair to a unanimous vote authorizing the taking of the first baby steps toward ending the excesses of the Gonzales era. That’s more than a full measure of ifs, ands and buts, I know, but could this really be the beginning of the beginning of the end of the eight year free-for-all? Is our council going to go back through the looking glass without some kicking, screaming or scheming? If these reforms are going to work, every single member of the council has to voluntarily follow them to the letter. Excuse me if I think this may be a bit overoptimistic.

As tempting as it is to write this week on the navel gazing of the San Jose Police Department and its study of itself suggesting some important and disturbing targeting of minorities, I will save that until another day. My topic today is the one that refuses to go away, the Tombstone (“the town too tough to die”) of our time. It is the scam of the century, the development too lucrative to die: Coyote Valley. Like Freddy Krueger, no matter how many times it is declared dead in innumerable study sessions and elections or in the pronouncements of mayors and budget directors and editorial writers, the new city of sprawl and delusion keeps coming back. No one can drive a stake in its heart, protected as it is by the woolly thinking of certain council members, the Hessians of the lobbying cult, and an impenetrable Kevlar vest of greenbacks and cynicism.

I was fascinated to read in the Mercury News on Monday about the Willow Glen house that was deemed a “junkyard” and how the owners are being taken to court on charges of “blight.” When I read it was in Willow Glen, I wondered if this house was really as bad as it was made out to be, or if it was the work of the Willow Glenites—the same ones that put their PierreLuigi signs in the exact same spot on their lawns a la The Stepford Wives. Would this be happening in any other neighborhood in San Jose?

Is There Some Hope?

As we look at the past, it is important to remember that the same leadership (I use the term loosely) that presided over the sad demise of San Jose’s credibility in the last decade was the predominant force on the VTA Board.  This is not much to inspire confidence or faith in anything, let alone a leap of faith like BART.

A’s Owner Given Mitchell Block, Iraq, and Rights to Develop Synthetic Life Forms in Exchange

In a brilliant move that will get Supervisor Blanca Alvarado’s long-stalled and litigious legacy project at the county fairgrounds back on track, A’s owner and real estate magnate Lew Wolff has agreed to tackle the deteriorating morass in exchange for a vacant block of downtown property, a war-ravaged country and the potential to own a new species.

Like everyone else in San Jose, I have been following the controversy over the government’s mishandling of the friendly-fire killing of local football hero Pat Tillman with mounting incredulity. If a family with the profile and PR horsepower of the Tillmans can’t get the truth from the government, think what it must be like for the 3,300 other families of dead American soldiers. Will the exposure of the lies told to the Tillman family have any effect on the rest of America, sitting in front of our radio and TV newscasts that endlessly repeat the talking points of the White House and Pentagon snow jobs that pass for information these days?

Part I

The organizational audit for the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) presents a picture neither unexpected nor unwarranted.  It clearly exposes that not only does the emperor have no clothes, but he may not even be the emperor. 

I always feel like we are so lucky to have events like Sweet Sixteen and Elite 8 in our town. However, it’s interesting to note that as each event comes and goes, there are those who love every minute and naysayers who react negatively about our city as a result.

To Whom Do The City’s Entitlements Belong?

Last week, I argued that providing for the construction of a new stadium through the use of city entitlements is a course of action that should be approved by a vote of the people.  If the city council can facilitate a deal that generates $80-90 million to fund a stadium, why can’t they do a similar deal to fix the city’s streets and parks?  The City of San Jose has a street resurfacing backlog list of some 300 miles.  How many miles do you suppose will be taken off that list this year given the city’s $16 million budget deficit?

Loss Directly Attributable to Lack of Play Book

Larry Emilio Maschino has struck again.  The mysterious man who posed as a rich, generous patron of the arts promising to lavish the community with millions in donations, ended up on the bench of the Southern Illinois Saluki basketball team posing as their head coach in a close loss to the Kansas Jayhawks.

It comes as no surprise that a recent survey conducted by Menlo Park think tank SRI International found that 89 percent of California’s schools do not meet state standards for arts education. Most of them, including the schools in the San Jose Unified School District, don’t even come close. While the immediate problem is a woeful lack of funding—a pitiful $15 per student annually at present—the underlying problem is that many parents and those who administer the state’s school system lack an understanding of the merits of a comprehensive arts education program.

There was a strange and bizarre convergence of issues at the San Jose City Council this week. On the one hand, there was the 1stACT Silicon Valley presentation of proposals for downtown—large and small items that included expanding the Convention Center, building a baseball stadium and 21st century light tower, and creating more Guadalupe River trails, as well as fountains and quiet spots that are a treasure to any city.  They accurately presented them as big projects and “small wonders.” A key man behind this was the Adobe CEO, Bruce Chizen, as good a friend as downtown dreamers have had in a long while, and the main presenter was Connie Martinez of the Children’s Discovery Museum. The finances were unspoken, but the vision was impressive.  It is a wonderful look at what might be.

I thought I would take the discussion up a notch to the national level and talk about Barack Obama. He is really taking the country by storm, and it’s beyond refreshing to see. When is the last time you remember someone exciting the country like this?