San Jose Inside

“Independent” Needed For Review of Beltway Madam’s Records

In an unprecedented show of bipartisanship, a large group of powerful politicians from both sides of the aisle have retained the services of Stanford swim coach Skip Kenney in an effort to combat the recent “diversion” that has engulfed Washington D.C. and titillated a nation.

I usually don’t give more than a passing glance at news about the trials and tribulations of the giant roulette wheel on Wall Street. The hollow ring of their dog-ate-my-homework excuses for dips in market values, like the reasons dreamed up by the PR departments of the oil companies to explain the rise in gas prices while the price of a barrel of oil goes down, just never seem quite credible. However, the excuses given for the recent market falls—turmoil in the mortgage “industry” and the overvalued real estate market—caught my attention because of a local story in the Mercury News on Sunday.

It is always amazing to see how desperate political characters can be. Case in point: the assertion from the leader of the labor forces at the South Bay Labor Council, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, that “she” and “they” elected Pierluigi Oliverio. Their absence from all but the victory party was not because of fear or the fine canapés on election night, but because of a careful “strategery.” 

This past weekend, I took a trip with some girlfriends to the one and only “Sin City.” After getting up from a blackjack table, thinking about the $200 I essentially spent on three drinks, I had a few thoughts about if San Jose was more like Las Vegas.

Welcome to “Mission Green,” San Jose’s Neighborhood of the Future

Last week, I put forth the idea for a Google or Yahoo “Search and Discover Museum” to be developed at the old Martin Luther King Library property on W. San Carlos.  Before such an exciting project (or any other project) could be built there, space would have to be found for the 150 or more city employees who currently hold their offices there.

Hans Blix Continues Frantic Search For WSBs

In his first State of the City speech, Mayor Chuck Reed invoked City Council Resolution 678 that authorizes force against cost overruns. He vowed to “hunt down those responsible for the cowardly expenses,” and declared war on the budget gap by raising a citizen militia made up of several municipal groups trained in the art of expense reports.

People do not drive nearly as well as they used to in California. That’s a fact. Stand at the intersection of Market and Santa Clara Streets for ten minutes and you will see ten obvious violations at a minimum. In nearly every light cycle, someone will run a red light, another will illegally turn through a crosswalk full of pedestrians and nearly everyone going north on Market is speeding. There is a widespread lack of common courtesy, common sense and common decency among drivers these days.

And the End of the Storied Santana Row Boycott

Fiascos always have precedents as well as postscripts.  The mistake of land use in the Santana Row project was based on the same model that led to the destruction of downtown’s retail in the fifties and sixties. The postscript was written when Silicon Valley and Bay Area leaders challenged the absurd spending priorities of the California Transportation Commission last week. Chuck Reed, Carl Guardino and the others struck a blow for all of us when they got the state’s commission overseeing this spending to change their priorities.  Feeding the economic engine of the world here, our valley,  is crucially important to the US economy, and stands in stark contrast to some overpass in Tulare County or a “bridge to nowhere” in Modoc County. Every commuter in our valley should be grateful that Mayor Reed and the others were successful. It is the latest battle in the allocation of bond proceeds, but not the last.

So many things interest me in the District 6 election that is taking place today in San Jose.  First of all, as you are reading this, many people will have already voted for their candidate, as the absentee balloting is projected to be higher than ever. (Are we getting lazier or does no one get satisfaction from dropping their ballot in a box anymore?)

How About a “Search and Discover Museum”

Several months ago, the San Jose Business Journal reported that a plan to move the San Jose Art Museum to the old Martin Luther King Library building on W. San Carlos St. had fallen through.  What if the city were to entertain bids for a major developer and a major Silicon Valley corporation to work together to build a “Search and Discover Museum” that would serve as a hall for world class exhibitions and a permanent home for a West Coast annex of the Smithsonian Institute?

Rebound Predicted With Opening of City Pools

A plunge in stock markets worldwide Tuesday, including the biggest drop in the Dow Jones industrial average in nearly four years, served up a sober reminder for city officials who thought that the subsidized purchase of the Sobrato Tower by BEA would go unnoticed.

San Jose’s best annual event began its 17th year last night at the California Theatre with a Bay Area premiere showing of Indian director Mira Nair’s “The Namesake,” from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. This was quite a coup for our film festival as Nair’s previous film, “Vanity Fair,” starring Reese Witherspoon and former Cinequest honoree Gabriel Byrne, got a big Hollywood-blowout release. The filmmakers were on hand at the opening gala afterward.

I thought the story a week or so ago about improvements in our local transportation system was very informative.  Basically, it goes like this: the California Transportation Commission slanted the available funding to rural and non-economically important areas of the state. The Mercury News headline screamed: “South Bay Road Plans Dim.” They have refused, in some goofy pique or lack of sanity, to fund the economic engine of the free world: San Jose, Silicon Valley, us!  What are they thinking?

With all the negativity of Mardi Gras and the way it was handled in the city, I thought I would give you a positive view: how I actually spent my Mardi Gras.

While most professionals were scared away from downtown (for good reason), my friend talked me into grabbing dinner at the Poor House Bistro on Autumn Street.  Being that it is a New Orleans-style restaurant, we thought they would probably celebrate the holiday the authentic way—and we were spot on with that assessment.

How City Officials Snuck It Through

Very few people in San Jose know the story about the political maneuvering that paved the way for the San Jose Airport to be renamed for Norman Mineta.