San Jose Inside

Budget Figures Tell the Tale

Ah, it’s springtime in San Jose.  The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and the roses at the Rose Garden are…well, never mind.

It’s also budget season, and the preliminary budget numbers coming from the San Jose city government are not exactly encouraging.  The sources for the information that follows are:  The City Manager’s Budget Message, The 2007-2008 Proposed Operating Budget, and the city’s transportation department. Read ‘em and weep:

Is it Legal and Ethical?

The until-now little-known scheme of refinancing school district bond debts for capital expenditure and refunding the difference to the districts known as “cash out” is being challenged in court by a local group, Citizens for School Bond Accountability, chaired by Jill B. Escher. They have exposed that the San Jose Unified School District is skimming the difference created by lowering interest rates through refinancing the 1997 Measure C bonds in 2005, earmarking the considerable sum of $20.4 million for new projects rather than returning it to the taxpayers.

The departure of Susan Goldberg from the executive editor position at the Mercury News is a loss for the community.  She helped chart the way through some of the most difficult days in American media history, and the times they were indeed changing.  I guess Cleveland needs her much more that San Jose did.  Goldberg’s exit is the third major loss to the community from the ranks of the Mercury, following the much lamented departures of Tony Ridder, CEO of the media conglomerate, and David Yarnold, who single-handedly made the editorial pages relevant again, elevating the outcry over corruption at City Hall to a much needed fever pitch. I hope we see Goldberg again soon.

Ok, I know this topic has been discussed before, and sometimes it takes a while for me to get certain things through my thick skull, but how hard is it to complete the Guadalupe River Park Trail?  I mean, this isn’t the transcontinental railroad we’re talking about here, though I think that may have been built and completed faster than the few miles of trails we need in San Jose.

City Hall Diary

It is 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday May 8. I just finished attending my second community meeting of the night. The day has flown by!

My day began at 9:30 a.m. with a long closed-session meeting followed by a “Good Government” event at Adobe. I then went to the 1:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon city council meeting. The garbage rate increase was on the agenda today. Although many people attended the meeting, I felt that this item should have been heard at night.

Are the People of San Jose Ready to Change the
Rules?

The “Golden Rule” in politics is simple: “He (or she)who has the gold, makes the rules.”  San Jose’s gold does not belong to its people. And the people certainly don’t make the rules.

Budget Cuts to Mental Health Services in Question

Varmints are in the news again this week as renegade squirrels descended on a sleepy South San Jose school on Wednesday and attacked several students and a room mom during snack time.

The 28 percent hike in garbage rates for single-family homes approved by the San Jose City Council by a vote of 8-2 on Tuesday seems to have been a very unpopular move. The increase averages about $5.65 per month, raising the current rate from $20.15 to $25.80 for about 55 percent of the city’s residents. (Putting it into perspective, the increase equals about 20 miles’ worth of gas in one of those jumbo SUVs that can be seen with the naked eye from the moon or an iceberg lettuce side salad at an average overpriced Silicon Valley restaurant.)

In the wake of some of the worst land use decisions in the history of our valley, we are faced with a real dilemma: do we use our General Plan as a guide to budgetary decisions and building a better city or do we take the expedient route of rationalization and profit?  As they elect a new leader in France, I am reminded of the legendary, but never-spoken line of a doomed queen, “Let them eat cake.”  Well, for too long we have been given such cavalier and foolish judgment in our land use decisions.  The demands of the few—the privileged class of political insiders—has predominated over the needs of our citizens.

As I was watching the Sharks lose another game to the Detroit Red Wings this weekend, I thought about the feelings of disappointment, lack of confidence and heartbreak that San Jose’s only sports team is putting us through for another year in a row. Then I thought about how those athletes must feel?  Do they take it as hard as we do?  Is a sweet victory greater for them than for us? And, in turn, is a horrible defeat, like the one on Saturday (and Wednesday for that matter), worse for them or for us? 

City Hall Diary

During my first month in office, I have attended various community meetings. The residents at these meetings continue to share that they want their parks maintained, swimming pools opened, traffic calming measures funded, historic neighborhoods preserved, bike lanes installed, trails completed and the list goes on.  Most, if not all, of these needs require money. Streets don’t pave themselves and speed bumps to calm traffic don’t just bubble up from the street.

Research Agency Says Medical Waste Valuable

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced its plans to build a $1 billion state-of-the-art research facility in San Jose after the city’s Guadalupe landfill was identified as the nation’s tenth largest repository for untreated medical waste.

After a long Monday, we could discuss the Sharks’ win over Detroit (third game winners go on to win the series 70 percent of the time) or the strange vote at the San Jose City Council on the Evergreen development—where six members gave the okay to “study” the conversion of over 200 acres of job-creating land to housing—or even the boom in downtown high-rise housing with the optimism that springs from it.  No, I will resist all these issues, although it is tempting to ask why six council members wished to give away 200 acres of tax base for more traffic. Old habits—selling out the future—apparently die hard even in the new City Hall.

Well, we’ve really made the big time now: Oprah!  The words “San Jose” actually graced her lips as the best place for a single gal to meet men.  Now, before you all rant and rave about how superficial I am or that there must be 1,000 things wrong with me and that is why I am still single, let’s talk about where all the throngs of single men are really hiding—unless they are just hiding from me.

City Hall Diary

San Jose has opportunities to build tall buildings in North San Jose and create large parks at the same time.  I am hopeful that we will take advantage of these opportunities so that we can create great places and huge parks.

Currently in North San Jose, we are in the midst of a “build up” for commercial office and transit village housing. I support this for many reasons: jobs, tax base, light rail, and the Guadalupe River Park Trail, among others.  Industry leads housing development; thus, I believe we should move forward with land use incrementally.