San Jose Inside

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?

Soccer Stadium Should Be Put to a Vote

On March 9th, the SF Chronicle reported that developer Lew Wolff is moving closer to a deal with the city and San Jose State that would bring a new soccer/football stadium to San Jose.

“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.”