San Jose Inside

I wish to tell the true story of a real incident from a century ago when a local fire captain suffered the same fate as John Wayne Bobbitt, and it happened right here in San Jose. As a matter of fact, it happened on what is now San Pedro Square.

Businessess to Relocate at Fairgrounds

Just days after the Mardi Gras melee, and in anticipation of St. Patrick’s day celebrations, several city department heads called a community wide meeting with downtown business owners, property owners, and nightclub operators to announce downtown was being converted into one big nightclub.

The current issue of The Wave speaks of the impending doom of 16 palm trees on Park Avenue to provide a wider passing lane for the upcoming San Jose Grand Prix.  The relocation of the trees is not a done deal, but those opposed are being enslaved and relocated to Alviso to work on crawdad farms.

There is an interesting battle brewing in Santa Clara County that will decide the future of transit, transportation and, perhaps, a politician or two.  It revolves around the recent county effort to place a half-cent sales tax increase on the June ballot. It is intended to bail out the BART project; maybe “bail out” is incorrect—more appropriately we might say “save.”  But it is being strangely combined with other county projects as a tax to fund several items other than BART, like hospitals and housing for low-income people. You see, put in this form the measure needs only a bare majority vote to pass, while as a transit measure, it would take an unlikely two-thirds vote.

I was driving in my car last night and an advertisement came on the radio supporting Michael Mulcahy’s campaign for mayor.  It wasn’t his platform that struck me but his opening statement that he is “not a politician.”  Has politics gone so wrong that someone who is running for public office would state such a claim? Isn’t it a little like interviewing doctors to help with what ails you and one doctor saying, “And best of all, I am not even a doctor!”

Who was San Jose’s most famous lady?  Could it have been a woman with magical powers to heal and locate rich iron mines, who believed that optimistic thinking and a sound diet were the keys to good health?

$4 Million Subsidy Approved for Bare-Breasted Bacchanalia

The City of San Jose has chosen Team San Jose, a California non-profit public benefit corporation led by Con-Vis Chief Dan Fenton, to organize and run a Girls Gone Wild Silicon Valley Edition that will take place in downtown San Jose in mid-August.

When I think of the qualifications that I will look for in our next mayor, it is much different than what I would have looked for eight years ago.  I believe that ethics will be at the top of everyone’s list this time. Moral character and ethics are absolutely critical to the person that is going to lead this city for the next eight years. 

Yesterday, Single Gal gave her unvarnished look at the six who would be mayor, unfazed and unfettered by any personal knowledge or great familiarity with any of them. I am more encumbered—I know all of them and I like them all as people. Many of them have done good things on the council and in their public careers.  But this is not an election about who we like, though some make their choices in this manner.  It is about the type of city we wish to build for our children and grandchildren and want to live in ourselves. We need to decide who can best deliver this kind of city.

Alright, alright people!  Not enough politics on this site?  Well here is my two cents on the political scene, Single Gal style (as I am sipping Mai Tais in a tropical location far from San Jose).  Here are a couple of quick, initial thoughts on the candidates before the real fun begins!

The canning industry got its start in 1871 when Dr. Dawson and his wife canned some fruit over an old cook stove in their backyard on The Alameda.  From this humble start, a huge industry developed right here in San Jose for three basic reasons: the fruit was grown here, there was a ready supply of labor and two railroads, Western Pacific and Southern Pacific, built rail sidings right to the canning plants.

Watchdog Groups Fear Censorship

Hot on the heels of Google’s successful implementation of their internet-censoring product in China, Mayor Gonzales has ordered the popular new totalitarian version of the search engine’s “Great Firewall” software to be immediately installed on his City Hall net servers. All internet searches originating within the city will now be routed through this new google.com/rg network.

Mark the 25th of March on your calendar, PDA, or forearm. On that day, the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV) will be in Alviso for a monument dedication, and everyone is invited, even Alvisophobes. The plaque will commemorate the port and town of Alviso. Yes, Alviso was a port, and though it was illegally subsumed into San Jose in 1968, it is for all practical purposes still a town, in appearance like a Mexican village (not counting a few rows of $700,000 townhouses).

Well, here we go—the race for mayor is on. With the addition of David Pandori, the field is now at six. Or is it? 

After a Friday night out in San Jose that consisted of a Sharks game and a trip to O’Flaherty’s for a few drinks, my group of friends and I decided that we wanted to go dancing.  But, since it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, did the desire to dance in San Jose mean I needed to take my life into my own hands?