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Sans Liccardo

As 8pm rolled around at O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub on San Pedro Square, where the Sam Liccardo’s victory party was taking place, Tim Hennessey, Liccardo’s Republican opponent, walked by the crowded pub. The former Johnny V’s bouncer-turned-candidate approached Kyra Kazantzis, a local lawyer and Liccardo campaign volunteer, as she was strolling into the party.

“He asked me, ‘Is that Sam Liccardo’s party?’” she said. When she responded yes, “He said, ‘I’m Sam’s running mate, Tim Hennessey.’” He then bid adieu and walked away in his immaculate suit.

City Managers Offer to Take Pay Cut

With all union employees being asked to take a 10 percent pay cut, it stands to reason that the city’s top-paid managers could take a cut of their own. They offered to, without even being asked. Alex Gurza, San Jose’s Director of Employee Relations, says that the city’s top managers are willing to take a 5 percent cut now, with an additional 5 percent cut at some later date. The cuts should be approved by City Council toward the end of the month.

Unions Question City Hall Contracts

Union Leader Randy Sekany pounds the table and rails about the way the city spends money.

“I mean, $150,000 on ergonomic chairs? When you’re firing people? When you’ve cut back how many employees? There’s not a few spare chairs around? Really?”

Sekany circulated a document around City Hall headlined “City Spending Gone Wild,” which details more than $7 million worth of expenditures on a range of items and services, from hybrid Priuses to real estate assessments. The union assembled the numbers in response to City Manager Debra Figone’s request that they take a 10 percent pay cut, reduce the number of engine companies from 34 to 29 and lay off 80-plus sworn firefighters.

San Jose Natives Are Restless

Have you noticed, there’s been more than a few angry letters to the editor submitted to the Mercury News by San Jose residents over the past few weeks?  It seems that folks are a bit ticked-off by the present condition of their city, and are placing the blame on the city council and the unions that run them.  (Yes, that’s right…the unions run the council.)

San Jose 2010 State of the City Address

Full text of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s 2010 State of the City Address, delivered February 18, 2010 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California.

What’s in the Cards for San Jose Budget?

With a record budget deficit approaching $100 million and the limited sources of income dwindling in the recession, San Jose’s City Council is looking for creative ways to raise income. According to City Councilmember Nora Campos, “the only one of the items that even polled fair and that we may have an opportunity to receive some revenues” is the expansion of San Jose’s licensed card tables. According to Mayor Chuck Reed, the resulting tax revenues could be as much as $2-3 million per year.

District 7 Council Candidate: Carpetbagger?

The last time Dr. Patrick Phu Le showed up in the news, it was for being arrested after attacking a press photographer he accused of being a communist spy. Now, the longtime Vietnamese community activist and current candidate for the District 7 seat on the San Jose City Council has exactly one week to move to San Jose if he still wants to run.

Downtown to City: Wake Up and Smell the Caffeine

This week’s Metro Silicon Valley cover story, excerpted here, discusses a stimulus plan authored by Councilmember Sam Liccardo and three colleagues, and the reaction of downtown businesses to the city’s efforts to reawaken a downtown economy that went off-track.

Council Courts Olympic Trials

The San Jose City Council weighed the possibility of hosting the U.S. Gymnastics Team’s Olympic Trials at today’s city council meeting. The Council went over a memorandum Mayor Chuck Reed issued on Jan. 15, outlining the city’s bidding effort for the event.

Planting the Seeds of San Jose’s Economic Resurgence

As this week brings news of our local unemployment rate just beginning to taper downward, local businesses are peering out from their frozen dens for the first signs of Spring.  That’s of little solace to thousands of our families still losing their homes and jobs, but it does raise a crucial question as we try to get people back to work: how can we best communicate to businesses that they should make San José the place to grow?

Constantin Says Goodbye to San Jose

Chris Constantin, a performance auditor for the City of San Jose and local political figure, announced today that he is leaving the area. In a letter to colleagues, he said he is taking a job as Deputy City Auditor in San Diego.

Constantin made news last year when he was appointed by the City Council to serve as the Independent Police Auditor. He resigned the post a week later, after it was revealed that his brother is an SJPD officer.

Academy of Art University Eyes San Jose

San Francisco pedestrians always know when they are walking by an Academy of Art University branch. Oone finds young, eclectically dressed hipsters, all loaded down with easels and tool boxes, many smoking American Spirits: art students. This modish scene may soon be re-created on the streets of downtown San Jose as the San Francisco-based AAU, the largest art design school in the country, is looking for a home in Silicon Valley.

City Threatens to Shutter Pot Clubs

The city of San Jose issued a memo today threatening to shut down three pot clubs within the city limits if they refuse to stop selling medical cannabis for a fee.

The memo, released this afternoon by Joseph Horwedel, director of the Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement, stated that the department has received complaints and is in the process of investigating Pharmers Health Center Cooperative, Inc., San Jose Cannabis Buyer’s Collective and Medileaf Collective. UPDATED 5:27

San Jose 2010

This is a big year for the City of San Jose and its future. The City faces a $100 million budget deficit. Mayor Reed and the rest of the council will have to pull the proverbial rabbit out of a hat. Unfortunately, things may get worse before they get any better. Truth is, there’s no rabbit…there may not even be a hat!

Giants vs. A’s in San Jose

Councilman Sam Liccardo tells Fly that political consultants working for the San Francisco Giants have been “push-polling” to turn the San Jose public against the idea of the Oakland A’s franchise coming to the South Bay. A push-poll (for anyone who missed the 2000 Republican primary, in which the George Bush campaign famously used the tactic against Sen. John McCain) is an attack masquerading as a telephone poll. Liccardo says the Giants have been calling people in his district asking if they agree or disagree that city resources should be spent on police, fire fighters, parks, trails…or “land giveaways.”

San Jose’s Native Gen X’ers

I turned 40 in December. I spent my birthday with family and long-time friends. Many of my friends I have known since age five, from kindergarten in San Jose Unified School District, which equates to knowing most of my friends for more than 30 years. The majority of my friends are not political in their occupations and nearly all of them have never been to a San Jose Council meeting. Instead, they are teachers, nurses, Realtors, attorneys, tech folks, blue-collar skilled tradesmen, stay-at-home parents and—as my Mom likes to point out— most are married with children.

Many of my native San Jose friends have a very positive outlook towards San Jose. Their views are somewhat different than what I hear in my council office, where, typically, I hear alot about what is wrong with our city or questions as to why things aren’t done differently.