San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
Gangs Sent to New York to “Solve” Problem
The San Jose City Council has decided to rededicate itself to bringing home the title of “Safest Big City in America” by allocating several million dollars to send dozens of convicted gang members to New York City by bus to commit crimes.
Like everyone else who went to college, I took Economics 101 and read Adam Smith. I guess I got the wrong idea about the meaning of the “free market”—at least that is what I am learning from the current attempt to bring Nvidia to the Sobrato building in downtown San Jose. Apparently, it means the cost of operating these profitable businesses is passed on to the taxpayers.
One of the hallmarks of fair and responsible campaigns in our city has always been the limits on the amount of dollars that could be contributed to a candidate for mayor. Many times, the special interests and mendacious politicians (not always a given) tried to get the limits raised above the five hundred dollars per person cap and were consistently rebuffed. Raising campaign money should be hard. There should be no bundling or bag men in the guise of lobbyists doing the dirty work. These forces tried it twenty years ago when I was mayor and more recently with little success; the limits held.
Has the Mercury News changed?
That was the September 8 headline on San Jose Inside. At last count, there were nearly 90 posts in answer to that question, though in truth about half of them seemed to be from two people arguing over who was more hateful and who was more racist.
I certainly have no intention of diving into that well. But I was struck by some of what I read about the paper, and, as the Mercury News’ executive editor, I’d like to address it. I appreciate the invitation from the editor of San Jose Inside to write a guest column to do so.
When you’ve worked at newspapers for 25-plus years, it’s probably unavoidable that you develop a thick skin about what people say about what you do. And at a large paper like ours—with more than 680,000 readers on weekdays, and some 740,000 on Sundays—you hear a lot, some of it positive but, given human nature, more of it not.
Supervisors Welcome the Challenge to Revitalize the Theater
In an attempt to put a positive spin on the County’s defeated music hall proposal, the supervisors lauded the city after a unanimous council vote effectively turned the management of the beleaguered San Jose Repertory Theater over to the county.
Starbucks and Prolific Oven Fall to Labor Peace Agreements
On the heels of a vote that supported labor peace agreements over caffeine, the San Jose City Council made the controversial decision to allow themselves to be replaced by labor council bosses in all future votes pertaining to labor issues.
It is clear from yesterday’s special meeting that the only thing the city council can do to the mayor in the wake of his indictment is whack him with a wet noodle, take away his gas allowance, and allow him only bread and water. There is no provision or process in the Charter to remove the mayor from office, and the council apparently cannot now pass an ordinance addressing impeachment and apply it retroactively without violating the mayor’s civil rights. What is also clear is that, if there was such an impeachment procedure in place, the council would now invoke it in light of the mayor’s refusal to resign, and he would be history.
Well, the time we have all been waiting for has arrived—a wait of nearly eight years on some of our calendars. The long, dark reign of Ron Gonzales is over. It has been a dismal period for our community. Yet, the pivotal questions are: will the damage and offense against San Jose’s reputation of good government and good planning persist? Or, is the nightmare over?
In life, many events occur simply to maintain the balance of nature. No matter what disturbances may influence nature, nature always seeks to return to equilibrium. In physics, balance is possible only when a body is stable, that is, with equal forces influencing it from opposing sides. In economics, financial markets work best when they have achieved equilibrium.
$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.
Proof of Nuclear Program Has City Imposing Sanctions
Immediately after city inspectors stumbled upon uranium enrichment equipment in an underground bunker at the county fairgrounds, the city accused county supervisors of trying to produce weapons of mass destruction, which they say would be used as a threat to influence future negotiations.
San Jose Positioning Itself For New Draft Pick
In an eerie coincidence with 49er quarterback Alex Smith, City Manager Del Borgsdorf has cited “small hands” as the reason for his resignation as the city’s top executive.
With the mayor fighting for his political life, three candidates separating themselves over what the next steps should be for the City, and the Mercury News releasing a poll that shows 85% of the participants favor the mayor stepping down, we thought we would take our own, primitive poll…
Says Mercury News Editorial Board Next
Mayor Gonzales took time out of his busy schedule in Charlotte, North Carolina this week, where he delivered the keynote address on “good government” at the annual National League of Cities (NLC) conference, to respond to the latest round of Scud missiles launched at him with intent to inflict bodily harm.
I do like give and take; it’s healthy, it’s in my nature, and I believe that is the tradition of San Jose—a hallowed one. But if our next mayor’s race becomes the traditional American election, one full of personalities but short of vision, replete with attacks, more thunder than light, then we all lose. Our city needs the next campaign to be about ideas and issues rather than platitudes and endorsements and who is the “nicest.” With that goal in mind, I’d like to speak about issues and an idea or two—those things that we need to be the focal points of the next mayoral election, namely growth, a big park, safety and ethics.
By Guest Blogger Jerry Estruth
Ross Perot would be surprised to know that the great sucking sound he’s hearing is not being caused by NAFTA but by the Great Power Vacuum that has created what I call the Black Hole of City Hall.
