The Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee, which I sit on, had a special meeting last Wednesday night. Usually, this committee meets during the day. This special meeting was being sponsored by the Independent Police Auditor (IPA) and the City Council stemming from the alleged racial profiling arrests Downtown for pubic intoxication. This is one of two meetings to be held at night to elicit public opinion about our police force. The next one will be spring 2010
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School Uniforms: Still a Good Idea
Even though my advocacy for school uniforms caused a major career snag when I was a middle school principal in Moreland School District nearly 15 years ago, I am still a strong and passionate proponent. Placing an emphasis on the proper tone for learning while reducing discipline problems are two outcomes of an effective uniform policy. I believe we need a renewed county conversation about the efficacy of school uniforms, particularly for our students in middle school
Carr Opposes Prisoner Release
California believes that it can save as much as $1 billion by releasing non-violent inmates from prison. Santa Clara County DA Dolores Carr admits that, but says that in practice it amounts to decriminalizing property crimes—such as car theft, grand theft, commercial burglary, and writing bad checks—by reducing them to misdemeanors. “This is really going to cause an increase in crime in our local communities,” she wrote in a letter to the governor.
Team Chavez, Revealed
A privacy-invading anonymous website known for personal attacks on journalists and political adversaries of local labor-backed politicians has been tied to the inner circle of former vice mayor and newly-appointed South Bay Labor Council chief executive Cindy Chavez.
According to electronic evidence inspected by San Jose Inside, an administrator of the site, “San Jose Revealed,” is Manhattan-based former SBLC political director Philip Bump. The labor council made payments to Bump until earlier this year, according to two sources.
Live From First Street
Over the years, San Jose Stage Company’s annual political-theater event, Monday Night Live, has gotten less vicious in its political satire while amping up sex humor and punctuating skits with F-bombs. Last year, library porn filter champion Pete Constant achieved notoriety by donning a kinky S&M ball-gag. Constant bravely returned to the scene of the crime on Monday with another, slightly less risque, dominatrix-themed skit. But his aide, Jim Cogan, a council candidate himself, showed the lengths to which aspiring officeholders will go for public attention.
Keep Kids in School
The average U.S. student watches 1,500 hours of TV annually while spending only 1,100 hours in school. If we continue to increase TV viewing while decreasing time in school, we end up with an equation that threatens the underpinnings of our democracy.
Fraternity Life & Death
Junior Johnson’s Sigma Chi brothers are mourning his apparent suicide, while his mother says they killed him
On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2008, 20-year-old Gregory Marcel Johnson Jr. was discovered dead in the basement of the Sigma Chi fraternity house in downtown San Jose. He was found hanging from a ceiling water pipe, a noose fashioned from 14-gauge heavy-duty electrical cord wrapped around his neck twice.
Kids Need Options
Violent crime among young people is on the increase, according to a new study by James Fox and Marc Swatt from Northwestern University. Fox and Swatt indicate that the much heralded decline in youth crime in the 1990s has ceased. According to anecdotal data of my neighbors and friends, we are experiencing a rising tide of youth crime and gang-related violence in the suburbs of San Jose.
Drunk-in-Public Taskforce Must Be Committed to Action
Are taskforces where community hopes goes to die? I am about to find out. On Jan, 15, I went to the first meeting of the drunk-in-public taskforce, a group assembled by the council as their response to a heated public forum back in November.
Neighborhood Budget Meeting
On Saturday, City Manager Debra Figone and Mayor Chuck Reed hosted 100 neighborhood residents at City Hall for a discussion and group exercise on how to balance the city’s budget and eliminate the $65 million dollar deficit.
Saigon: the Second Look
Tom McEnery recently returned from a visit to Vietnam. This is the second in a three-part series.
Beyond the Continental Hotel and the Cathedral of Notre Dame—we just missed a wedding there—is a place I was both anxious and nervous to see. It was once called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes. But in slight bow to political expediency, it has a new name: The War Remnants Museum.
Saigon: The Original
“My father insists that I call it Saigon—you see, he was in the Southern Army,” was the simple, direct way our guide informed us why he used the city’s old name. The comment was made in near perfect English. “Sometimes we say Ho Chi Minh City,” he conceded, “but I prefer Saigon.” This was our introduction to a place so much in American minds for the last forty years, just recently a significant factor in San Jose politics.
Ta-tas in Garlicville
News that Saratoga developer Ante Bilic is moving forward with plans to convert a Gilroy restaurant into a topless bar has set South County tongues wagging. Some locals are worrying aloud that the proposed Showgirls nightclub would be a crime magnet. Others seem to find some humor in the situation.
Rogues in Robes
Recently, a blog by The Fly referred to some cops in its title as “Rogues”—few of us who live and work Downtown see it that way. We admire and appreciate them greatly. But here’s a group of dangerous people that we should be worried about.
Very, very soon, three federal judges will be deciding whether to free 52,000 of California’s 172,000 prison inmates because of overcrowding. And we have to ask the question: “Haven’t we tried this before—and with disastrous results?”
Safe: What Does it Mean?
Well, we are no longer the safest city in the US—we lost that title two years ago. But much like that absurd slogan, “America’s 10th Largest City,” which some lunatic believed would set us up for great international renown, this title too is not worth the banner that it’s printed on. When it comes right down to it, who cares what a few magazine writers and the guy who makes the banner think? High time to set aside childish things and look to what is important in our city
A Dream Come True
Saturday, Dec. 6, marked one the most anticipated boxing matches in recent history—dubbed the “dream fight:” pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao versus the sport’s golden boy, Oscar De La Hoya. The fight was, quite unexpectedly, a drubbing. Pacquiao, the smaller boxer, who was not favored going into the fight, handily destroyed the bigger and older De la Hoya, forcing a stoppage going into the ninth round. It was a mauling. It looked like a video game where one guy plays all the time, and the other guy is still trying to figure out what buttons do what.
