San Jose Inside

The way the major corporations have been acting the past few years, you would think that they believe themselves to be above the Constitution. Right here in Silicon Valley, the latest corporate scandal—where members of the HP board and Chairwoman Patricia Dunn have apparently been caught red-handed spying on their employees and on journalists—adds a nice new euphemism, “pretexting,” for a couple of common crimes, endemic in American corporate culture, to the list of white-collar conspiratorial activities. Dunn excuses her decision to order the spying by saying she did not know that pretexting (an Orwellian construct if there ever was one) meant any laws would be broken when she hired a firm of investigators to obtain the personal information of the company’s targets. That’s hilarious, given that the defined action of pretexting combines the crimes of fraud and identity theft in a very creative manner. Call it what you want, it’s still a felony and Dunn and anyone else involved should be accorded the prescribed punishment under the law if they are found guilty. As we all know from high school civics, “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

SanJoseInside.com has acquired a previously sealed mayoral grand jury testimony and posted a partial transcript below.

The testimony begins with Deputy District Attorney Julius Finkelstein questioning Mayor Ron Gonzales about his role in the Norcal deal.  WARNING: it is shocking, sometimes offensive but mostly sounds like Aaron Sorkin’s movie A Few Good Men.

When it comes to advice, almost always listen to your mom. Sometimes you might not believe her, but give it a bit of time. For instance: “When you see a crowd, go the other way.” Just think how many problems you would avoid with that simple act.  “A stitch in time saves nine”—now that’s actually an old wives’ tale, but mom said it too. Get on things early, fix them, and save a lot of pain. There is no shortage to the things your dear mom could save you from if only you would listen

(Editor’s Note: We are reprinting Tom McEnery’s piece that appeared in the Mercury News this past Sunday, July 2, in order to give our readers a chance to comment on it.)

The decision is in, conclusively. This mayor’s tenure has been a total failure and a badly flawed one. The human tragedy is sad; the public one, palpably painful. Remember the words of another official about another very public tragedy, a national one: “There is a cancer on the presidency.” This has been true of the mayor’s office for some time now. It has left an indelible stain on City Hall.

As many know, the number one spectator sport in America is not a sport at all—it’s politics.  The year ahead should prove most interesting for such aficionados. There has been so much focus on Ron Gonzales that it is time to take a break and comment on the general, instead of any specific problems in this area; the others are now with the grand jury, the DA, and the most important court of all, the court of public opinion.

I really wanted to leave this nightclub and crime issue and turn to some other topics this week. Yet, quite easily, they pull me back into the fray.

First there is a thoughtful blog by David Hickey on the bad old days of prostitutes, crime and drugs on every corner in the Sofa area of downtown (before it had that name) in the late seventies. It was a very bad scene.

Last weekend there was a series of shootings downtown. Much of the problem is summed up by the comments of one of the men shot: “It’s part of the bargain,” said bouncer Noel “Jaws” Chavez.  Well, the bargain is now costing far too much.

Motor City Mayor Immediately Cries Foul
As San Jose celebrated its leap onto the “Top Ten Largest Cities in America” list, Detroit decried the latest ranking and immediately cried foul.  During a noon press conference, Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick immediately discounted the results because of “miscounts and imperfect information gathering processes.”

Lack Of “City” Status Won’t Be A Stumbling Block Says CEO

By announcing its intention of bringing the 2012 Summer Games to its regional shopping center, Santana Row has threatened to make downtown San Jose “redundant.”  Federal Realty CEO Donald Wood, the parent company of Santana Row, said that if their bid is successful against major cities such as Milan, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, San Diego and Tel Aviv, then downtown “should just fold up its tent.”