San Jose Inside

City Hall Diary

On Thursday, August 23, 2007, the elected officials of the City of San Jose and Santa Clara County met to talk about five top priorities that affect the city and county. City and county staff attended, including San Jose City Manager Debra Figone and County Executive Pete Kutras.

While I was glad to see the back of the last mayor and council, I am beginning to worry about the effects of the old guard members on the new council. Why is it that decisions that seem obvious to the rest of us require months of delays and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on consultants? And while, like the rest of the country, our infrastructure is crumbling, why does the Redevelopment Agency want to spend nearly a million bucks to bring a circus downtown? To top it all off, why has the council voted unanimously to unreasonably abridge the public’s freedom to speak in public meetings and limit the citizens’ ability to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” as per the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

There are plenty of proposals for poorly planned, wanton residential developments in the city. Coyote Valley and Evergreen come to mind, but now there are cracks beginning to show in the showpiece North San Jose development. Namely, the lack of proper planning has resulted in insufficient schools for the children of new residents, necessitating going quite a distance to get to one, and the area’s existing schools are rapidly becoming overcrowded, especially in the crucial lower grades. There has even been a spillover into nearby Santa Clara which is upsetting their educational apple cart.

Happy Memorial Day

The backbone of San Jose is made of its neighborhood business districts. District 6 has three viable ones: Lincoln Avenue, The Alameda and West San Carlos.  These neighborhood business districts provide tax revenue for our city.  In addition, they are a compliment to the residential neighborhoods they border. 

Budget Figures Tell the Tale

Ah, it’s springtime in San Jose.  The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and the roses at the Rose Garden are…well, never mind.

It’s also budget season, and the preliminary budget numbers coming from the San Jose city government are not exactly encouraging.  The sources for the information that follows are:  The City Manager’s Budget Message, The 2007-2008 Proposed Operating Budget, and the city’s transportation department. Read ‘em and weep:

Finally, our new mayor and city council have listened to the voices of San Jose’s citizens and neighborhood leaders and set budget priorities for the coming year that are in accordance with the wishes of the vast majority. In a meeting on Tuesday, the mayor, council members and their staffs made a commitment to funding the items most often mentioned on this site and in the neighborhoods. These break down into roughly three areas: public safety, public works infrastructure, and public recreational services.

I would like to start by taking a different direction in the budget debate and bring up the matter of saving money at City Hall through conservation and converting San Jose into a green city fit for the 21st century. With a $3 billion budget, even a fragment of 1 percent saved would be a lot of money that could be used for other purposes. I know that steps have been taken in this direction, but a lot more could be done. Every city function should be regularly reviewed and monitored to reach and maintain maximum efficiency. I see lots of gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups with the city logo driving around. They should be replaced by hybrids or other alternative fuel vehicles as they wear out. All city buildings, works and public transportation should be converted to take advantage of modern technological innovations in cleaner, alternative power. The airport takes a huge portion of our budget and it should lead the way in conservation and green conversion. San Jose should actively set an example for our citizens and other cities around the country. This is the center of world technology. Let’s use it and show what it can do! 

This week, we thought we would focus in on what the priorities of our city government should be, given its limited resources. We daily columnists will all be weighing in on our regular days with some thoughts of our own. To get the ball rolling, we want to give our bloggers an open forum to express their views first. So we hope that you will take the opportunity to tell us what you think today.

I have been reading about the Evergreen development issue over the past week with mounting alarm. Here we go again, with the tail wagging the dog. The developers are trying to call the shots, demanding an immediate decision, and many on the council are going along. The issue was supposed to come to a vote next Tuesday but I have learned this morning that it has been delayed one week to December 12. What’s the hurry? It doesn’t take much imagination to answer that one.

Probably like most of you, I have one of the popular antivirus programs on my computer. Every once in a while when I am online, I get a message that the antivirus has stopped a Trojan horse worm from secretly infiltrating my computer and killing off my data, leaving nothing but itself. If only we had a similar program to detect and foil political Trojan horse worms from squeaking through the vote and becoming law. One such worm, a classic of bait-and-switch techniques, is Proposition 90.

Where is a Single Gal to go if she wants to walk and shop?  I know we are a suburb—with malls and mini-malls galore—but where is our downtown shopping?  Where is our Union Square?  They have bums and homeless people there too, but they also have big-time shops and street performers and it all works together in one place.  Why don’t we try to create something like that now in San Jose?

Mark Baldasarre of the Public Policy Institute of California has written a thoughtful report about California’s future. (link)  He raises lots of questions about our challenges.  But he also puts answers on the table – some controversial.