After filing papers to run for a second four-year term for my County Board of Education Trustee seat, I learned on the Aug. 10 deadline that no one filed papers to run against me. Therefore, I am automatically re-elected. This is a great and unexpected result, but one that is not so good for providing me a campaign forum to raise some of the most critical issues of our time.
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Mayorluigi
Okay, San Jose Insiders, sharpen your knives. We’re ready for the customary evisceration reserved for those who’ve earned the ire of San Jose’s public employee unions. This week we divine the betting pool for the mayoral prospects of our very own San Jose Inside columnist. Call us crazy, we know, but one shouldn’t count out the dark horse candidate who in 2006 overtook Chamber of Commerce and Labor darlings to clinch the District 6 San Jose City Council seat. Any way you look at it — by vote totals, percentages or being ideologically in sync with voters who overwhelmingly passed Measure B in June — Pierluigi Oliverio is not a force to be dismissed.
Secret Baseball Meetings, Audit Coincide
The proposed Oakland A’s move to San Jose hasn’t had much progress in over three years. But an interesting development occurred last week. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s three-person committee in charge of finding the best future home for the A’s reportedly met with city officials and business leaders in San Jose and Oakland. Meanwhile, investigators from State Controller John Chiang’s office have been coming through old San Jose Redevelopment Agency records pertaining to land being held for a possible A’s stadium.
POA Board Lacks Confidence in Chief?
As morale continues to sink and police officers resign or retire from the San Jose Police Department in record numbers, the Police Officers Association‘s board of directors could call for a vote of no confidence in Police Chief Chris Moore. City Manager Debra Figone sent an email in support of Moore on Thursday to the City Council, Mayor Chuck Reed, Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell, City Attorney Rich Doyle and two members Figone’s staff, David Vossbrink and Ed Shikada.
The Great Minimum Wage War
The South Bay Labor Council held a kickoff party Tuesday night promoting the November ballot initiative to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10. While many expect the coming months of debate to be framed in 99 vs. 1 percent terms—labor groups and low-wage workers battling lobbying heavyweights like the California Restaurant Association (word is the lobbyist group has already kicked in millions to defeat a similar federal ballot measure)—it seems some incongruous characters in Silicon Valley are working toward a compromise.
Library Initiative Mistake Highlights First Rules Committee Agenda
And we’re back! The Rules Committee gets to business Wednesday after a six-week layoff, and among the items on the docket are the city clerk’s library initiative gaffe, a push for less transparency regarding election swag, a review of public officials’ calendars and a City Hall gadfly offering his services to lead a department.
Life After Measure B
Gay publicly spoke up about—and against—the belt-tightening measures that Council has taken in recent years. In public session, she told the City Council about how the 14 percent cuts in her salary would make it difficult for her to continue to make payments on her modest home. She warned about the dangers of Measure B, the pension reform measure on the June ballot, and testified against the Council’s decision to impose reductions in retiree medical benefits. In every case, Gay spoke with civility and with a heartfelt conviction that comes from someone who reasonably relied upon promises that were made to her when she decided to move to San José to work for the City years ago.
Downtown Businesses Want Security Patrol
Part of a new plan by the business community to rebrand downtown is to staff the city’s core with two patrolling officers. However, how these security guards will be paid has kicked off a new fight between police and city officials.
Nguyen Secretly Declares Mayoral Run
Madison Nguyen’s plan to run for mayor of San Jose appears to be the worst kept secret at City Hall these days—mainly because she keeps telling everyone before adding that it’s “a secret.” Three of Nguyen’s colleagues confirmed that the District 7 councilmember started spreading word of her plan to run before the June 5 primaries.
Councilmembers Don’t Want to Play Ball
The territory war between San Jose and the San Francisco Giants got a bit more heated Thursday, with the minor league Giants caught in the fray. San Jose councilmembers Sam Liccardo and Pete Constant said in a memo that before the city spends $85,000 on maintenance for the San Jose Giants’ stadium, they would like to know how much Giants owners are spending to sue the city over land being saved for a potential move to San Jose by the Oakland A’s.
Mayor Reed Gets FOXy
Few classified the pension reform debate in San Jose as partisan. Only one member of the 10-person City Council—Pete Constant—is a registered Republican. But in the lead-up and aftermath of voters decisively passing Measure B, which will cut back public employee retirement benefits if it withstands legal challenges, Mayor Chuck Reed took at least four interviews last week with FOX News and its affiliates, leaving his media calendar a little less than fair and balanced.
Committee Delays on Gay Marriage Memo
A well attended Rules and Open Government Committee meeting Wednesday dealt with an uncommon topic at City Hall these days: love. Or, to be more precise, love between a couple that doesn’t consist of a man and a woman. After more than an hour of public comments where many people framed marriage as a civil rights issue and others called it a sacred religious institution, Mayor Chuck Reed, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio unanimously agreed to delay any action on a memo from Councilmember Ash Kalra that wanted the City Council to form a resolution in support of gay marriage.
What’s Cooking, Good Looking?
The June 5 primary slugfest wages on for two more weeks, but that hasn’t stopped some people from putting out feelers for the 2014 election. Pete Furman, chief of staff for San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, was the first person we heard might be interested in running for the District 3 City Council seat, which will be left vacant by a termed-out Sam Liccardo. Many believe Liccardo plans to continue up the City Hall ladder in a bid for mayor. Furman isn’t alone in weighing a run for the downtown council seat.
The Non-Campaign Against Measure B
What if someone held an election and one side didn’t show up? Well, that is happening in the ill-advised pension reform campaign called Measure B. While proponents are raising money to pay for the Mayor’s under-employed—yet now overpaid—political consultant, organized opposition to the measure has evaporated. The reason is simple and economical.
City Concealed Street Closure Docs
Despite the city’s stated commitment to sunshine and open government, city officials and proponents of a proposal to permanently close a block of South First Street concealed critical documents from affected parties for a year—until the eve of a council vote. Promoters of the “pavement to plaza” conversion say a $500,000 grant from ArtPlace requires the street’s full closure. San Jose will contribute $98,000 in park and economic development funds, under the plan, which goes to the City Council at today’s 1:30pm meeting.
Unions, Rose Herrera Declare War
Less than a month until the June 5 primary, labor unions fired off several accusations Tuesday that Councilmember Rose Herrera lied to voters during her 2008 campaign and may have even committed perjury in the mid-1990s. Herrera responded by calling the unions “bullies” using “misrepresentations and lies.”
