San Jose Inside

The San Jose City Council voted on Tuesday to hire two consultants for the Mexican Heritage Corporation (MHC) at a cost to the taxpayers of $100,000, compounding the errors in judgment they have already made on this issue. One of the consultants will be hired to “help” the MHC develop a business plan and fundraising capabilities. The other will take the pulse of the community and advise the MHC on how better to serve the public.

The departure of Susan Goldberg from the executive editor position at the Mercury News is a loss for the community.  She helped chart the way through some of the most difficult days in American media history, and the times they were indeed changing.  I guess Cleveland needs her much more that San Jose did.  Goldberg’s exit is the third major loss to the community from the ranks of the Mercury, following the much lamented departures of Tony Ridder, CEO of the media conglomerate, and David Yarnold, who single-handedly made the editorial pages relevant again, elevating the outcry over corruption at City Hall to a much needed fever pitch. I hope we see Goldberg again soon.

Ok, I know this topic has been discussed before, and sometimes it takes a while for me to get certain things through my thick skull, but how hard is it to complete the Guadalupe River Park Trail?  I mean, this isn’t the transcontinental railroad we’re talking about here, though I think that may have been built and completed faster than the few miles of trails we need in San Jose.

It is always amazing to see how desperate political characters can be. Case in point: the assertion from the leader of the labor forces at the South Bay Labor Council, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, that “she” and “they” elected Pierluigi Oliverio. Their absence from all but the victory party was not because of fear or the fine canapés on election night, but because of a careful “strategery.” 

So many things interest me in the District 6 election that is taking place today in San Jose.  First of all, as you are reading this, many people will have already voted for their candidate, as the absentee balloting is projected to be higher than ever. (Are we getting lazier or does no one get satisfaction from dropping their ballot in a box anymore?)

Pierluigi Oliverio has come under fire recently for his campaign fliers that show him posing with kids and what some people believe is his “pseudo family.” I just have to come to the defense of Oliverio. Being single is tough no matter where you are or where you live, and even tougher, apparently, if you are running for a council seat in the ultra family-oriented Rose Garden and Willow Glen neighborhoods.

In honor of the New Year, I thought I would come up with New Year’s resolutions for other people since setting them for myself has proven to be as successful as the Pavilion Shops. So, here is what I envision that a few select people should vow to change in 2007.

Members Pair Up To Tackle Ambitious Timeline

Immediately after putting his mayoral transition team together, Mayor-elect Chuck Reed paired up the 67 participants into two-member teams on Thursday night, with the express understanding that they would each accomplish one Reed Reform before the end of January.

“This was genius, one of the reasons the voters chose to put Mr. Reed in office,” said Reed Chief of Staff Pete Furman.  “There are 34 of these damn things and we can use the help.”

As much as I wanted to write this week about Thanksgiving, the Notre Dame–USC game, or the new James Bond movie, Monday’s article in the Mercury News, concerning the Reed transition, contained one set of comments that I could not ignore.  They came from the mouth, if not the mind, of Ms. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, leader of the South Bay Labor Council.  In them, she decried the “divisiveness” that could creep into the Transition Committee of Mayor-elect Chuck Reed, and her fear that “old families” would return to hegemony in our city.  It would be easy to let this set of vacuous comments go unanswered but, somehow, the lecturing of a person who just had her agenda, her candidates and her attempts to control the city repudiated in a historic rout, called out for a response. (It was almost as if Rummy began to lecture us now on military tactics for our future success in Iraq, or Kissinger—ah, but that’s another blog.) Such advice from Ellis-Lamkins falls not from weight but from absurdity. 

I thought I would run a list of things I am thankful for before Thanksgiving.  Beside the obvious—family, friends, etc.—here are some San Jose items.

I am thankful for:

Voters all over the nation stood up against the forces of unethical government on Tuesday. The decisive wave struck here in San Jose with the rejection of Manny Diaz and the Gonzales-associated Cindy Chavez and the election of Sam Liccardo and Chuck Reed. The Jack Abramoff-connected California District 11 Congressman Richard Pombo was swept out of office, in what was thought to be a safe Republican seat, along with several of his colleagues in similar positions. The voters in besieged Ohio rejected the corrupt Ken Blackwell’s bid to become their governor, and in Florida, they firmly turned down Katherine Harris, the ethically challenged engineer of the 2000 Bush “victory” who wanted to be a U.S. senator.

The writer John Reed once said, rather infamously, “I have seen the future and it works.”  Fortunately, he was not correct about his prediction.  In San Jose, though, I think we are able to say that the future now has a very good chance to work. I saw it last night.  The victory of Chuck Reed was a remarkable achievement against the forces of the Democratic establishment who had Bill Clinton in the van, a two to one edge in money, and everyone from the dog catcher to Kofi Annan in Chavez’s corner. Reed absorbed all the hits and kept going. 

On this Election Day 2006, as I sit here with my fingers crossed, I hope that things will turn out for the best for San Jose today.  When I cast my vote this morning, I tried not to think of all that is wrong with politics today and tried to be proud of my own decisions and support other voters who have their own convictions about who they were supporting today.  I tried to look at all candidates as worthy, competent and honorable because they were giving of themselves to serve others.  I tried to see all the candidates’ good qualities and commendable campaigning strategies.

The editorial board of San Jose Inside recommends voting for the following:

New Laborcratic Entity Delivers Fatwa: Buy All Elections

After raising several million dollars to cover independent expenditures for the Chavez for Mayor campaign, the Santa Clara County Democratic Party and the South Bay Labor Council have decided to unite, forming a venture capital leviathan known as the Laborcratic Superfund.

Without wanting to beat a dead horse, I just cannot seem to fathom some of the tactics that Manny Diaz uses in order to get elected to the city council.  His latest doozy is to actually have a press conference, in front of an elementary school no less, promoting supposed links of Sam Liccardo’s MySpace page to pornography.  He was handing out nude photos to passersby and claiming that Liccardo was linked to these photos.  There are so many things wrong with that, I really don’t even know where to start.  Yeah, Manny, it makes perfect sense that a district attorney who spends his time prosecuting child molesters and pedophiles would be linked to porn sites.  It would almost make me sick if it wasn’t so laughable.