San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
The odds that San Francisco Giants would become World Champions were about as good as those of Jerry Brown being once again elected Governor, Gavin Newsom as Lieutenant Governor, and Larry Aceves as Superintendent of Public Instruction. I proudly advocated through money and mouth in all four of these potentially historic events.
Now I want to turn my attention to building support for an anti-gay bullying policy, while strengthening all anti-bullying efforts in Santa Clara County.
On April 18, 2006, the City Council unanimously approved the Guadalupe Mines General Plan amendment, changing the zoning from Research & Development to Residential. At that same meeting, the Council debated other industrial conversions along Old Oakland Road/Rock Avenue, and voted to convert all of the employment-land parcels that night to housing.
“A’s Wait For New Home As Cities Play Hardball.” So read the sub-headline of a recent front-page story in the Mercury News. The paper provided an overview of the three proposed ballpark sites in Oakland. It seems that some civic leaders from the East Bay are making an eleventh-hour push to keep the A’s in Oakland despite the fact that Mr. Wolff has expressed a strong interest in moving the A’s to San Jose.
As expected, there was much written about San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s gambit to force the Baseball Commissioner’s hand on the A’s move to San Jose. SF Chronicle sportswriter Scott Ostler led with the headline, “Mayor Gives Selig An Old-Time Hotfoot.”
It came as a big surprise to almost everyone, including Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig: Mayor Reed’s decision to go forward on the downtown baseball stadium. Is Reed’s push a smart move that will demonstrate the city’s commitment to host a major league team, or is it a desperate move that will destroy the chances to bring the A’s to San Jose? UPDATED
The American Red Cross and Harborside Health Center of San Jose are teaming up for the first ever pot club blood drive. Next Tuesday, June 15, Harborside will host a blood donation event at its 2106 Ringwood Ave. location from noon to 6pm.
Naveen Aggarwal, the community outreach coordinator for Harborside San Jose, says that this event marks the first time ever that the Red Cross has partnered with a medical cannabis collective.
“This is completely the first time,” Aggarwal says. “I’ve heard of it attempted in L.A. a while ago. But that didn’t have much success as far as having a lot of donors, and this is definitely the first thing of its kind with the involvement of Red Cross.”
I kept wondering why it’s taking so long for Major League Baseball to make a decision on whether or not to let the A’s move to San Jose. It’s a big and expensive decision, but one that could have been made months ago. I assumed that the source of the delay was rounding up the money to compensate the SF Giants ownership for the territorial rights to Santa Clara County. Unfortunately for San Jose, there may be another reason for the delay.
A joint Mercury News/KGO TV poll indicated that Santa Clara’s Measure J (The 49ers’ Stadium) is likely to pass. Weeks prior, a poll was commissioned to measure the level of support among voters for a baseball stadium indowntown San Jose.
QUESTION: When will some agency or press outlet sanction a poll to ask local residents about their feelings towards breaking the unions’ vice-grip on the delivery of city services? (“Would you support allowing 50 percent of city services to be done by the private sector?”). I’ll bet the “yes” category would approach 90 percent.
Below are a few observations from last week.
Monday: Council study session on Airport
Overwhelming majority of Council thought outsourcing of janitorial to save $3 million was a bad idea so it looks like we will lay people off and consider getting rid of the night time curfew in the future.
Monday Night: General Plan 2040 Task Force Meeting
Although the General Plan board members were informed that the City’s budget problems are partially due to most of our land being dedicated to housing instead of jobs, the Task Force voted in favor of adding 300,000 people with a 14-11 vote. The two options were 200,000 or 300,000 new residents. Several task force members shared that they voted no because they wanted to see higher growth of 500,000 more residents to San Jose! I voted for the option that added 200,000 people by 2040.
In a recent Open Forum article published by the San Francisco Chronicle, the city auditors for Oakland and Berkeley advanced the argument that city officials and citizens need to work together to define what the core services are for their respective cities: “Local government cannot afford everything it’s doing, so where do cities cut spending? To bridge budget gaps, lawmakers can choose either to implement across-the-board cuts-or they can define core services and cut strategically. Defining core services means aligning what services citizens expect with what cities can afford.”
This afternoon at 1:30 the Council will gather for a special meeting to discuss the City’s airport. The expansion was voted favorably by the council in 1997 with then-Councilmember David Pandori casting the only vote against. The airport, with the hands artwork that is visible driving on Highway 87, was approved in 2005. Through the selling of bonds (borrowing) the city of San Jose has spent $1.3 billion on the renovation.
Past San Jose mayors have used the annual State of the City speech to announce big projects or initiatives. Commandeering a broke city, however, limits Chuck Reed to talking about already dry cement like the swoopy new airport terminal or trumpeting minor capital spending projects, such as fixing the convention center’s leaky roof or reopening the Happy Hollow Zoo with a renovated Guinea Pig Island. When it comes to mayoral speeches in San Jose, no detail is too small.
The city of San Jose recently completed a scientific poll of 902 residents. This poll cost $50,000. As I mentioned in a prior blog, I took many of the poll questions and posted them on the District 6 website (the district I represent) and here, on San Jose Inside. I entered the questions and three of my own into a web-based survey solution which costs $20 a year. The survey closed yesterday with 839 completing the 15 page survey (973 respondents completed part of the survey). Unlike past surveys where District 6 residents were 90 percent of the respondents, only 43.9 percent of the respondents were from District 6 this time
I continue to be amazed, and at times, amused by the quality and tone of some of the arguments being made by some politicians and fans wanting to bring the A’s to San Jose. One of the central arguments being put forward is that the Giants don’t have a “right” to deny the people of San Jose a baseball team. In fact, they do. Major League Baseball extended the territorial rights to Santa Clara County to the San Francisco Giants. That’s a fact, and nothing’s going to change that, unless, and until, the baseball owners change their minds and vote to reverse their decision. Not likely.
Councilman Sam Liccardo tells Fly that political consultants working for the San Francisco Giants have been “push-polling” to turn the San Jose public against the idea of the Oakland A’s franchise coming to the South Bay. A push-poll (for anyone who missed the 2000 Republican primary, in which the George Bush campaign famously used the tactic against Sen. John McCain) is an attack masquerading as a telephone poll. Liccardo says the Giants have been calling people in his district asking if they agree or disagree that city resources should be spent on police, fire fighters, parks, trails…or “land giveaways.”
I support an ordinance in San Jose that allows for the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana dispensaries/collectives.
Proposition 215, which was passed with voter approval in 1996, called for the legalization of Medicinal Marijuana with 56 percent of the voters in favor. Santa Clara County supported this proposition by 64 percent. Since then, the legislature has passed SB420 which dealt with the actual implementation of Medical Marijuana.
