Kansen Chu had a productive holiday season, mainly, the council member says, because he didn’t take a vacation. Fundraising for the District 4 City Council race later this year, Chu says he raised $45,000 for his campaign in the final two weeks of the year.
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Council Could Cancel its Own Pensions
Councilmember Pete Constant is leading the charge to terminate the CalPERS pension program for the mayor and City Council. Originally asking City Attorney Rich Doyle to study the proposal in June, Constant’s Dec. 19 memo, which suggests Doyle draft a resolution that gives notice of the city’s intention to terminate its contract with CalPERS, went in front the Rules and Open Govt. Committee on Wednesday and was unanimously approved.
Volunteers Can Help Save Libraries
Due to flat tax revenues and escalating pension costs, the city of San Jose has been forced to cut library hours year after year as well as make million dollar sacrifices in all other city departments. Even with all of the eliminations, San Jose continues to have a budget deficit. We need to re-examine the current delivery model for San Jose libraries and seriously consider how we can incorporate volunteers to fully maximize the hours of operation at all of our libraries.
San Jose Inside’s 2011 Year in Review
As the year winds down, you can almost hear the collective sigh coming from City Hall. Or maybe that’s an echoing whoosh from councilmembers, the mayor, city manager and their staffs, who hightailed it for the holidays. Either way, 2011 was a tumultuous year, fierce in the manner civic actors clashed over pension reform, public safety, pot, a potential ballpark, ballot measures, pay cuts, occupations of city property and other issues of varying degrees of importance.
Where There’s Smoke, There’s No Fire?
Contrary to rumors circulating at City Hall, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen says she did not tell police officer Tam Truong to run for a District 4 City Council seat against Kansen Chu next fall. Instead, Nguyen says she was introduced to the Dick-Tracy-turned-political-candidate through a friend of a friend. (Isn’t that what Facebook is for?)
City Hall’s Holiday Conundrum
With so much important business to be done at City Hall these days, one would think petty arguments over wishing someone “Happy Holidays” were a thing of the past. And one would be so very, very wrong in making that assumption.
Mayor Finds New Ally in D4 Candidate?
‘Tis the season for people to ponder making a political run, and a newcomer to the scene intends to shake up San Jose’s City Council. Fly has learned that Tam Truong, a 30-year-old detective for the San Jose Police Department, picked up filing papers from the City Clerk’s office this week and plans to challenge District 4 Councilmember Kansen Chu in the fall. What makes Truong such an intriguing candidate, aside from being young and well educated, is who he intends to align himself with.
Vice Mayor Answers Reader Questions
This week, San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen answered 10 questions selected by SJI staff out of dozens submitted by San Jose Inside commenters. The topics range from the Little Saigon controversy and Nguyen’s relationship with public safety unions to the city’s legal basis for the pension reform ballot measure.—Editor
POA to Vote on Extending Pay Cut
A day after the City Council decided to go to the ballot box in June for pension reform, the police union signed a tentative agreement with the city of San Jose to extend a 10-percent pay cut through the 2012-13 fiscal year. The agreement will need to be ratified by the Police Officers Association membership. If that is achieved, the POA expects the deal to save the city $25 million.
Chipping Away at the Tax Base
In a quest for even more affordable housing in San Jose, the City Council voted 10-1 to amend the North San Jose Area Development Policy. I voted no. Remember that San Jose has been the leader in providing affordable housing in the state of California, while other cities have done very little. As I wrote about on a prior blog, affordable housing must be a shared goal and not just in San Jose.
City Still Wants Pension Reform Election
With San Jose’s budget shortfall coming in at far less than the $80 million expected, the City Council will defer any action next Tuesday to declare a fiscal emergency. New projections put the shortfall at around $25 million. However, Mayor Chuck Reed still wants an election next year to reform employee pensions. The preferred election date for the ballot measures would be June 5, 2012, according to a memo sent out Thursday by Reed and councilmembers Pete Constant, Rose Herrera, Sam Liccardo and Madison Nguyen.
Data Shows No ‘Fiscal Emergency’
Editor’s Note: Jim Unland is a sergeant in the San Jose Police Department and president of the Police Officers Association. He wrote this column for San Jose Inside.
Good news has been hard to come by as of late. That is until yesterday. The city of San Jose Police and Fire Retirement Board voted yesterday to accept the plan actuary recommendations on pension costs for next year. And surprise, surprise, pension costs shrank to the tune of $55 million in the police and fire plan. That’s not a typo—$55 million will come off the projected budget deficit as a result of pay and concessions and concessions agreed to by police officers and firefighters.
Not the Man I Knew
Chris Shimek and I grew up in the same neighborhood. We played baseball together, attended the same neighborhood schools—but the thing we had most in common was we shared the same best friend. The Chris I knew was outgoing, friendly, cheerful, and abhorred violence against women and children. It is why he became a San Jose police officer. Something happened to the Chris I knew on Sunday, November 27, when he took the life of his soon to be ex-wife and himself.
POA President George Beattie Resigns
With many people rushing off for Thanksgiving last week, the Police Officers Association came out with a surprising announcement that George Beattie, the union president, was retiring from his POA position. Beattie, a lieutenant with the San Jose Police Department, has never been a fan of the media, so he didn’t give an interview in the Mercury News’ report. But his successor, Sgt. Jim Unland, who was previously vice president of the POA, was quoted as saying that negotiations with the city over pension reform are still proceeding “one day at a time.”
The Inheritance of Sick Leave
The sick leave payout perk was something that the current City Council inherited from a prior council. Although once considered a nice perk, if the city continues this trend without any change it will continue further on a downward spiral of spending money it does not have.
Title 16 and Card Rooms in San Jose
The City has been grappling with proposed changes to Title 16 for over two years. Title 16 covers the regulations of card rooms. The 125-page document reads like a novel. Although the State of California oversees gambling facilities, San Jose has it’s own regulations for two gambling facilities, which are Bay 101 and Garden City. Some say this is duplicitous since another level of government regulates this type of legal business. Others say the state does not regulate closely enough.
