The City Council will convene as usual Tuesday, but the meeting is expected to start earlier than 1:30pm—possibly before noon—because of the numerous items on the agenda. The most notable issue at hand will be finalizing the mayor’s budget message for approval at the June 21 session. Memos from several councilmembers will likely cause quite a debate.
Your search for pot returned 2,592 results
Building a Consensus
As the 2010-11 school year comes to its all too sudden end the California public and its government leaders have lots of very grave issues to ponder during this summer. In order to secure our social and economic future, significant action must be taken in the 2011-12 school year on several key educational issues.
City Balks on Halting Pension Talks
UPDATED: When Alex Gurza gives an update on labor negotiations to the City Council on Tuesday, he’ll have some explaining to do about pension reform negotiations. City officials refused to discuss pension reform on Friday with unions so they could focus on language for a ballot measure. Union representatives responded by walking out. On Monday, Gurza said he was sorry and his office asked the unions to come back to the bargaining table.
Mayor Releases Budget Message
On Friday, Mayor Chuck Reed released his June Budget Message, which included his final recommendations for closing the City of San Jose’s $115 million budget deficit in the upcoming fiscal year and preliminary strategies designed to avoid further service cuts in 2012.
Council Will Discuss Settlement, Pay Cuts
The City Council will meet Tuesday to discuss topics that include infrastructure improvement plans, pay cuts for Mayor Chuck Reed and councilmembers, and a settlement in an incident many considered to be police brutality.
Figone to Uncle Sam: ‘No Thanks’
It’s not that Debra Figone doesn’t trust the city council to spend money—it’s just that she doesn’t trust the city council to spend money wisely. Rather than let the council decide whether San Jose should accept a federal grant that could have saved 53 police officer jobs—and potentially put the city on the hook for millions it doesn’t have—the city manager chose to protect the council from itself.
Budget Memo Season
Last week was the deadline for councilmembers to submit their input in writing to the mayor. Budget memos are only allowed to be signed by one councilmember. Here are some of the budget memos I submitted.
‘Emergency’ Declaration Moves Forward
After Mayor Chuck Reed and most of the San Jose City Council took a two-hour tongue lashing Tuesday from city employees, retirees, union representatives and even staffers of several state legislators, the council voted 8-3 to push forward with Reed’s declaration of “fiscal and public safety emergency.” That word—”emergency”—allows the city to significantly toughen its stance in pension negotiations with public employees.
The Times They Are A-Changin’
What do Mark Zuckerberg, John Doerr and Reed Hastings have in common? They were all in Burlingame on May 18 headlining the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit. They each have access to billions of dollars to help transform public education. Entrepreneurs with billions of dollars are changing the educational landscape like this educator has never seen before, even if they are 27 years old and wear hooded sweatshirts.
Stadium, Pension Cuts on Same Ballot?
Mayor Chuck Reed sent a letter to Bud Selig last week, once again urging the Major League Baseball commissioner to come to a decision that would grant the Oakland A’s permission to relocate to San Jose. A few days later, the mayor announced that San Jose was in a fiscal and public safety emergency, and he wants the city to move toward putting measures on a November ballot to slash public-employee retirement benefits. The timing of the two actions could be coincidental. But then again, maybe not.
Life Without the Governator?
The biggest story in the news Tuesday is word that action star and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a child out of wedlock a decade ago. An interesting question is: What would California look like today if voters had known the truth about Schwarzenegger’s actions before he was elected governor in a 2003 recall election. Infidelity is generally a career-killer in politics, and Schwarzenegger had basically no experience before coming into office.
Payday Lending Reform
By Ash Kalra
The San Jose Inside April 27 article “Manny Diaz Shilling for Loan Sharks” seems to imply that the lobbying efforts of Mr. Diaz have resulted in a decision by the City to delay accepting Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s grant to study the impact and breadth of the payday loan industry in San Jose. This is simply not the case.
Twenty Years With the Sharks
On Sunday and again last night, I saw the Sharks play the best hockey I have seen in 20 years. It doesn’t seem like 20 years ago that my family and I would pile into the car and drive to the Cow Palace in Daly City to watch hockey. I shared seats with a good friend who had never been to a hockey game in his life, until opening night at the Cow Palace.
WeePeeCeePee
Last week, the City Council moved forward with an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the water pollution control plant often referred to verbally as “weepeeceepee” (WPCP). The plant and the land are jointly owned by San Jose and the City of Santa Clara.
There are competing interests on what to do with the area surrounding the plant. Some would like all of open space land preserved for natural habitat for the burrowing owl and other animals. Others would like to the area devoted to large parks with trail connectivity. Still others look to this as an area where San Jose could add office and retail opportunities to increase the tax base.
Council Caps Medical Marijuana Clubs
San Jose city councilmembers hope to be able to count the number of marijuana dispensaries on their fingers. The compromise measure authored by Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and approved Tuesday by a split council hopes to reduce the number of city collectives, which currently number more than 100, to no more than 10
Medical Marijuana Battle Continues
The San Jose City Council once again fell short on Tuesday in its efforts to craft a plan to deal with the popularity of medical marijuana clubs in the city. Many of the ideas being proffered by city staff, Mayor Chuck Reed and councilmembers Rose Herrera, Sam Liccardo and Pete Constant, were wildly ambitious, including things that no other municipality has tried in the 14 years since the passage of Prop 215.
Updated with correction: Apr. 14.
