San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
Measure V puts budget control back in the hands of the elected representatives of the people, which is where it should be. It’s our money, and we elect people that we think will spend it in the most productive way possible.
Measure W would allow the city to create new retirement programs for new hires that are in line with today’s employment landscape. It protects current employees’ pensions— nobody who works for the city will be affected by this change.
The following is the text of a letter that was hand delivered to California High Speed Rail Authority CEO Roelof van Ark following his Sept. 29, 2010 speech to the San Jose Rotary Club by San Jose Downtown Association Executive Director Scott Knies. In an unprecedented show of unity, the letter was signed by leaders of 10 central San Jose neighborhood associations and the heads of the city’s two leading business associations.
Neighborhood and business groups in central San Jose urge the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) to include an underground option for San Jose in the project’s Environment Impact Report.
I vividly remember being an invited guest at the San Jose Downtown Rotary meeting last year listening to the luncheon speaker Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder, blaming the ills of American public education on local elected school boards. I believe there is much blame to go around as we have discussed on this site—parents, administrators, tenure, etc.—but school boards as a systemic cause of school failure did not resonate with me.
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.
Thomas Jefferson said, “Democracy is never a final achievement. It is a call to an untiring effort.” At a dinner party I attended on Saturday evening there was much thoughtful political discourse, a good democratic tradition. I wanted to know, from the bright and civic-minded guests, if they are optimistic about the future of America in the next 50 years.
My sampling size was small (n=5) but the result was illuminating—and very depressing.
Considering how hard she’s been pushing for Measures V and W, former vice mayor Pat Dando might be having second thoughts about her star turn, back in 2000, in some San Jose Fire Fighter’s Union promotional videos.
As most of you are most likely aware from the front page article in the San Jose Mercury News on August 12, The San Jose Municipal Rose Garden was selected as America’s Best Rose Garden. What an incredible achievement! Congratulations and thanks to all involved including the paid park maintenance city staff and the non paid volunteers.
The rebirth of the Rose Garden could not have been done by only park maintenance staff or only by volunteers. It is the combination of both that allows for this fantastic achievement. And the leadership of Beverly Rose Hopper and Terry Reilly.
Fresh off what may have been the biggest victory of his political career, Mayor Chuck Reed last week decided to immediately blow some of his hard-earned political capital, endorsing the conservative Christian council candidate Larry Pegram.
Unless Fly is missing something, the timing of the mayor’s announcement couldn’t have been worse. In recent years, Pegram has been San Jose’s most high-profile anti-gay activist. He campaigned locally for the ban on gay marriage, without success.
Eddie Garcia, president of the East Side Union High School District board, has announced that he will not seek re-election to the Board of Trustees this fall.
“After thoughtful consideration with my family, I have decided not to seek another term on the Board of Trustees for the 2010 election for the East Side Union High School District,” Garcia posted on his Facebook profile last friday.
Garcia, 46, suffered a major heart attack last June, and is currently on medical leave from his job as Chief of Staff for Supervisor George Shirakawa.
Did you ever have a romantic relationship with someone that tested you in one way or another? Maybe you or someone you know dated or are dating a person where at first the relationship was great. You were carefree and really enjoying yourself—but suddenly realized that some of your actions have consequences?
The 15th California State Senate District stretches over strategic portions of Santa Clara County, Monterey County, Santa Cruz County, San Benito County and Santa Barbara County. And for many, including the Democratic former Assemblymember running to represent the district, it’s also a perfect illustration of everything that’s wrong with California politics.
At its weekly meeting Tuesday evening, the San Jose City Council voted to put a proposed marijuana business tax on the ballot this November. The tax, which could reach up to 10 percent, would encompass business that sell medical marijuana both legally and illegally in the city.
Our political gridlock is creating a potentially disastrous future for the next several generations. And from my perspective things are getting a lot worse. Will we ever be able to extricate ourselves from the monstrous hole we are digging by our partisanship? Isn’t it our obligation to find middle ground in our positions to solve the huge issues of our day?
Though he’s yet to decide whom he’s endorsing in the District 5 runoff, J. Manuel Herrera will indeed be running to retain his long-held East Side Union High School District Board Trustee seat next fall.
When Herrera hoofed it to the County of Santa Clara Registrar of Voters Office to pull his papers earlier this month, however, whom did he discover in line ahead of him? None other than former East Side Superintendent Bob Nuñez.
What on earth is going on in San Jose’s cyberspace? Fly noticed that the 3-year-old Vietnamese political blog Little Saigon Inside has completely changed its look to a more generic Blogspot template.
It has now reintroduced itself in a post that seems to swear off the kind of finger-licking local gossip pointed out in this column last week.
Sgt. Bobby Lopez, the former San Jose police union president, ignited a firestorm last month when reports surfaced that he boasted of having a spy in the Independent Police Auditor’s (IPA) Office. Now he has hired an attorney and won’t talk.
Two weeks ago, the usually loquacious Lopez announced that he would run for his old job as president of the San José Police Officers Association (POA). Lopez said he believes George Beattie, his media-shy predecessor, is a weak leader.
