San Jose Inside

The generation of young people I work with, 18 to 25-year-olds, have only known historic moments through the experience of disaster. To be in a defining political American moment meant that there were elections being stolen, suicide planes diving into American buildings, wars beginning, cities drowning, or economies collapsing. Historic American moments were to be avoided.

This presidential election changed all that, and as celestial as Obama appears, he is a star that feels not so far away from the communities here on the ground. That is why these same young people, for the first time, are embracing this moment of history as theirs to claim.

In Memory of Henry Schiro

Last Friday afternoon I heard “Moon River” played for San Jose arts patron and supporter Henry Shiro at his funeral mass. As most in the community know, Henry spent the better part of thirty years raising money for, participating in, and cheerleading on behalf of San Jose’s arts and culture community, and more specifically, music organizations such as San Jose Jazz, the Children’s Musical Theatre, the Steinway Society, and more recently, the Mexican Heritage Corporation (MHC) and Plaza. They played a sampling of his favorite tunes at the service. Based on the SRO crowd at Friday’s mass, I’d say he succeeded in his mission of community service.  Also, he had great taste in music.

Consumers Inconvenienced, Restaurants in Pain

As the illness toll from salmonella tainted tomatoes grows, and the popular red fruit becomes scarcer, unheralded and ripe California tomatoes are finally getting the recognition that’s been long overdue. They are showing up in illegal underground produce markets and on popular auction sites such as EBay and Craig’s List at exponentially inflated prices.

As I sat enjoying the rest and relaxation that comes with the Memorial Day holiday, I wondered why we can’t find a way to make three-day weekends a part of our city’s culture. I know it doesn’t seem possible, but think about it hypothetically for a moment. What if we only worked 4 days each week? Would our city benefit?  Yes!

In the course of the next two weeks, San Jose’s civil and criminal courts will be discussing the use of Tasers by law enforcement. This week in federal court, the Salinas Police Department and Taser International faces a jury in the case of a Salinas man who died after he was stunned 30 times by Taser-wielding police officers.  The trial will be closely watched by San Jose attorneys and future plaintiffs who are aiming for their day in court against Taser International and the San Jose Police Department.

The gym at Alum Rock Youth Center on the Eastside was filled near capacity last Thursday evening when Mayor Chuck Reed held the first of four open forums on gang violence in San Jose and how to spend an additional $1 million towards the issue. While a cynic might say that the event was mere political theater—an attempt by the city leaders to quell growing frustrations about violence on the streets—it is undeniable that the forum did tap into the community’s authentic call to be included in the conversation of allocation of resources. The gathering was probably the first time I saw the city council, SJPD, parents, youth advocates, former gang members, and religious groups, all brainstorming from a position of collective problem-solving, rather than fighting over limited funding.

This week marks the second anniversary of the passing of one of the great young talents in American letters: the New York publisher Elizabeth Maguire, who died of ovarian cancer April 8, 2006, at the age of 47.  So, one might ask: why should San Jose’s citizens remember her? One answer is that her work exemplifies how innovation can come from just one individual and impact an entire country. Isn’t this what Silicon Valley applauds?  A second answer, for me, is that she reminds me of a man I never knew: Leonard McKay.

Law enforcement uses the state’s gang-enhancement law to crack down on violence, but a judge’s ruling in the Joshua Herrera case raises questions about its reach

THE moment before Rebecca Rivera entered the courtroom to hear whether or not her son Joshua Herrera was going to face a life sentence in prison, she gathered with 40 or so supporters, who were bustling around with nervous tension. “I talked to Joshua last night, and he wanted us all to know that whatever happens in there—he is coming home.” She began to weep, then collected herself and walked into court. The potentially devastating question that was left in her wake, the one no one dared ask, was: When? Rivera had already consoled the mother of another young man involved in the case, Alex Samarro, who had been given 23-to-life the day prior, and knew the pain she saw yesterday could be hers today.

Joshua Herrera May be Facing Life in Prison Because of an Unevaluated Gang Enhancement Law

On the steps of the Main Jail, Rebecca Rivera called out to God and her son at the same time. She asked that God save her son from a life in prison, and that her son hear her prayer. 24-year-old Joshua Herrera, housed on the fourth floor of that jail, did in fact hear his mother and the 200 or so supporters who chanted and cheered through Rebecca’s impromptu speech, many of whom also had sons, uncles, nephews somewhere in that building. And from the fourth floor, it must have been quite a sight, an unlikely movement that Rivera has pieced together since Joshua was convicted of home invasion robbery with gang enhancements in 2006. Marching alongside the Herrera family were young Chicano men who also have been labeled as gang members themselves, college students sporting their banners, firefighters who met Joshua, and about 50 leather-clad bikers sitting on Harleys that roared like they had jet engines inside them.

The report in the Mercury News yesterday that mandatory water rationing in Silicon Valley may soon be a reality is not unexpected. The decision of the judge to limit the flow of water through the Sacramento River Delta—which supplies 50 percent of our needs—to protect an endangered smelt is largely due to inadequate rainfall this past year and the crumbling delta infrastructure that desperately needs attention. There is only so much water available even at the best of times, but we are in a drought year and there could be many more to follow. It isn’t unheard of and the situation could get a lot worse.

While I was glad to see the back of the last mayor and council, I am beginning to worry about the effects of the old guard members on the new council. Why is it that decisions that seem obvious to the rest of us require months of delays and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on consultants? And while, like the rest of the country, our infrastructure is crumbling, why does the Redevelopment Agency want to spend nearly a million bucks to bring a circus downtown? To top it all off, why has the council voted unanimously to unreasonably abridge the public’s freedom to speak in public meetings and limit the citizens’ ability to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” as per the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?