Archive for March, 2009

Morning News Round-Up — 3.31.09: Butterflies, Earthquakes, and Porn, OH MY!

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

In case you missed it, Watch Dog had late breaking baseball news yesterday…MLB Commissioner Bud Selig named a panel to study the A’s options. The Merc’s Morning Buzz tries to spray some water on San Jose’s excitement…the apparently aren’t impressed with Lew Wolff’s ability to attract microphones magnetically to his mouth…

A minor 4.3 earthquake in the foothills near Mt. Hamilton yesterday shook nerves around Silicon Valley and beyond and uncovered a brand new fault line. Oh, goody. The new fault line runs parallel to the more active Calaveras line which shook the area last in 2007. You can tell the USGS all about your shaking here…

The Merc’s Editorial Board wonders why Supervisor Dave Cortese is the only one seeking a public explanation as to why a 10 year old was tossed in the pokey. In case you missed it, tossing the 10 year old into jail is also a violation of Federal law. Oops…The DA’s office recently turned over kid cases to LACY, none too soon it would seem.

Neighbors around Watson Park are pissed off. It seems San Jose once used the park as a toxic dump. When the sludge was re-discovered the City offered to help. Now that the cleanup is over, the neighbors are trying to deal with the aftermath (home prices, health effects)…

Morgan Hill’s “mixed-use” Measure A plan could be considered panacea by proponents, at least the Morgan Hill Times seems to think so. With support by everyone from the Greenbelt Alliance and Sierra Club to the Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Association it looks like former Mayor Dennis Kennedy is keeping his promise to not take anything for granted. Not everyone seems to think mixed use is a good idea, downtown property owner Gary Walton claims it’s “like fitting a square peg in a round hole.” Walton must not get out of Morgan Hill much…

Gilroy’s Safeway has a creep prowling the parking lot. An 18 year old woman was the third victim attacked while heading back to the car. The attacker looks for women traveling solo, until they catch him, take the baggers on their offer for help back to your car…

San Jose Revealed offers a new target to porn crusaders Councilmember Pete “Ball Gag” Constant and former Councilmember Larry Pegram: Sexy San Jose. We would give you an idea about what Revealed wrote, but the website is down — and has been since (before?) Revealed posted about it…

San Jose Insider/Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio keeps his partying ways going. This time celebrating the San Jose Bike Party with a “Psychedelic Robot Ride.” Watch Dog note from one blogger to another, too much rode-here-rode-there, blah blah blah.

According to the Merc’s Chris O’Brien, Senator Dianne Feinstein is trying to clean up the bureaucratic quagmire that surrounds the patent office. Local giants Cisco and Google have been complaining about patent messes that cost them big bucks and squelch the free flow of ideas… looks like they found their advocate.

The Merc’s Scott Herhold spends too much time wandering the halls of Justice. His column is all about the white or khaki shirts that watch as your worldly possessions roll through the x-ray machine, and how much those shirts make.

Sal Pizzaro shares a celebration with the Amigos de Cesar Chavez who will be delivering over 250 lunches to farm workers in Santa Clara County in honor of Cesar Chavez’ birthday today.

Those fluttering leaves everyone is seeing around the Valley are actually Painted Lady butterflies making their annual migration North. De Anza biologist Ryan Phillips is giddy with excitement and called the mass migration “truly spectacular.”

San Jose Police are investigating a late night shooting in San Jose. Sounds like neighbors on Sebasian Way were feuding, the gunman shot at men standing outside his neighbors home. Luckily for the victims (and shooter), neither victim was critically injured.

Meanwhile, Santa Clara Police are still looking into Sunday’s murder/suicide…Neighbors are shocked by the deaths of 6 Sunday night. Neighbor Amit Sinha said, “It’s such a quiet neighborhood. I don’t even hear anybody speaking in a loud voice. And then there are 20 police with semi-automatic guns.”

A Mountain View woman who disappeared for four days last year after partying in Mountain View is now heading to jail. To stay out of trouble with the parents she lied to the Police saying she’d been kidnapped and assaulted…now she’s ‘fessed up to concocting the story. Liz Wylie, Police spokesperson, said something was amiss about the story…Y’think?

Posted in city of santa clara, cortese, earthquake, gilroy, herhold, insider, kennedy, morgan hill times, mt. view, Revealed, santa clara county, sjpd, watson, wolff | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.31.09: What do we want? REAL GRASS! When do we want it? NOW!

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Here is a positive story that involves a school district, money, and the economic downturn. The Belmont-Redwood Shores Elementary School District needs to buy a piece of land for a new school and the downturn’s impact on land prices is working in favor of the District. The land is now only $8 million rather than the original $9.8 million. Yay!

And (of course) on the flip-side, the Belmont-Redwood Shores Elementary School District will review next year’s budget at their Thursday Board meeting. Some cuts, etc. But the real gem in this story is that the School District is facing $35,000 in increased sewage fees next year…remember all those stories about Belmont, San Carlos, et al raising sewer rates? Guess who is not immune…

This story couldn’t come at worse time: East Palo Alto’s ongoing legal battle with Page Mill Properties isn’t ending well. The City of East Palo Alto owes Page Mill Properties $472,000 in legal fees after EPA lost two legal fights. Add this to the $18 million that Half Moon Bay owes developer Chop Keenan and area developers (and their lawyers) are doing pretty well in the court room and the pocket book…

And where are those developers and lawyers spending some of that extra cash?…A San Carlos nail salon was offering something a “little extra” and was shut down…

The San Carlos City Council is supposed to (finally) make a decision about whether to put synthetic turf on Highlands Park’s field, but neighbors and parents are super-pissed and may try to get this issue on a City-wide ballot. Imagine the ballot arguments for and against synthetic turf…

Michelle Durand’s “Off the Beat” in the Daily Journal goes through a litany of April Fool’s-like recent stories…including San Carlos’s turf battle and Octomom…

Menlo Park may scrap its plans for a transit hub/mixed-use development near the Dumbarton Bridge because the train will (likely) never run on the Dumbarton Bridge. Instead, the MP City Council will consider making the plan a business park.

La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District’s Superintendent Tim Beard is leaving his post at the end of this school year in June. Remember, this is the is same Superintendent who oversaw some (incredibly) faulty construction for portable classrooms…don’t expect a huge celebration at Beard’s last meeting. This seems to be a “if he didn’t resign, we would have got rid of him” type decision…

The former president of the Fair Oaks Elementary School parents group wasn’t such a mench after all…she (allegedley) embezzled $4,500 of group funds. Sounds like a swell woman…stealing from kids and their parents all at the same time.

Palo Alto is serious about wanting to keeping the tunneling option open for High-Speed Rail. Really. They are serious. Really, really serious. They are even joining a consortium of NIMBY cities to fight for their rights…

And while we are in Palo Alto…Palo Alto’s Finance Committee will discuss the issue of the Utility Department’s plans to raise electricity rates by 10% tonight. Perhaps the proceeds of the 10% increase will go to legal fees for the Utility Department?…

If you are like Watch Dog and spend your days under quietly looking at computer screens and pretending you are working…then perhaps you felt the earthquake yesterday morning…rumble, rumble, rumble…

A boogie boarder who was swept out to sea yesterday near Devil’s Slide was found alive and well (and presumably really scared and happy to be alive and well…)…

Watch Dog is watching David Lim for San Mateo City Council…mostly because he is the one with the most visible and most frequently updated website…now he has a newsletter that you can follow too…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

We Are Leaving Oakland…a Lew Wolff timeline

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Remember E.F. Hutton? When he talked, people listened.

Well, Watch Dog has been keen to point out that Lew Wolff is the Bay Area’s version of E.F. Hutton. And E.F. Hutton is talking.

Check out this recent timeline and progression of Lew Wolff’s (obvious) goals…:

Posted in oakland a's, selig, wolff | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.30.09: What if Lew Wolff shared his microphone with Tom Campbell?

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Watch Dog has said it before, but Lew Wolff is a microphone magnet. So much so that his statements from last week about wanting to move to San Jose just keeping getting covered. As a review, Wolff came out with his stongest stance yet on the status of the A’s plans:

“…We are really saying that we’d love to stay in Northern California, and go to San Jose…”

Now to a local guy that has trouble finding a microphone to speak into…Tom Campbell. Did you know he is running for Governor? The Chronicle threw Campbell a bone and covered his long-shot effort to become the next Governor. Campbell’s pitch? He knows the budget really, really well. In normal times, we’d advice Campbell to get a different political message, but extraordinary times may call for an extraordinarily boring messages…and Campbell’s understanding of the State’s complex budget is extraordinary (and dry)…

San Jose’s firefighters have offered to give themselves a wage freeze for the next year. City Manager Debra Figone should have been happy to hear about it but was pissed off the firefighters went around her to make the offer directly to the Mayor and City Council. (Former Vice Mayor) Chamber CEO Pat Dando didn’t seem to care who heard the offer and called it a “…bold step in saving the city a great deal of money this year…” (a million bucks that is)

Residents in San Jose’s Gardner neighborhood in Willow Glen say High Speed Rail is ok, just don’t take their homes to make it happen. It wouldn’t be the first time transportation took over the neighborhood. In the early 1900’s the railroads secretly bought land to build the Southern Pacific line.

The Merc’s Charlie McCollum seeks answers to America’s burning question: How does Steve Wozniak manage to keep on dancing (with the stars)? As everyone in Silicon Valley knows: geeks rule. In this case, the computers are humming with Woz love. With a broken foot, torn hamstring, and questionable dancing skills, the Woz still has fans (voteWoz.com). Gary ‘Mr. Roadshow’ Richards continues his love for our dancing Teletubbie as well.

The Merc’s Editorial Board adds their support to Congressman Mike Honda’s efforts to open Mount Umunhum to the public. The challenge is cleaning up the old Air Force Base and radio station…oh, and the $11 million required to do it. If Honda has his way the Midpeninsula Open Space District will have a new jewel. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said there’s an incredible vista and it would be a nice place to hike.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education hosted their annual History Day Competition, appropriately held at San Jose’s History Park. Students created, and defended, projects on everyone from famed United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta to Oprah Winfrey.

The Merc’s Internal Affairs expresses love for San Jose’s HP Pavilion after attending a Streisand concert and reading a study released from Sports Economics which says thousands of jobs have been created and millions pumped into the local economy. The lovefest is to support a theory that local sports officials are hoping to steal the Sacramento Kings. It doesn’t hurt San Jose’s MLB ambitions either…Also in IA, their own list of Quick Notes this weekend…

Santa Clara is reeling from the apparent murder-suicide of 6 people, including 3 children, over the weekend. Very little information has been released about this incident.

A former Marine reservist, distraught about losing his business, threatened to kill himself in his San Jose home. Members of the San Jose Police Department surrounded the house, barricaded the neighborhood, and readied themselves for a patient siege. Turns out the guy snuck away and later called the cops from a payphone to give them permission to enter the home.

San Jose Revealed voices loud support for making San Jose’s Fire Station One a historic landmark. Apparently the best reason for giving it landmark status is to prevent former Mayor Tom McEnery from having his way with it. Others in the community also hope for landmark status and want to restore the structure and convert it to a museum.

On tap around the Valley for your elected officials:

  • Palo Alto Unified School District talks about growing elementary schools, changing school boundaries, and the aforementioned staff raises. Get ready for some wild discussions — school boundaries are a big deal in Palo Alto…
  • Santa Clara County’s Committee on School District Organization meets to talk about moving property from Saratoga’s Union School District to the Los Gatos Union School District…again, heads up when discussing school boundaries in fancy towns…
  • The San Jose City Council Salary Setting Commission considers a freeze on the Mayor and Council salaries…
  • Mountain View’s City Council talks about financial goals – like staying afloat in difficult times…perhaps Tom Campbell could give a Power Point Presentation on budgeting…

Posted in city of san jose, city of santa clara, coe, East Side Union, Governor, honda, jude barry, kings, mt. view, palo alto unified, pat dando, Revealed, sjpd, tesla, tom campbell, wolff, wozniak | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.30.09: Pay Raises for Everyone Edition a.k.a. Garbage Saga Continued…

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Garbage is back with a vengeance today. And it isn’t about who the new garbage men will be. It’s about the agency that oversees the whole shebang. And guess who is the yelling the loudest? San Mateo County’s bearded Superhero/Assemblymember Jerry Hill. It seems the staff of the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (the garbage Joint Powers Authority) conducted some research about what other government staff got paid. Guess what? They would like to make more money…surprised? Now, Jerry Hill (and Belmont’s Bill Dickenson) are on the case. Add this to Hill’s anger over how the new garbage contract was dolled out, and you are looking at increasing the friction, and attention, on the SBWMA…

Watch Dog has to wonder, was the move by the SBWMA staff a preemptive strategy to get their raises before the Hill-initiated (critical?) Civil Grand Jury report comes out on how the SBWMA staff handled the new contract process? (Watch Dog thinks yes…)

Thank you PP Examiner. Mr. Balshone gives a run-down of the Pacifica/San Francisco battle brewing over the Sharp Park Golf Course. Is it an environmental battle, or is it Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi on a soap-box? Watch Dog will go with soap-box…

Enough about AIG…what about the HMB bail-out? Well, State Senator Leland Yee wants to use $10 million in State bond money to help Half Moon Bay with their legal settlement costs that they owe developer Chop Keenan.

Speaking of bail-out…the County is poised to spend $500,000 helping area non-profits that help the needy.

Watch Dog guesses the Coastside Family Health Center was not in dire enough shape to receive state or local bail-out cash…but the now-closed Coastside Family Medical Center Board of Directors is on a bit of a PR kick. They are now trying to explain its actions to angry residents in a Memo.

Sue Lempert gets in on the Daly City Pay-Cut Gage action today in her Daily Journal column…sort of. She really just runs down who has an elected City Clerk and who doesn’t, and that electing City Clerks is pretty much a bad idea. Take that Daly City…

We love political races. Remember the Atherton City Council race last fall — it was awesome. In political races, there is always news and always insiders willing to spill beans…we know next year’s Assembly District 21 race to replace Assemblymember Ira Ruskin is going to be a doozy. But the race to replace Supervisor Rich Gordon will also be fun to watch as well. Former Sheriff Don Horsley, coastsider April Vargas, and Sequoia Healthcare District Board member Jack Hickey are all throwing their hats in the ring. (Horsley has already raised over $100,000 — seemingly overkill, considering the race is more than a year away…but that’s just me…)

Speaking of Atherton politics…the biggest issue they discuss in Atherton is generally development of people’s homes. In one such area of town, the lots are so small (by Atherton standards) that some folks want to increase the size of their home, but their lots are too small to legally do it. These folks were looking to the Council for some help…but too bad. You want to live in Atherton, you have to live with its City Council. The anti-growth/say-no-to-anything majority won out last week on this issue over the objections of Councilmembers Charles Marsala and Elizabeth Lewis.

A small plane departed from the San Carlos Airport on Saturday…but landed in a marsh a 1/4 mile a way almost immediately after that. Three folks were hospitalized.

County Manager David Boesch get his profile taken in the Daily Journal. (FYI – he has a new desk…)

Peets in Menlo Park reopened over the weekend following their fire. SUV-driving Menlo Parkers are now back on their drug-of-choice…

As with everything about High-Speed Rail on the Peninsula, an agreement between the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (that oversees Caltrain tracks) and the High-Speed Rail Authority has folks in a tizzy…

Here’s something new: A fisherman (Duncan MacLean) was named the County’s Farmer of the Year. The first time a fisherman was so honored…it is not true that a farmer will be named the 2009 Fisherman of the Year…

Posted in atherton, boesch, charles marsala, coastside family, garbage, hickey, high speed rail, hmb, horsley, jerry hill, leland yee, lempert, lewis, mp, pp examiner, vargas | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.28.09: Stimulus (hehehe)

Friday, March 27th, 2009

The County’s financial picture gets more and more bleak. They are looking at another (possible) loss of $46 million. Thank you Sacramento (and the economy)…

Two things to watch out for in one story:

1. Local Governments: You need to watch out for the State trying to reach deep into every revenue stream, including money collected from parking tickets. The State budget “fix” allows the State to grab more of your money from local parking tickets…therefore
2. Local Illegal Parkers: You need to watch out because the cost of parking tickets are going to be more expensive to compensate for the State’s money grab…

Again, thank you Sacramento…

A local bride wanted to get married so bad that she stole (or tried to steal) $20K to make it happen. Unfortunately, instead of a white wedding dress, she may be dressed in County-blues…

The silly-ly named Burlingame Green Ribbon Task Force is seeking your input about how Burlingame can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. As long as cutting greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t stop Finance Director Jesus Nava from colorful, Texas-based quotes we’ll be ok.

Federal stimulus (admit it, that phrase still makes you giggle…) can be used for increase the transit benefits employers pay to employees…

Thanks the the San Mateo Downtown Association (with a grant from the City), you’ll start hearing that Downtown San Mateo has “All the ingredients“…and hopefully you’ll want to go spend money on those ingredients…

Wisnom’s in San Mateo has been a family business for more than 100 years. It will stay in business, just not with any Wisnoms at the helm.

A Daily Journal Editorial yells loud and clear: “Developer should clean up its mess” at Bay Meadows (a.k.a. San Mateo’s newest scrap metal yard)

Councilmember Peter Drekmeier promised a green Palo Alto future. Part of the green Palo Alto future is banning plastic bags at grocery stores (over the objections of anti-enviro/former Assemblymember Manny Diaz). They are also bringing in local farmers to provide fresh, organic produce through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Speaking of green…Palo Alto along with San Mateo and San Mateo County) are getting green-bucks from the Feds to implement green job growth projects. Vice President Joe Biden said the dollars are meant to put people to work and cut energy use.

The City Clerk’s Association of California sent a letter to the Daly City City Council. Guess what, they don’t think that Pay-Cut Gate is fair…they are a pissed, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. Read the letter here.

Posted in burlingame, city of palo alto, daily journal, daly city, downtown san mateo, parking tickets, san mateo | No Comments »

Tesla Chronicles: A NEW CAR! (but not for Silicon Valley)

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Anything to do with Tesla gets major media buzz. (If they could only build lots of cars and sell them, that would be real news and not just media buzz…)

Like yesterday, Tesla’s new sedan was unveiled. At half the price ($50K) of the Roadster ($109K) — it will be the car for Everyman. (Everyman that can afford to by a $50K sedan, that is.)

What wasn’t newsworthy was their announcement that the Sedan won’t be built in San Jose…It wasn’t newsworthy because you read Watch Dog (and the Business Journal.) (Although, we haven’t heard anyone from San Jose City Hall officially say good-bye to Tesla yet…they usually just ignore it.)

Proving to be the least trustworthy company around, they are now saying the manufacturing will (probably) be in Southern California. Not the recently talked about Santa Clara or Fremont…

We look forward to future stories about Tesla’s efforts to play one Southern California city against another in order to get a sweetheart land deal…

Posted in city of san jose, tesla | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.27.09: Practice, Practice, Practice…

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Is there a more fun guy to watch operate than Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff? He is like a microphone magnet. A few weeks ago, he tells Oakland ‘thanks, but no thanks‘ for their renewed interest in keeping the team. (It was quite a statement. If you haven’t read it — Ms. Heffner over at the Baseball San Jose blog has it.) Then yesterday, Wolff was the speaker at a San Francisco luncheon and moved the ball down the field a bit (sorry to mix sports metaphors): expressing his desire to move the team to San Jose, the City’s efforts so far to get the land, and what Major League Baseball’s role in the deal would be — including dealing with those pesky Giants. (Like in Chicago’s northside, hope springs eternal for baseball in San Jose…)

Congratulations Santa Clara County, you locked up a 10 year old. Judge Patrick Tondreau, who made the decision, is said to be fuming and felt forced to put the kid in the pokey. Supervisor Dave Cortese is really pissed he had to hear about it from a reporter.

San Jose’s Police Department continues cultivating its reputation as a bad boy. San Jose is offering $360,000 to schizophrenic Kenneth Grason to end a Federal lawsuit alleging San Jose Police beat him up for wandering around San Jose Airport. City Attorney Rick Doyle said that while the settlement was “fairly large” it was better (less costly) than the alternative if they lost…(The City prefers to pay huge legal settlements directly to the County…)

Morgan Hill’s City Council faced a dozen pissed off coaches and parents. The coaches and parents convinced the Council to put off raising field usage fees until after a public meeting. Councilmember Larry Carr reminded the crowd there were “implications for the City budget.” Field usage fees are and increasing challenge for cities and school districts.
Valuable Assets (fields) + Economic Crisis (now) = Increased Usage Fees therefore
Increased Usage Fees = Pissed Off Parents/Coaches

Gilroy’s unions are not happy about the wage freeze handed down by the City Council this week. Police Officer Association President Mitch Madruga said that while the economy stinks it would be “irresponsible of the union to give up” their automatic raises before members have the chance to hear what the Council wants. Councilmember Perry Woodward said he was “relieved” the Council voted to stop the automatic raises. It sounds like this fight is not over.

An un-named San Jose man hooked up with a woman in cyberspace using MocoSpace. When they hooked up in the real world the woman and her friends beat him, stole his clothes, and his money before leaving him naked and dying along the Bethany Reservoir. He’ll survive, thanks to the fishermen who rescued him.

The Merc’s Sal Pizarro has a series of interesting bits including a tip that songbird Linda Ronstadt is headed to D.C. to sing for the Silicon Valley Arts Advocacy Day supper in front of Congress.

Councilmember Peter Drekmeier promised a green Palo Alto future. Part of the green Palo Alto future is banning plastic bags at grocery stores (over the objections of anti-enviro/former Assemblymember Manny Diaz). They are also bringing in local farmers to provide fresh, organic produce through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Speaking of green…Palo Alto and Mountain View (along with San Mateo and San Mateo County) are getting green-bucks from the Feds to implement green job growth projects. Vice President Joe Biden said the dollars are meant to put people to work and cut energy use.

Sunnyvale Councilmember Melinda Hamilton asked California High Speed Rail leader Rod Diridon, Sr. to stick a stop in Sunnyvale. So much for the “High Speed” part of “High Speed Rail”…

San Jose Revealed was (apparently) impressed with the disclosure of Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino’s salary. So impressed that they bought the new version of Photoshop…Revealed dug up photos of everyone he could think of to give us a visual on how Guardino’s daily dollars stack up.

Gilroy’s Chamber Choir answered the age-old question: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”. They are headed to the Big Apple for an all-star performance there. Basketball star/singer Dylan Jensen admitted he didn’t start getting nervous until they started learning about the big voices who’d hit the stage at Carnegie before them.

Posted in city of palo alto, diridon, drekmeier, gilroy, hamilton, high speed rail, Morgan Hill, mt. view, oakland a's, pizzaro, Revealed, ronstadt, sjpd, wolff | No Comments »

(Slightly Delayed) Morning News Round-Up — 3.26.09: Leaders of the Free World in South San Francisco…

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Sometimes you can’t make these things up. A proposal for a new Charter School is being made to the South San Francisco Unified School District tonight. The name of the Charter School organization…Free World U. And obviously, the heads of the Charter School organization are referred to in the story as “The Leaders of the Free World U“…8 Mile anyone?

Belmont is thinking about getting their own utility company. Perhaps it will go as well as Palo Alto’s is going…with the Federal investigation underway and not answering the phone during outages…

Rusting scraps of metal are pretty unsightly. That’s why the City of San Mateo is looking at ways to clean up Bay Meadows…

The Reporters’ Notebook at the Daily Journal is taking notes from Watch Dog. They picked up on Watch Dog’s piece yesterday about David Lim’s ongoing campaign for San Mateo City Council…

John Horgan in the County Times writes about Millbrae and rail lines…and picks up where the Daily Journal’s Michelle Durand left off with the Brazilian wax story by talking about male waxing…

Weird timing on this one. Perhaps no other candidate for State Assembly has ever had a longer roll-out announcement of their campaign than Supervisor Rich Gordon…it was announced here, here, here, and here over the course of three months and now the Almanac (finally) gets in on the action. In case you missed it: Supervisor Rich Gordon is running for State Assembly. Perhaps the real news is that he has a new website richgordon2010.com and is being endorsed by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo…and Gordon “loves California”…

Sad news…it looks like the ’09 Mavericks may not happen this year…put your wet-suits away.

Posted in belmont, city of palo alto, daily journal, david lim, eshoo, mavericks, millbrae, san mateo, ssf, supervisor gordon | No Comments »

Morning News Round-Up — 3.26.09: Revealed revealed…

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

First things first…yesterday, Revealed revealed that Watch Dog was written by Jude Barry. Today, Watch Dog reveals that Revealed revealed wrong…(Revealed also revealed some really old news…)

Parents hoping the kid is heading to college better shoot for local schools. For the first time in San Jose State’s long history, students from outside Santa Clara County are being turned away. CSU Chancellor Charles Reed (ha!) said all campuses will be capping enrollment due to the State budget crisis.

“Shovel ready” projects around Silicon Valley are lining up to get their share of $1.1 billion in Federal stimulus dollars. If your job is road repair, you’re in luck.

The Merc’s Scott Herhold shares the lowdown on salaries for heads of non-profits. No surprises here: non-profits have to pay a hefty price to run multi-million dollar agencies. Winning the award for thrift, Charles Geschke takes no salary for running the foundation he and his wife Nancy set up after he (won the lottery) founded Adobe Systems.

It must be really boring for Police Officers in Cupertino. A very drunk Bradley Dexter took the tip jar from the bar where he was slugging back Long Island Ice Tea’s. Naturally, Officers showed up with 6 police units and a helicopter to rescue the glass jar with less than $10.

Silicon Valley’s chief geeks made their way to D.C. to meet with the new Administration and Congressional Representatives. TechNet exec’s, including Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Cisco’s John Chambers were there to ask for more support for education, science, and a boost to green tech.

The Merc’s Editorial Board is calling for watch dogs to keep sniffing around the Agnews Developmental Center closing. Citing the sale of valuable land and cheaper care the Merc worries that money, not care, might be the prime motivator for the closure.

Mountain View community leaders are working with Police and City officials to stop hate crime violence. Documentary filmmaker Patrice O’Neill will be following the efforts started by former Human Relations Commissioners Alicia Crank and Chris Burley to turn Mountain View into a “model city.”

San Jose Insider/Santa Clara County Board of Ed Trustee Joseph DiSalvo hopes the Obama’s will use their popularity and television face time to stop bullying at school. DiSalvo should hook up with Mountain View’s anti-hate crime team to bring the message home.

Don’t know how we missed this one yesterday…San Jose’s Drunk Task Force members Raj Jayadev and Raul Colunga teamed up in a joint statement to Mayor Reed and Councilmember Nora Campos saying: you should have brought the Consortium in before the Task Force or not at all. They suggest a name change to “Task Force of the Humored.” Funny.

Los Gatos resident/Attorney John Hopkins is being inducted into the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame. A who’s who of Silicon Valley luminaries will be there for the honor, including former US Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta and Sharks CEO Greg Jamison.

Congressman Mike Honda will deliver a hand made flag that includes 1,000 red, white, and blue paper cranes from St. Joseph’s of Cupertino students to President Obama. The kids, and Honda, had to do a mountain of paperwork to get the flag to D.C. but they’re thrilled to know their work will take up residence at the White House.

Pete Campbell, San Jose Inside blogger, jumps in on the action to question San Jose’s automatic pay raises.

Speaking of pay raises…

Gilroy’s City Council stepped in to stop Gilroy’s automatic pay raises. Councilmember Bob Dillon said they didn’t want to freeze wages and the upside was folks still had jobs at City Hall. City Administrator Tom Haglund also gets to keep his job, he complained was just keeping up with normal practice but pinky-swears to talk to Council ahead of time on political challenges.

Los Gatos Town Council meets tonight at a retreat to talk about The Town’s Boards and Commissions and where they’re heading. In the past, the retreat met at the Toll House Restaurant to chew over the future of The Town with a good glass of wine. This year they’ll meet in Council Chambers a.k.a. The Dungeon – clearly not as much fun.

Cheap condos are on the market in Los Altos…now is the time for low income buyers to move to toney Los Altos. With fewer than 10 condos available you’d better move quickly, however.

Mountain View’s City Council voiced unanimous support for converting industrial land to housing for as many as 1,120 homes. The VTA complained the project wasn’t dense enough next to the Whisman Light Rail stop. (Apparently) Mountain View hasn’t figured out what “transit oriented development” means.

Posted in DRUNK, gilroy, herhold, honda, inside, john chambers, jude barry, mt. view, Revealed, sjsu, technet, the town, town of los altos | No Comments »

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