Posts Tagged ‘bay citizen’

Daily Fetch 5.21.13: Football players want to touch you and Ash Kalra thinks SJ should stop its war on employees

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

A guy walks into a pizza joint and walks out with all the dough…no, not the cash…the dough. Thank god Los Altos PD’s sketch artist has enough time on his or her hands to do a composite of this obviously “dangerous” individual.

Merc sports editor/writer Mark Purdy says football players want to touch you…no, not like that…get your mind out of the gutter people.

Union spokesperson and San Jose Councilperson Ash Kalra writes in the Merc that it’s time for the city (Chuck Reed) to stop its war on employees. And today the city council is poised to spend another $1 million on outside legal counsel to defend Measure B and continue its war on employees.  What’s $2 million when you’re broke?

Looks like Santa Clara County’s Valley Medical Center is in the news for something smart; being innovative and technologically savvy, we swear.  Moving into the 21st century is a great thing.

Speaking of sports the broke as hell CSU system is going to vote today on whether to renovate San Jose State’s Spartan stadium.

Victory for the gumshoes at San Jose Inside. They won in court the right to read all the emails from those evil people who like to give kids and poor people health insurance.   Yay!

Palo Alto’s City Council wants to buy it’s own post office and Mt. View wants to save an old shack.

Governor Brown has expanded upon his “shit happens” view expressed early in the month regarding the Bay Bridge and now says the State will make the bridge safe before it opens. Thank you Governor Moonbeam.

Goodbye, Bay Citizen. Hello, Center for Investigative Journalism.

And as a reminder, if you’re trying to get a hold of us you can email us at wd@thedailyfetch.com. We leak the news so you don’t have to.

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Daily Fetch 4.8.11: If you aren’t following us on Twitter…

Friday, April 8th, 2011

If you aren’t following us on Twitter and aren’t our friend on Facebook, you are missing so much in between The Daily Fetch’s morning post… Like this:
As you probably heard, the defendants in the De Anza civil rape trial were not held liable and no damages were awarded to the victim.  The Merc’s Scott Herhold takes a very close look at how the trial and the issues surrounding it… (As an aside, one of the alleged attackers’ father uses perhaps the worst metaphor ever in relationship to the verdict:  ”This was a pretty good spanking (for the plaintiff).”… Really Roger Maltbie?)  The Merc Editorial Board chimes in too to say that “What happened at that party still wrong…”
The controversy over AT&T’s proposed cell tower at St. Albert the Great Church in Palo Alto took another turn yesterday, and not a particularly good one for AT&T.  In front of Palo Alto’s Architectural Review Board, AT&T representatives got chastised for designing a “…50-foot-tower coated in pink stucco to match the church, with gray stones flanking each corner…”  The saga continues…
The deep cuts to Caltrain have been postponed.  Apparently the Caltrain board is convinced that a miracle is going to happen in the next two weeks, which is how long they have delayed taking action… Remember, the Merc Editorial board isn’t too enamored with the Caltrain board’s decision-making processes (“Few signs of life on Caltrain board…”)…
Speaking of deep cuts… This week, the City of San Jose begins their community budget meetings out and about throughout the City.  Steve Kline of San Jose gives his “Citizen Opinion” in The Bay Citizen… His opinion, in part, is that Deb Figone doesn’t really like open government after all…
To Sunnyvale and Dweeb.org... Councilmember Jim Griffith runs down the recent corporate relocations/expansions in Sunnyvale.  The most recent:  HP.  At least he tells it like it is:  ”…I’d love to take credit for this (and since I’m an elected official, I’m sure I’ll find a way to do so)…”
The San Jose-Hating Giants open tonight at home… We’ll meet you at the Mays Statue…

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Daily Fetch 1.25.11: City Council meeting, State of the Union, and Glee. A perfect day?

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

A few San Jose A’s/Diridon Station/Redevelopment stories to kick things off today…
The Bay Citizen really, really wants the A’s to stay in Oakland.  Yesterday, they had a story that called Lew Wolff’s land-use deals in San Jose “questionable“… We’d use the same word to describe their coverage of San Jose…
From the Merc:  ”…the grand plan for the area surrounding San Jose’s Diridon Station will be  unveiled…” at tonight’s San Jose City Council meeting… but you’ll probably be watching the State of the Union (or Glee) instead, however.
This may not be good news for Harry M. at the San Jose Redevelopment Agency… State Controller John Chiang is doing an RDA audit of big Redevelopment Agencies in the state…
The Merc Editorial Board gives props to Mayor Reed’s plan to make the City’s labor negotiations more public and transparent by having the City’s lead labor negotiator, Alex Gurza, present the City’s position publicly and letting unions present the rebuttal publicly.  (That’s at least how The Daily Fetch understands the new plan.)  The idea will get discussed today…
While we’re on the topic:  Protect San Jose does their weekly run-down of the City Council agenda.  Interestingly, they have nothing to say about the new negotiating guidelines or the finalists for Police Chief.  When they do, we’ll let you know…
Speaking of Protect San Jose…
There is a story from Tracy Seipel at the Merc about drug dealing that happens in downtown San Jose’s Fountain Alley and how the police are cracking down successfully.  While the story certainly isn’t funny, The Daily Fetch tries to look for silver linings sometimes, and we found one in this story:  ”…Police say dealers jump on and off [VTA] trains around the downtown core: from Second and San Carlos streets up First St. to St. James Park…”  At least some folks are riding lightrail, right?
“How many houses does it take to pay for a city service?” San Jose’s Pierluigi Oliverio has some answers and some ideas on San Jose Inside...
Last night, Palo Alto Mayor Sid Espinosa gave his State of the City and he wants more civic involvement, which shouldn’t be a problem in Palo Alto.  Perhaps the most interesting line from the speech, at least the part of the speech that was covered in the Daily News, was this:  ”…Let me say, the Stanford project will move forward this year…”  From the Mayor’s  mouth to the land-use gods in Palo Alto’s ears…
While Esponisa’s State of the City got some ink today, it is unlikely that the Mountain View State of the City address, given by City Manager Kevin Duggan at NASA Ames Research Center over lunch, will be as interesting…
What does every single City Councilmember need during this historic economic downtown and streatched budgets?  An iPad.  That’s the paperless plan in Morgan Hill to the tune of $840 each…
If you’re not following us on Twitter, this is the type of 140-character fun you’re missing throughout the day:
Google gave $100 million to Eric Schmidt. Is that a better deal than Dan Fenton got when he left Team San Jose? mercurynews.com/breaking-news/…
If you do the Twitter, follow us…

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Daily Fetch 1.21.11: Team San Jose (ironically) talks Rubber Stamps

Friday, January 21st, 2011

For those of you who spent yesterday with blinders on your eyes and ear-plugs in your ears, Google’s Larry Page will become the new CEO at Google and Meg Whitman will join HP’s Board of Directors…
The Bay Citizen is taking a decidedly anti-San Jose view of MLB in San Jose.  We suggest that Harry give Zusha a call…
Speaking of Redevelopment…
The Morgan Hill Times gets to this story (finally):  RDA gone in governor’s proposed budget… But yesterday we learned that Governor Brown says that recent attempts to fast-track Redevelopment projects might not be legal. Oops…

Today, the Mercury News Editorial Board underscores its previous conviction that theTeam San Jose contract needs to go out for bid.  That’s because yesterday we learned that the Team San Jose folks won’t release information about former CEO Dan Fenton’s severance package… All of this makes our tweet from yesterday even funnier (at least in our humble opinion):
From Team San Jose’s Twitter feed: “The Original Rubber Stamp Convention“…Perhaps their Board is attending?
You should follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook… the hits like that just keep coming all day…
San Jose Inside speculates about why Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts might leave Oakland and come to San Jose (if he is the chosen one)… (One note to Inside:  KALW is based in San Francisco…)
Also on Inside, The Fly looks at how “Rosen Rocks the Boat” in the DA’s office.  (One note to Inside:  Rosen was elected in June and it was very, very close…)
Luther Burbank School District is back in the news again… and it is really a continuation of the same saga that plagued the District previously.  The ousted Superintendent is now back as a consultant to the board and has a key to the District’s offices.  You have to read this full story to believe what is going on over there.  And remember, this school district has exactly one school…
San Jose is looking for folks with gang tattoos who want them removed… We wonder if Protect San Jose thinks this program is more or less valuable than the Gang Prevention Task Force, which they described this way earlier this week:  ”…talk shops do nothing to confront the actual gang related violence…”
Yesterday, Protect provided a “Salute to the Fallen” to honor Gordon Silva and Gene Simpson who died in the line of duty on January 20, 1989.
Finally, yesterday Mission City Lantern said that we have “the finger on the pulse of the community“… We like to think so and James makes us blush… Thank you and have a good weekend…

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Daily Fetch 10.25.10: Median Gate…

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Well, hating San Jose hasn’t hurt the San Francisco Giants one bit.  (We don’t think the A’s plans to move to San Jose has hurt the Giants one bit either, but that’s for a different day…)  Game One Wednesday…
But the Giants weren’t the biggest local news over the weekend, Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio was…
To Median Gate: It seems there was a confrontation (caught on tape) between San Jose Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio and uber-lobbyist Tom Saggau over No on Measure V signs the Councilmember Oliverio removed from a median strip (where they shouldn’t be in the first place). This story is too strange to read here, so we encourage you to head over to the Merc to check it out.  Or join the debate on San Jose Inside…  Thank goodness Protect San Jose could actually chime in on a timely basis on this front… (The Daily Fetch questions the wisdom of calling a City Councilmember “shameful”…)
In other political news… (from the Merc’s Internal Affairs team):
  • San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis is about to (finally) retire, and Raj isn’t pissed about that! (We learn how much Rob Davis will make in his retirement as well:  90 percent of his $230,000 salary with 3 percent escalators for life, plus health benefits for him and his dependents.  That doesn’t suck at all, unless you are a taxpayer…)
  • San Jose’s Public Works Director is also leaving… and
  • Pellman/Pegram gets another look from the folks at IA…
And more politics… The Bay Citizen is taking interest in San Jose politics as they give the run-down of the Labor vs Business election at hand…
The Merc Editorial Board is almost done with their endorsements.  The latest edition:
From politics to Redevelopment policy in San Jose… For a few weeks, the Redevelopment Agency in San Jose has been the focus of some bad stories about their viability long-term… Today is no different.  Tracy Seipel at the Merc looks inside the numbers, and more than once in the story the phrase “doomsday scenario” is hinted…
Remember those police escorts that the 49ers were getting from the Santa Clara Police Department?  Well, they are now a thing of the past.  Remember when the 49ers used to win sometimes?  Well, that’s a thing of the past too…
As the Mark Achilli murder trial winds up (for now)… Scott Herhold looks at another, lower profile, local murder case...
Meg Whitman was in San Jose on Saturday at Saigon Kitchen… (Not Little Saigon Kitchen?)
Finally, Mission City Lantern has changed their visuals (again).  A little plain for our taste, but keep up the good work James…

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Daily Fetch 9.28.10: Feeling hot, hot, hot…

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

It seems nobody can get enough of the District Attorney’s office.  There have been a bunch of stories about Dolores Carr leaving early, or not.  There was a story about her Chief Deputy leaving early to take on a judgeship, or not.  Now, Scott Herhold at the Merc takes a look at what may be the most difficult balancing-act in politics/public service we’ve seen since Matt Santos did a stint as a Marine Reservist while campaigning for President… Jeff Rosen, preparing to take over from District Attorney Dolores Carr while at the same time prosecuting the the Mark Achilli murder case…
As Rosen prosecutes that murder case, the State is dealing with a major death penalty decision.  And the Merc Editorial Board, in no uncertain terms, declares:  Dealth penalty doesn’t work — it should be abolished…
Google has a plan to build a 6.5 acre “Google Athletic and Recreation” field for its employees only.  Which sounds like a Google Country Club… There is one major problem:  the burrowing owl.  We’ll see if the company that is committed to “doing no evil” considers encroaching on an rare birds habitat as evil…
Speaking of local athletics, sort of, the Bay Citizen takes a look at the practice of having the Santa Clara Police escort the 49ers to games and the airport… This story is driven by Santa Clara Plays Fair, the folks that brought you the losing stadium campaign… and be sure to check out the comments… (Especially you, Mission City Lantern…)
There seem to be a rash of indecent exposures happening in Palo Alto.  The police have arrested one dude, but they think there is a second, and unrelated, dude still on the prowl… First a stabbing, now this?

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