Posts Tagged ‘harry mavrogenes’

Daily Fetch 1.7.13: Happy New Year… now let’s play some hockey

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Welcome back.  Happy New Year.  We’ll do our best to cover some ground today… if we’ve missed something, email us…

In no particular order of importance:

The Sharks are (soon to be) back at it… That’s good news for downtown San Jose watering holes.

After a violent year in 2012, San Jose has already tallied their first homicide of 2013.  Congratulations San Jose!

Speaking of violence, a naked man was arrested in San Jose last week because he was wielding an assault rifle and a sword.

It is no surprise that the rank-and-file San Jose Police Officers don’t like the Mayor… but some walked out of his traditional New Years Day visit to the troops.

Speaking of San Jose Police Officers leaving… Protect let’s us know that 30 Officers Resign from San Jose Police Department in 60 days and the Assistant Chief of Police follows!  (Exclamation point…)

As if adding insult to injury for the Police:  San Jose has a new Councilmember this week — Johnny Khamis.  This once again proves that District 10 in San Jose has a good sense of humor…

In other folks changing seats… The County Board of Supervisors now has exactly zero women serving.  Of course, if things in 2013 stay on the same trajectory for Shirakawa as they did in 2012, perhaps Teresa Alvarado will join the all-boys club.

The big news at the end of last year was the big home loans that the County Board of Education gave/give Superintendents.  But San Jose has been doing such things for some time.  John Woolfolk takes a look at what San Jose has been “quietly” doing about it…

Speaking of highly-paid former San Jose officials… Harry Mavrogenes has a new job.  He’s the new Chief Deputy County Administrator in San Joaquin County… Tough commute from Almaden Valley…

We all know about the shakeup at the San Jose Bay Labor Council (Cindy moves to Working Partnerships, Ben to fill Cindy’s shoes…)  But way behind the scenes, someone is probably pretty pissed at Philip Bump for not keeping the SanJoseRevealed.com domain name secured.  Now, San Jose Inside owns it… If you have no idea what we’re talking about, read this…

While we’re on San Jose Inside, take a look at this report about (even) more emails from Barbara Marshman to folks inside San Jose City Hall.  Is it true that bmarshman@mercurynews.com has been taken away from bmarshman?

Finally, this is such big news that the Chronicle actually wrote about it:  San Jose finally has nonstop flights between San Jose and Tokyo.

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Daily Fetch 10.6.11: Cupertino – the news capital of Silicon Valley

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

It isn’t often that Cupertino finds itself in the middle of the world’s news, but the past few days.  Wow.
Steve Jobs passed away yesterday at the too-young age of 56.  This blog would not happen without him…
The shootings and killings at the Lehigh Quarry created a very strange and scary day in Silicon Valley yesterday.  This morning, it ended with the shooter being shot and killed…
The City of San Jose won’t audit their incubators after all.  The San Jose Rules Committee decided that it wasn’t worth it to audit the incubators, even though the City spent (misspent?) $32 million on them.  Sounds like the incubator folks are breathing a gigantic sigh of relief this morning, not to mention Harry Mavrogenes, the former head of the Redevelopment Agency…

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Daily Fetch 8.22.11: Are Santa Clarans ready for the NFL?

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

We’ll start with NFL pre-season.  Santa Clarans, are you ready for this? (From the Merc.)  ”Gang rivalry blamed for some of violence at 49ers/Raiders game”  There was other 49ers/Raiders-fan violence too… Maybe these two teams shouldn’t share a stadium after all… James?
Last week, San Jose Inside had a piece about San Jose Councilmember Sam Liccardo’s idea to shine a light on San Jose’s (money-pit?) incubators (Did RDA waste $30 million?).  And now the dynamics of the San Jose City Council have been a little shaken up.  It seems defending the money-pit is really cool.  But the Merc Editorial Board and Scott Herhold are taking aim at incubators and the Councilmembers (and Harry Mavrogenes) who love them…
To this weekend’s Internal Affairs:
We couldn’t help but comment this weekend on this @morganhilltimes Tweet:
Really? ‘Here’? Really?
Have a fun Monday…

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Daily Fetch 8.12.11: A well-shaven Friday to you all…

Friday, August 12th, 2011

We have this story today:  Cupertino has decided to pay up in order to keep their Redevelopment Agency intact…  But that is really small news compared to this:  State Supreme Court temporarily halts raid of redevelopment agency funds… What does that mean?  Who knows, but all the villages and towns that sued to keep the State’s incompetent hands away from Redevelopment must be happy this morning.  Perhaps Harry Mavrogenes wants to come back?
Blame it on the economy or high gas prices or a renewed sense of community… (ok, not the last one) Transit ridership in the Bay Area has “surged” according to Mr. Roadshow in the Mercury News…
Here’s some in-flight reading for San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore:  Palo Alto settled a lawsuit brought against the Palo Alto Police Department for an incident when they Tasered someone in 2008…
And finally, to set your weekend off in a very interesting way, with this missive from the Mountain View Voice:  ”A stark-naked, ‘well-shaven’ young man asked a woman in a Mountain View parking garage for directions…”  Unfortunately, neither the Mountain View Police nor The Daily Fetch has any details about what the “well-shaven” part of the story is referring too… and apparently, the Police Naired not ask… we could wax poetic about this story all day…

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Daily Fetch 6.16.11: SYTYCD?

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

The State Budget was passed yesterday in Sacramento.  It seems a little (ok, a lot) earlier than usual.  Probably because the Legislature was in danger of losing their paychecks if they didn’t pass the budget.  As part of the budget, there is a new online sales tax.  Which is an F-U to Amazon… Oh, another part of the budget is to kill Redevelopment Agencies… Which is an F-U to (outgoing) Harry…
The Merc Editorial Board would like the Governor to veto the aforementioned budget… Let the games begin…
Speaking of budgets… the City of San Jose approved all kinds of fee increases this week… Water – check.  Sewer – check.  Garbage – check.  Storm drain services – check… Any other fees you can think of?  Well, they are going up too…
Speaking of Harry… Apparently he thinks it’s a good idea to run for San Jose City Council in District 10 when Nancy Pyle is termed out next year. Seriously.  San Jose Inside has the details.  Harry is one thing… but former Police Chief Rob Davis running?  That’s quite another.  Perhaps his $200k+ pension and benefits package isn’t quite enough.  He needs another $81k to top it all off…
As if the budget/pension battles happening up and down the County weren’t bad news enough for fire departments, the Civil Grand Jury chimes in about how fire departments waste lots and lots of money responding to non-fire emergencies…
Yesterday, the Merc Editorial Board supported more charter schools being approved by the County Board of Education… and last night the County Board of Education heard from parents about the same thing.
You know that horrible San Antonio Shopping Center in Mountain View? Well, it is getting a “facelift” according to the Daily News (and the Mountain View City Council)…
While Gilroy may be famous for garlic (and young families)… Morgan Hill is trying to stake its claim as the dance capital of Santa Clara County.  Morgan Hiller Ryan Ramirez is in the top 20 on SYTYCD… For those of you who are not as cool as us, SYTYCD is So You Think You Can Dance…

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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 12.8.10: Don’t show this to Harry…

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

It was a big day at the San Jose City Council yesterday…
Let’s do the airport thing first…
The Council voted to tweak the living wage ordinance a bit.  Labor leaders and business leaders and the Mayor and everyone else agreed to the changes, so we’ll see how effective the changes will be for the Mayor’s Airport Competitiveness kick…
Next to Team San Jose…
A big loss for Team San Jose at Council as the Council voted to re-bid the whole enchilada next year.  While the Team San Jose folks defended their (apparent) financial blind spots (like $300,000+ in bonuses last year) the Council wasn’t having it and new folks will be able to bid next year.  Amazing that Dan Fenton’s name isn’t even mentioned in John Woolfolk’s story about the issue…
And then this…
The San Jose City Council moved one-step further toward annexing “Cambrian 36″… Which matters a lot if you live in Cambrian 36…
To a San Jose A’s/Oakland A’s piece written by the East Bay Express.  The Express (the East Bay’s weekly newspaper) gives an insight into the relative financial strengths of the Oakland and San Jose Redevelopment Agencies.  (Note to San Jose Redevelopment Agency staffers that read The Daily Fetch:  Make sure Harry doesn’t read this story…)
You might recall that the race for DA was anything but smooth in June.  In fact, it was down right nasty.  For several weeks (months?) DA Dolores Carr couldn’t stay out of the news, not even for a few days.  Well, let’s just say that hard feelings still exist.  Dolores Carr, who is well known for her political instincts (joke), got the Board of Supervisors to give a commendation to retiring deputy DA Lane Liroff.  And here’s where it gets good:  ”…But Liroff is among the least popular and most abravise of some 170 prosecutors…”  That wasn’t a quote from someone in the DA’s office, that was in Tracey Kaplan’s reporting of the story in the Merc.  The story goes on and involves Liroff calling the Government Attorney’s Association “…a bunch of thugs…”  Perhaps the DA’s office will now calm the f__k down?
The Merc Editorial Board today is calling on the County Board of Education to support a charter school application for a Summit Prep school in the East Side Union High School District.  Summit is featured in the film Waiting for Superman and is continually recognized as one of the most successful high schools in the country.  That didn’t stop East Side Union High School District from saying “no” to one of their applications… so the County Board is slated to hear the appeal tonight, which the Ed Board would like to see passed without any bureaucratic B.S.…
But the Merc Ed Board also placed an Op Ed in today’s paper from Regina Mullen, a senior at Menlo Atherton High School in the same school district where Woodside High School is.  Woodside was also featured in Waiting for Superman, and not in a good way… so Mullen bashes the movie a bit and defends her school district.  Interestingly, Mullen states in the Op Ed that she goes to M-A, but in the description along the bottom of the piece it says she goes to Woodside High School… We’ll blame the Merc, not the high school kid…
From successful charter schools (Summit) to closed charter schools (MACSA)… The Gilroy Dispatch is still following the MACSA charter school embezzlement story, even if the outgoing DA isn’t.  But the incoming DA might be. From the Dispatch, a quote from Jeff Rosen:  ”…It’s very important for us to resolve the investigation… I can’t tell you how many people we have working on it, or when the investigation is going to be completed. What I can tell you is that it’s important for me to resolve it…”  Also of note, is that (newly sworn-in) San Jose City Councilmember Xavier Campos is still not speaking publicly about this, but is referenced in the story and has his spokesperson speak for him.  Check it out…
Mission City Lantern got (another) face-lift.  Which means the Lantern now has had more face-lifts than Hasselhoff?

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