Morning News Round-Up – 1.5.09: Famous last words "...we don't forecast anything that dramatic..."

When elected officials take off for the holidays, it usually means that they want to hit the ground running in the New Year. Watch Dog suspects it is because they want folks to think that they work hard. The weird part is the City of San Jose doesn't have a Council meeting this week. I guess they work so hard in San Jose that they deserve to take an extra week off ;)...so the New Year begins with lots and lots of meetings (except the San Jose City Council)...here is a snap-shot...

• The Sunnyvale City Council will meet Tuesday to choose an interim Council member as bench warmer for Otto Lee, elect a Vice Mayor, and figure out how to make the budget work.
• In Mountain View, the City Council will elect their new Mayor on Tuesday.
• The Milpitas City Council will talk about land deals with the County for a new park.
• Monte Sereno residents will air their grievances about garbage and weeds in front of the Council on Tuesday.
• On Wednesday, San Jose’s Rules Committee will decide how much sunshine they want on meetings with McEnery et al about the new San Pedro Square Market.
• The Santa Clara Unified School District meets on Thursday to see how their schools did in 2008.

Saratoga’s new Mayor, Chuck Page, meets twice a month with the public, he says he’s often surprised by the scope of the conversations and even more surprised by how much he knows. He credits being second chair to Mayor Ann Waltonsmith for preparing him for the lively meetings. Looking forward Page says, "So if there's a way to create an environment for sustainability, a better world for our kids, that's a better thing. That’s the right thing to do.” Page hopes to build consensus with his colleagues (including incoming Councilmembers Susie Nagpal and Howard Miller) to discourage use of plastic bags.

San Jose’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, which contributes millions to San Jose’s financial health, is projecting little impact due to the economic meltdown. Dan Fenton, the CEO of both the ConVis Bureau and Team San Jose that runs the convention center, says "It's still too early but we don't forecast anything that dramatic at all. I think we're positioned much better than we were to be more resilient." Really Mr. Fenton? San Jose's convention business is immune to the economic downturn?

We love The Town: Los Gatos Observer Editor Alastair Dallas looks forward to the new police headquarters, as well as Smokey Market. Mayor Mike Wasserman has the honor of first shovel at the groundbreaking for a new library and Los Gatos Economic Vitality Manager Danielle Surdin has hightailed it to Santa Rosa, her seat to be replaced with a Community Development Director.

Watch Dog was going to launch into San Jose Revealed today about a weird bias in a post about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Not long after writing this anti-Revealed piece, Revealed disappeared...which caused some consternation on San Jose Inside but nothing compared to Mr. Rowen's consternation at Mission City Lantern. Watch Dog knows that it isn't Blogger's fault that Revealed is down because we run Blogger too...

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This affects a lot of folks locally, so I'll include it today. If you own Apple stock (and who doesn't) hold on to your hats. Steve Jobs announced that he has a "hormone imbalance" -- and not reoccurring cancer. Perhaps not since Fidel Castro has the world been so eagerly anticipated someone's health news. This will not end speculation about Jobs' health and stock jitters that come with it -- especially after Apple backed out of MacWorld.