Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.17.09: MACSA meet Dolores Carr...

A harsh report confirms that MACSA skimmed/stole $400,000 from teachers at Gilroy’s only charter school. To add to the financial misery, students are underperforming and the schools (there is one in San Jose as well) haven’t met their diversity goals. District Attorney Dolores Carr is noodling over criminal charges, the School District is contemplating yanking the school’s charter. But wait...there's more...The report doesn’t include the $250,000 MACSA skimmed from teachers at San Jose’s Academia Calmecac. Former El Portal office coordinator Lucy Patereau says MACSA’s bad behavior started the day the school opened....expect the damage from this story to reach deep into San Jose politics...

Baseball is in the news...again...Here is the gist: The Giants think they heard good news from MLB Commissioner Bud Selig when he said MLB's stance on the Giants' territorial rights hasn't changed...Lew Wolff probably disagrees. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed waits patiently...

Speaking of education…The Merc’s Editorial Board cheers the collaboration between NASA, Foothill-DeAnza, and UC Santa Cruz to create a $1 billion research/education facility.

Supervisor Dave Cortese envisions arrays of solar panels soaking up the sun, decreasing the County’s energy cost/carbon footprint, and possibly generating revenue. Mike Mendizabal, President of the Milpitas Unified board points out they’re saving millions annually in electricity costs while covering 75% of their energy needs...Have you noticed that since Cortese and Shirakawa become Supervisors the Board is in the news a lot more?...

San Jose Revealed (apparently) spent the weekend reading San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s budget message. Sadly, the somnorific (look it up) did nothing to improve Revealed’s mood. Fair warning to the reader, it’s not the lively, biting Revealed we’re familiar with but a heavy handed grouch.

San Jose Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio blogs for San Jose Inside his solutions for the budget crisis. No surprises. Oliverio wants to generate new revenue with a utility tax and cut costs with a wage reduction.

San Jose Insider/Santa Clara County Board of Education Trustee Joseph DiSalvo assesses the fiscal benefits for encouraging teachers close to retirement to ditch the classroom. The bottom line: new teachers cost less than those who have been around the block a few times. (On the flip side, they may not be as good in the classroom...)

The Merc’s Scott Herhold is in full-tirade mode about the San Jose Elections Commission. Herhold wants to disband it. (Is this Herhold's way to distract the reader from accusations of bad behavior by former Mayor/Lobbyist Tom McEnery?) Remember, Herhold hate anonymity...

Morgan Hill’s $4 million Third Street Promenade Project could be held up for the simplest of reasons…Morgan Hill declines to assume responsibility should any of the Dasovic family homes they want to work on get destroyed. Speaking mainly in bureaucratic gobblydegook Morgan Hill City Attorney Danny Wan shrugged his shoulders.

It seems like it’s all garbage all the time these days…Gilroy Dispatch Editor’s are urging the County Supervisor’s to just say no to garbage collector GreenWaste's 14% increase. (Good thing Gilroy isn't in San Mateo County -- the Dispatch would have a field day with the Garbage Saga of San Mateo County...)

Gilroy hasn’t seen the last of their gang problem. Friday the 13th included murder, arson, a sawed off shotgun, and a 15 year-old hiding in the bushes. Jason would have been so proud.

Silicon Valley giant Cisco is poised to do battle with longtime (soon to be former) partners HP and IBM by stepping directly into their playpens. Cisco’s John Chambers started the effort 3 years ago calling it Project California: to catch the next wave in the tech revolution.

A trio of teens were tossed in the pokey by the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department. San Jose’s Nicholas Masouris, Sunnyvale's Mitchell Azevedo, and an unnamed teen from Campbell are suspected of a string of auto break-ins netting high end electronics and other goodies.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is barely relevant to your post, but one thing that emerges very clearly from all the scandals is that every employing entity seems to have slid from doing its original job to being a jobs program. I'm hoping this insight is original and that it gets called the most cynical analysis yet.

But the idea is simple. City Hall is not an entity designed to serve the city's residents -- it is a jobs programs for its employees. (Certainly the planning dept is.)

School districts are not set up to serve students -- they are a jobs program for current employees.

The water district has nothing to do with our water safety, it is a jobs program for its employees.

Check it out. After five years or so, all employing entities have been taken over by its employees and, as such, the entities are managed to enhance employee benefits, not whatever its stated programs may be.

This idea certainly blows a hole in the "stakeholder" theory by claiming that the only stakeholder for any employing entity is its employees.