Morning News Round-Up -- 6.11.09: Festivus for the Rest of Us...

There is one story that pops out in today's news: There is a bronze quail missing from the new Mary Avenue Bicycle bridge in Cupertino. If you see a stolen quail in your travels, please let the police know...

Now, onto less important stuff:

The neighbors surrounding the proposed San Jose A's stadium celebrated Festivus last night. They met for an Airing of Grievances, the ritual passed on from generation to generation during this wonderful holiday. (Feats of Strength is apparently going to happen at the next meeting...) One nice insight from the Mayor, he said he hoped that the territorial rights issues would be addressed over the summer. It looks like a November 2009 ballot could become reality... as the Mayor suggested recently.

Yesterday we covered a new tactic that the DA and the Sheriff are using to go after gangs in Gilroy. At the same time, gangs were reloading and shooting... a 19 year old woman was caught in the cross-fire.

While some NIMBYs are being very NIMBY-y about High Speed Rail (see Palo Alto, Atherton, Menlo Park, etc., etc., etc.) others aren't. Mountain View is in the "aren't" column.

A (relatively) big, new development project got approved yesterday in Palo Alto by the Planning Commissioners. Amazingly enough, folks who live in the area of Palo Alto Bowl also seem supportive of the 4 story hotel and housing development.

Speaking of development... The Greenbelt Alliance put out a report that says that "in-fill" development, rather than sprawl, can address the Bay Area's population growth over the next couple of decades. The Merc Editorial Board likes the idea of in-fill...

Times are not good in local school districts, obviously. Milpitas Unified is the latest to consider cutting most, if not all, of summer school classes and the Mountain View Whisman School District is holding off on putting a bond measure on the ballot until they know the full extent of the State's budget grab...

San Jose Inside wrote up Tony West's Rotary speech on Wednesday -- he apparently rocked the Rotary house. (For historical purposes, we will point you toward Watch Dog's Tony West historical perspective here.)

Ok, so we know that the Navy is in charge of taking the toxic siding off of Hangar One at Moffett. What is less clear, or unclear, is who will pay to replace the siding.