Friday, June 12, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 6.12.09: Why Larry Stone gets booed...

Santa Clara County Tax Assessor Larry Stone is lowering the assessed value of nearly 90,000 properties, dropping the County’s tax roll by $17 Billion. Always the master of understatement, Stone says “that’s serious.” School districts, redevelopment agencies, community colleges, the Valley Water District, and the County will all be hit by the revenue drop. No wonder this guy gets booed all over town...

Santa Clara County Medical Examiner Dr. Michelle Jorden took San Jose Police off the hook reporting it was an “astronomical” amount of meth, not tasers, that killed San Jose’s Richard Lua in February this year. San Jose Inside Editor chimes in with a repeat of the Merc. story.

The Valley Transportation Authority managed to pass a (so far) balanced budget according to VTA Boardmember/County Supervisor Don Gage. VTA Board Chair Dolly Sandoval said they had some tough decisions to make like raising rates and cutting service but plan to continue providing “residents with a quality transportation system.”

San Jose’s Lynhaven Elementary School was attacked by thieves. Not after computers. These guys stole farm and science equipment the children spent 3 years raising money to buy. Principal Lesa Nieri said this really hurts during the economic crisis when the school cannot replace the equipment. The Police Officers Association is raising cash to help out.

Which got us wondering... so Watch Dog checked out You Tube and the Video-Gate video is still up.

Before San Jose’s Elections Commissions looks at letting the voters consider instant-runoff voting (IRV), Councilmembers Sam Liccardo and Ash Kalra joined forces with the New America Foundation and Common Cause to support the idea.

It’s official, the Sunnyvale City Council will let you (legally) make that left when you leave Kaiser Santa Clara. Cost to the City to make the left legal: $1,000. Payback for Sunnyvale residents trying to go home: Priceless.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to know if cancer causing toxins made it to Cupertino’s Stevens Creek School, two miles from the Lehigh Cement plant. Lehigh’s Tim Matz grumpily reports “Bottom line? We’re safe.” A hundred residents showed up at last night's community meeting for a lively debate regarding safety.

Parking wars have hit Los Gatos... again. Chase Bank is pissed that Jim Zanardi wants their customers to stop parking in his lot. Zanardi shrugged saying Chase customers take too many spaces, won’t help pay for repaving, and he wants to rent out vacant retail space – tough to do when the parking lot is full of bank customers. You have got to love Los Gatos battles... so person and so nasty.

Morgan Hill residents can point out their own historic Granada Theatre in a Thomas Kinkade painting. Referred to as “sentimentalists” by the Morgan Hill Times local historic preservationists are (again) trying to save the Granada from demolition. Mayor Steve Tate says goodbye already, unless the developer wants to save it.

The Morgan Hill City Council and Morgan Hill Unified School District Board met to “bring each other up to speed.” School Board president Don Moody read a list of school accomplishments and Police Chief Bruce Cumming did the same for the Police. Mayor Steve Tate said it was a good first step to “building bridges between the two governments.” Because, of course, without long-boring-feel-good meetings they could never work together. (Watch Dog San Mateo recommends this same type of meeting for Foster City and their School District...)

It’s good to be a City employee in Mountain View. The City Council approved a low interest home loan program for all City employees. With pay cuts hitting, could be everyone qualifies.

Mountain View residents disagreed over the benefits of affordable housing and housing density while agreeing that High-Speed Rail sounds good – underground. The General Plan meeting focused on the Whisman neighborhood where residents complained highways, freeways, and the Central Expressway cut them off from Mountain View. Hell ya, let’s get rid of the freeway!

Assemblymember Paul Fong wants the State (then the Feds) to apologize to Chinese immigrants and is being coy about how much money he wants the Feds to pay. Fong noted that when Japanese-Americans were given reparations for internment he hoped the Feds would “eventually apologize for the Chinese exclusion.” Angel Island Immigration Station Director Eddie Wong says it isn’t reparations but education that counts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watch Dog, seems a lot of people were also upset about stealing gardening tools from children. As of this afternoon the school had everything they need.

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12580137

Anonymous said...

Mike Potter is also out ill from Coto's office. Just coincidence that author of San Jose Revealed has pneumonia?