San Jose employee unions can't be happy about a new audit the City Council will be hearing about this week. The audit says that the City could save $20 million/ year just be bringing employee health benefits in line with the private sector AND in line with other government agencies. Expect a backlash from labor-backed City Councilmembers. (Too bad there isn't a local blog reacting to the audit...) Local public employee unions should be glad they don't operate in San Mateo County. Up there, there is a County-wide task force looking at public employee benefits and pensions... The Merc. Editorial Board also thinks health benefits and pensions should be a priority.
The Merc's Scott Herhold must read Watch Dog. His piece in Sunday's paper was titled: DA Dolores Carr deserves a re-election opponent. Amen Brother. We even listed some potential (re-election) suspects (through links) last week.
Changes as the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International (?) Airport are being seen as a good thing by passengers. Unfortunately, as the airport gets better, the flights get fewer...
The East Side Union High School District has a new Acting Superintendent. Raising the obvious question, wasn't the last one just an "acting" Superintendent. (That's a pun people...)
Did you know that the next Secretary of State (?) is getting re-married? That's right. You just probably don't know who the next Secretary of State was going to be. But it's State Senator Elaine Alquist... and she is about to be off the market again.
Gilroy Mayor Al Pinheiro is under fire... and it isn't (all) about the Recall. This time he is getting dinged for cuts to public safety. Actually, this is all about the Recall -- and the saga is growing. Mayor Gage?
The Merc's Internal Affairs can't get enough of the blogwars in San Jose, probably because San Jose Inside is getting new (?) information out every Friday afternoon. This time, they SHOW ME THE MONEY... sort of.
Speaking of Phil Bump...
According to Mission City Lantern, the former Campaign Manager for Cindy Chavez for Mayor (Justin Schall) and former Political Director for the South Bay Labor Council (Phil Bump) are working on the campaign for Eric Goia for New York City Public Advocate. The Dream Team reunites... Somewhere on the 18th floor, Mr. Jansen is smiling.
While we are on the topic... San Jose Revealed seems to be down today. But Phil Bump did have time to see 500 Days of Summer this weekend and wrote a review. Whether Phil Bump is Revealed or not, he is a good writer. In short, 500 Days of Summer sucked, according to Phil Bump.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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This entire comment is solely my opinion about the workings of the DA's office in Santa Clara County & related to this posting on Watch Dog.
DA Kennedy played the most abject kinds of politics to abuse his powers against Mayor Gonzales while at the same time he avoided the use of appropriate statutory powers (CA Gov't Code 3060) to simply remove Gonzales from office for misconduct a year early.
No, Kennedy had to go all the way and abuse his powers of criminal charges against Gonzales only to have a judge throw the wrongful & inappropriate criminal charges out...after the mayoral election.
The goal of Kennedy was to defeat Council Member Chavez, and it worked. Waiting to see who made up the winning final two in the race for mayor, he charged Gonzales with crimes after the winners turned out to be Reed & Chavez.
In a sense, Kennedy cast the only vote that mattered when he abused his powers by timing their use after the mayoral primary and before the mayoral election.
I doubt criminal charges would have been brought against Gonzales had the winning duo in the mayoral primary have been Pandori and Reed, for example.
Why did this happen? A deep-seated prejudice against Mexican-Americans in my opinion forced the unlikely political marriage of Kennedy and Reed.
The murmur against Chavez on this point could be heard loud and clear throughout the campaign, and was deeply disgraceful (a) to the Mercury News which covered it up, (b) to outgoing Kennedy, and (c) to the victorious Reed.
The later campaign to select the successor to DA Kennedy touched the surface of things only lightly, especially regarding Marc Buller who is a remarkably interesting person, a kind of dangerous shadowy force within law enforcement.
He now has a 19-year trajectory of deception beginning with his highly public campaign against the Encinal Ten through his cover up of the filming of sexual victims.
And now we see in Herhold's column yesterday that he has played the avenging victim within the DA's office by joining ADA Rosen in filing a request for investigation into the DA's conduct vis-a-vis her retired cop husband.
Why Carr keeps Buller so close to her is beyond reason. His own violations of ethics (Encinal Ten, sexual abuse exam filmings) are so wide-ranging that he should be let go.
He would probably make a great defense attorney inasmuch as he knows all the tricks played within the DA's office ranging from the above-mentioned deceptions & films to the bizarre methods governing fingerprinting practices in the county.
Now I have to get busy and pack to move to Fremont and out of this county.
Phil Bump or San Jose Revealed
Thought his id was concealed
Then someone nervously squealed
That Cindy’s wounds were not healed
From The Lantern’s light, she feeled
Her mask would be unpeeled
So now, alas, the site is sealed
It’s poisonous pen never again to wield
You ran it, back to packing. Dale
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