Thursday, September 10, 2009

Morning News Round-Up – 9.10.09: The finger-pointing edition…

Economics? We don’t need no stinking economics… Experts on the financial returns of baseball stadiums (there’s a gig for that?) aren’t sure moving the A’s to San Jose paints the same rosy picture. Redevelopment Agency assistant executive director John Weis disagrees saying holding out for offices could lead to 20 years of empty land.

Also thinking about sports, Sunnyvale wants more time to mull over Santa Clara’s 49er impact report. Worried about traffic Sunnyvale Councilmember Melinda Hamilton said “it is not our problem” to fix.

Union leader Brian Ward accused Palo Alto city officials of hiding $22 million in the cookie jar while crying poor. Administrator Lalo Perez says that money is all but spent on approved projects.

Give it up or dish seem to be the options facing text-addict San Jose Councilmember Pete Constant. Texting is “a way of life” complains Constant when faced with a possibility of council meetings becoming a no-text zone. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed countered pointing to Saratoga where Mayor Chuck Page shrugged “we owe it to our citizens to pay 100% attention.”

Santa Clara County will scrounge their cookie jar for $3.7 million to pay builders for the Morgan Hill courthouse. More interesting, (apparently) no one knows the final tally for courthouse costs.

San Jose Councilmember Nora Campos hopes you’ll be there for a groundbreaking on a new East San Jose park. The Merc’s Sal Pizarro also dishes Applied Materials vice president Joe Pon is ditching the corporate life to move to San Francisco’s James Irvine Foundation while philanthropists Michael and Susan Eckhardt chided Silicon Valley residents for being chintzy.

Cupertinites can look forward to more creative signage aimed at “people traveling 50 mph” but don’t bother asking for any “tacky” signs, those are still a no-no.

Los Gatos Mayor Mike Wasserman hopes to “…help Los Gatos on a larger scale” and is tossing his hat in the ring to replace termed-out Supervisor Don Gage. The Merc noted the Supervisors oversee county jails, health and human services and the Valley Transportation Agency.

Congressmember Anna Eshoo hosted a lively town hall on healthcare. Pointing to hidden costs of emergency care Eshoo told the rambunctious crowd overall costs would drop. Not everyone agreed and the normally polite residents from the toney towns of Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto hurled accusations of liar at Eshoo.

Los Altos Hills joined the top 10 on Forbes list of expensive places to live. With a median home $3.28 million Los Altos Hills landed 8th on the list of toney zipcodes.

Los Altos Hills resident/former San Jose fire protection engineer Ed Munyak landed a spread in Metro for the growing support of his theory that the World Trade Center couldn’t have come down without pre-planted explosives.

San Jose’s 20th homicide of the year happened in a parking garage while the Dub Show Tour ’09 raged above. San Leandro’s Lake Eric Calvin was covered in so much blood paramedics didn’t know how many times he’d been shot. Protect San Jose’s Officer James Gonzales (apparently) thinks the link between the E-40 event and the shooting is more obvious. Anyone with information is urged to contact Sgt. Dave Tindall or detective John Barg of the San Jose Police Department's homicide unit at 408-277-5283.

Metro’s Fly did the math on the failed recall effort… A recall election in Monte Sereno would cost the taxpayers $200,000 while paying those pesky councilmembers $300 runs $21,600. Fly followed San Jose’s City Council discussion on budget busting golf courses.

A plethora of screw-ups landed the Live Oak High School theatre project in the rarified air of having a 2nd state inspector. Sanchez Inc’sNancy Sanchez pointed at the engineer and architect for things like an (un)disinfected drinking fountain and other screw-ups.

San Jose Insider/De-Bug coordinator Raj Jayadev reappeared to chat with students about President’s virtual visit. According to Jayadev, students without textbooks were unimpressed.

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