Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Morning News Round-Up -- 11.25.09: A Very Broccoli Thanksgiving...

Hitting the pages today news that State Senator Abel Maldonado has his fingers crossed for confirmation as Lt. Governor. The Merc’s Editorial Board chimes in their support for Maldonado calling it “progress for Californians.” And progress for broccoli too...

Now, the real question, which Watch Dog has been talking about even if no one else is: Is Pat Dando taking this extra long weekend to make a decisions about her future political career?

San Jose hasn’t been the “safest” big city since 2006 and now trails New York as 4th safest in the land. Mayor Chuck Reed remains committed to regaining the title as Assistant Police Chief Dan Katz reminds San Joseans “we’re the safest big city in California.”

And if San Jose is ever going to move up that silly list again, it may be with a new Police Chief. At least that's what some folks would like to see. With San Jose’s City Hall as a backdrop, “based on the questions… (we) ask that (Dolores Carr) convene an open grand jury…” asked Asian Law Alliance’s Richard Konda’s at a press conference with more than 15 other community groups. Police Chief Rob Davis asked Sgt. Ronnie Lopez to send an email saying his door was open and he was disappointed. Because nothing says "open door" like an email sent through a spokesperson through the media...

Convinced that continuing the conversation about police use of force is the best PR strategy... San Jose Police Officers Association Vice President George Beattie was “bothered” after re-reading the Merc’s use of force story. Beattie takes issue with the implication that force is common practice and that “minor infractions” are always safe.

Santa Clara Vice Mayor Jamie Matthews is keeping his inner-Yahoo under wraps (for now) to be “sensitive” to neighbor Sunnyvale. If Yahoo’s plans work out they’ll ditch Sunnyvale to be near the Silicon Valley 49ers – in Santa Clara.

Mountain View Police credit extra feet on the street from the Gang Suppression Team and a “zero tolerance” attitude towards underage drinking for a decrease in gang violence. That probably all helped... but also the fact that they are in Mountain View probably has something to do with it...

The Mountain View-Whisman School District yanked a discussion on special education teacher cuts before the meeting, at the request of the teachers union. Parents were pissed about a lack of “transparency” as cuts turned into part-time positions.

San Jose Insides Joseph DiSalvo sends his appreciation to teachers in schools as well as those in his life. Before heading off to enjoy his holiday repast DiSalvo closes by poking Inside readers “the division and the rancor of the discourse bordering on the personal on SJI is very distressing to me…” Perhaps he should have read the blog he posts on before agreeing to posting weekly. You think the personal stuff is bad now, DiSalvo should have read Inside during the 2006 Mayoral race...

Heading into the long weekend a little good news…
And we end this short work week with this great tid-bit... As we were searching for the above picture of Pat Dando, and interesting "Sponsored Link" came up. It seems someone in the San Jose Revealed world is still paying the bill to AdWords... Go ahead, do a search for Pat Dando in Google and see what pops up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, when the POA doesn't comment on a hot button issue, they're being evasive. When they do comment, they're engaging in bad PR strategy. What, exactly, to the cops have to do to win the approval of the holier-than-thou Watch Dog?

Follow-up question: Where's the bad strategy in attempting to change the conversation by focusing on a complete analysis of facts and data, which the Merc and other media seem reluctant to do (likely because it would invalidate the bulk of their "investigative" reporting over the past year)?

I know you're (allegedly) just a news aggregator, but you seem to have an awful lot of opinions for someone with no answers. My advice: Stick to links and leave the snark to the Merc's editorial page.

Watch Dog said...

One can be evasive and then engage in a bad PR strategy. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Think Sarah Palin's elusiveness with the the press, then going on Katie Couric as part of a PR strategy.

Perhaps the "leave the snark to the Merc's editorial page" would have been good advice to the POA before the they posted their snarky video. Perhaps nothing hurt their credibility more than that.

Of course, you can just call that one of Watch Dog's "lot of opinions"...