Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.9.10: It depends what your definition of "all" is...

Dolores Carr just can't help herself. She has some sort of addiction to bad decisions that inevitably lead to bad press... Her addiction and the bad press lead directly into more ammunition for Jeff Rosen's campaign. Remember the Memo she issued to her entire staff that said something like -- don't take any cases to a specific judge, you know, the boycott Memo. Well, she has been taking some serious heat for that decision... so she has back-tracked. Apparently Dolores Carr didn't mean it when she wrote: "I have decided to exercise a challenge to Judge Bryan pursuant to CCP 170.6 in all criminal cases." She is disputing the definition of the word "all" -- very Clintonesque Ms. Carr, very Clintonesque...

Speaking of interesting June 2010 ballot battles... the Santa Clara City Council will decide about what the actual ballot language will be on the ballot related to the 49ers stadium election. One small problem, the City Staff in Santa Clara seem to have a different idea of what voters should read and vote on in June versus what the stadium backers feel voters should read and vote on. Watch Dog's guess is that the 49er's language will take the day... This is such big news (apparently), even the Chronicle has a story...

Speaking of politics...

Mayor Reed did a big favor for the SJPD (and the POA) when he penned a very critical letter back to Assemblymembers Joe Coto and Paul Fong. Remember, Coto and Fong have asked a State Assembly Audit Committee to look into the San Jose Police Department training and practices in light of all the news stories and community complaints. By the way, the letter appears nowhere on the Mayor's website... only on Protect San Jose.

And more politics... and sports...

Matt Artz in the Tri-City Beat in the Contra Costa Times (you know you read it too) has a great piece about an imaginary conversation between Bug Selig and Lew Wolff about baseball and the Bay Area... Watch Dog's favorite line is from Imaginary Lew Wolff to Imaginary Bud Selig:
Bud, please, it doesn’t make sense to have two teams in one metropolitan area, and have both of them 40 miles from the area’s largest city.
That pretty much sums it up... unless of course your pitching ace is in arbitration...

Yesterday the Merc delved into the disagreement between San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and City Manager Deb Figone over how to revamp the City's pension boards. Figone had one way to do it, the Mayor had another way that was developed as a compromise. The Merc gives props for the Mayor for trying and encourages the reform, but ends with this: "But it's a shame taxpayers will still fall short of majority representation."

There was a huge fire in an East San Jose warehouse yesterday. You probably saw the smoke.

Soccer fields, soccer fields, everywhere there are going to be soccer fields near the new Earthquakes field.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board is about to get a new member soon to replace retired old-timer Sig Sanchez, who retired at the beginning of the year. The South County folks would like his replacement to be South County-centric. There are 14 folks whom the Board of the Water District interviewed and they will get resumes back soon... check out the list of folks who applied.

Scott Herhold gives some perspective on MediLeaf in Gilroy in his column today. Herhold thinks Gilroy is wasting money on a lawsuit against an establishment that isn't that dangerous because Gilroy thinks pot is the boogey-man...

This is fun: A Palo Alto public meeting on High Speed Rail design options. Expect a lot of angry folks yelling and screaming... And their neighbors to the north (Atherton and Menlo Park) are threatening to re-open lawsuits against the High-Speed Rail Authority...

More fun in Palo Alto... the City Council is getting out of the Palo Alto promotion business and letting the hotels in town spend the money it collects from a new "Tourism Business Improvement District" to promote themselves...

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