Monday, May 24, 2010

Morning News Round-Up -- 5.24.10: 4 losses/4 games = Shark's tee times

On Friday night the Sharks lost in overtime. Sunday they gave up a two goal lead to lose by two goals. For those of you counting at home, that's 4 losses in 4 games against the Chicago Blackhawks. And 4 losses in 4 games means tee-times all around today...

We finally have all the Mercury News Editorial Board's recommendations for San Jose City Council... Previously they came out in favor of Magdalena Carrasco over Xavier Campos et al and Don Rocha over Jim Cogan, Larry Pegram et al. Today we get the incumbents, Pete Constant, Sam Liccardo, and Madison Nguyen -- Nguyen being the only one with a real race this time.

It took a few days and seven pages, but Deb Figone, the San Jose City Manager, responded to the City's unions' plans to fix the budget... they aren't enough, too many one-timers, leave me alone at Flame's, etc., etc.

Deb Figone's ongoing battle with the City's unions won't (apparently) prevent San Jose's pools from closing for the summer, which was the original plan. The City is going to contract with some private companies to run the pools for the summer, which is great news... if it ever stops raining. Too bad the same deal couldn't be worked out for Family Camp.

Increasing the VLF. Remember when it used to be considered a political hot potato? That seems quaint now, right? Gray Davis did it and it cost him his job. Governor Schwarzenegger undid, and it cost his budget-balancing billions. San Mateo County (SamTrans) is now considering a local VLF and so is Santa Clara County (VTA) to help with their projects. According to polling, 59 percent of County voters support VTA's VLF $10/ car fee.

Well, the long-awaited investigation into the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District's Chancellor's travel, spending, and general sloppiness has concluded... the results: "We are taking responsibility for not seeing that all policies and procedures were enforced. It will help us doing a better job going forward" -- that according to Ron Lind, who serves on the Community College District Board. Of course, unelecting the Board who is supposed to pay attention to such things would also work.

Dude, that is so uncool... a medical marijuana dispensary was robbed at gun point in San Jose on Thursday. The robbers took the weed and the money off the patients who were in the dispensary at the time. Now the Medical Cannabis Collectives Coalition -- the pot club lobby, if you will -- would like the City of San Jose to hurry the hell up to write an ordinance that would set some security guidelines for clubs...

Steve Johnson at the Merc asked the question that nobody was asking last week when Toyota and Tesla announced their plans for NUMMI: Will Tesla and Toyota create as many jobs as hoped? Well, if you ask San Jose, who was promised jobs from Tesla, they'll probably say OHN...

This must hurt Paul Krutko's ego more than the Tesla thing... the Merc had a story over the weekend about how all the (cool, high-paying) Web 2.0 jobs are going to San Francisco...

Vic Ajouny, the Mayor Chuck Reed's campaign guru (?) is in the Merc's Internal Affairs this weekend about a questionable mail piece he put out for Richard Calderon who is running a quixotic campaign to try to unseat Sheriff Laurie Smith... Are you surprised that people would question Ajlouny's mailers?

In other Internal Affairs news... Pete Constant isn't pedaling stories about his challengers' police records (and if you believe that...) and John Weis, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency's number 2 is leaving town... weird, considering he is the one in charge of putting together the MLB plan for downtown San Jose. Apparently Weis couldn't wait for Bud Selig any longer...

Scott Herhold's column on Sunday gives a glimpse into the legal system about the long-forgotten case of Avo Makdessian/City of San Jose versus Dennis Fong (Tropicana) and a silly (libelous) email that Makdessian sent from City Hall...

A woman driving her SUV on early Saturday morning in Palo Alto was kidnapped, driven to Santa Clara, and sexually assaulted... scary.

You may remember last week when the folks at the Gilroy Unified School District were considering finishing the beautiful new Christopher High School with portables as opposed to a new school wing that was promised when the school bond was passed in 2008... well 100+ folks showed up at a special meeting last week to protest the portables...

Finally, if you have any campaign stuff that you would like to share, we're here for you. Especially copies of mailers that may be interesting for folks to see. We have collected some, but we'd like more: email us.

2 comments:

Deleted Forever said...

WD, keep the love for the sweeping A's to yourself!! GIANTS ARE OUR TEAM!!

Hey, pal, good job on Victor "Greasy Eyebrows" Ajlouny!!

The long arm of sludge comes from Omaha, and I am still confused about his 38 grand for doing nothing for Reed or the city.

Anonymous said...

Watch Dog - a slight oversight. You overlooked the http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_15142662 opinion from De Anza gang-rape rescuers on Sunday. "Opinion: Witnesses in DeAnza case feel promise of complete investigation was broken"