Morning News Round-Up -- 3.10.10: Welcome to LAS, I mean SJC

Well, the City of San Jose is officially selling itself to the devil. Literally. They voted to put a measure on the June ballot to expand gambling in San Jose in order to help bolster their bottom line. It reminds Watch Dog of schools that allowed Coke and Pepsi into their cafeterias because there was money in it for the schools. Sort of, "we'll deal with the evil because we need the money"... It doesn't make it a good idea just because there is money attached to it. Five (FIVE!) Councilmembers opposed it: Councilmembers Ash Kalra, Nora Campos, Madison Nguyen, Kansen Chu, and Sam Liccardo. Nothing about it on the Values Advocacy Council website yet...

One person who may not have to deal with the results of more gambling (which we can only imagine he is very much against) is San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis. That's because Davis seems to be in the running for the top job in Dallas. The cheers from the ACLU and DeBug's offices were audible from the street when this news came out yesterday afternoon...

And then there is the daily story about the airport... this time the Merc Editorial Board took their turn. They say no to lifting the curfew totally, but maybe some tinkering with it might make sense... but it really is about jobs and wages, both of which may need to be discussed to keep SJC on track with paying its debt obligations and its doors open... Perhaps the City should consider putting a card room in Terminal 1...

And the daily 49ers story... the Santa Clara City Council voted on mitigations to the stadium plan last night. But you weren't there, you were home watching Crystal Bowersox...

There is an interesting write-in campaign is going on with the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Because a judge ruled they had been collecting a groundwater fee illegally, they may have to stop collecting it if more than half of the customers will well-water write a letter saying they want to stop paying.. A weird exercise in democracy, to say the least...

What is it about Palo Alto Utilities? They can't seem to keep the lights on. In the past month they have had some problems... as outlined here. And they should probably get a new spokesperson. Dean Batchelor had this to say about yesterday's incident: "No one was injured, thank god." Thank god? You're the guy in charge and you need to have faith to make sure no one gets hurt? Later in the story he had this to say about the three outages this morning: "This is not a good month for us right now..." Y'think?

Not only that, but a big company is leaving Palo Alto because the electricity is unreliable... oops. Not a good month indeed...

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.3.10: Gambling Good. Family Camp Bad...

Division on the San Jose City Council doesn't happen that often, if you ask Watch Dog. But it did yesterday, twice and they sent a pretty interesting message about their priorities:

Division 1: On a 6-5 vote, the City decided to prepare language for another tax on card clubs that would increase the City's rake but also allow the card rooms to become Las Vegas-esque. The pro-gambling six were Mayor Reed, Vice Mayor Judy Chirco, along with Councilmembers Pete Constant, Pierluigi Oliverio, Rose Herrera, and Nancy Pyle. The anti-gambling five were Councilmembers Sam Liccardo, Ash Kalra, Kansen Chu, Nora Campos, and Madison Nguyen. We'll see what happens next week...

Division 2: On an 8-3 vote, the City decided to close San Jose Family Camp for the season. The (losing) pro-Camp camp included Liccardo, Herrera, and Pyle.

Just so we are clear about what message the San Jose City Council's sent yesterday: gambling good, family camp bad.

District Attorney Dolores Carr will announced today whether or not she is charging any of the San Jose Police Officers with the beating of Phoung Ho. Watch Dog is on record predicting that no charges will be brought against the Officers, based solely on the San Jose Police Officers' Association endorsement of Carr's reelection campaign. Scott Herhold of the Merc doesn't think charges will be brought, independent of politics...

On the other side of the courtroom... the Merc Editorial Board gives mad props to the County Board of Supervisors on their decision to provide a public defender for those charged with crimes... imagine that.

It was a strange day in San Jose yesterday. First, a man jumped off a bridge to commit suicide. Then, a second man tried to do the same thing, but was talked down by SJPD.

Unfortunately, this sounds like a story from San Jose, not Mountain View... a woman is claiming she was the victim of "negligence and/or excessive force" at the hands of the Mountain View Police and has filed a $1 million lawsuit.

It looks like the new California Assembly Speaker has been reading the Mercury News and/or following the San Jose City Council... he is proposing that lawmakers be disallowed from getting text messages from lobbyists. (We will leave obvious the texting/ Tom McEnery/ lobbyist jokes up to San Jose Revealed...)

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.18.10: Guess who is coming to breakfast?

There was a bad plane crash in East Palo Alto yesterday. Unless you were under a rock, you know that three Tesla Motors employees were killed in the tragic crash. It also caused major damage to Palo Alto Utilities.

Guess who is coming to the Mayor's breakfast this morning? Lew Wolff, the Oakland A's owner. Not only is he coming, but he is introducing the Mayor, so at least one part of the speak won't be Ambien-like. Perhaps an MLB announcement will be forthcoming? Or perhaps Lew Wolff likes runny eggs... and the Mayor.

We joked that the Mardi Gras in San Jose was planned to have a "normal police presense," whatever that means... So it stands to reason that Police categorized Mardi Gras as like 'a calm weekend night'... as if that exists...

Hate the card clubs, love the card club money. That's what San Jose is all about. Here's what to look forward to in the coming weeks/ months: San Jose will put a ballot measure on a ballot to increase taxes on card clubs, then card clubs threaten to fight the ballot measure, then the City will allow more tables to allow card clubs to make more money so the card clubs don't oppose the ballot measure. Sort of like political racketeering by the card clubs... Too bad San Jose Revealed's coverage of the issues isn't linkable right now...

Do Not Cross, Park Closed... apparently San Jose Park Rangers mean it. Really, really mean it.

Does someone really have plan to redo Hangar One? Eddie Orton thinks he's got a plan and the money to do it. Eddie Orton is an Emeryville developer... Emeryville? Perhaps a Mountain View Ikea inside an enormous hangar?

In other Mountain View-area development news... Google doesn't want Mountain View to do evil in the North Bayshore neighborhood. In Google's view, evil = development...