Morning News Round-Up – 12.21.09: It's all about moving...

Following last week’s baseball self-importance… The San Jose/(San Francisco) Giants are stamping their feet in anger with San Francisco attorney Todd Smith as chief grump for a nine page letter filled with arguments against the (San Jose) A’s moving to town. Sportswriter Mark Purdy says the Giants (apparently) think San Jose is filled with “totally stupid… rubes.” Santa Clara County Tax Assessor Larry Stone wiggled the knife for Giants President Larry Baer with the news Bud Selig’s committee was meeting with officials in San Jose. According to the Merc’s Internal Affairs Stone and Baer were sharing 49er’s owner Jed York’s suite for a little football…

Valley Medical Center’s executive director, Michael Skehan, is leaving in search of a Master’s Degree. County Supervisor Liz Kniss suggests it’s not the “blistering” audit but “being second or third in command.”

San Jose’s Strong Neighborhoods Initiative will feel the hit from the State’s $75 million money grab. Redevelopment Agency executive director Harry Mavrogenes said of the 84% budget cut in SNI “everybody is getting the same kind of cutback.”

The Merc’s Internal Affairs dishes former South Bay Labor Council “apparatchik” Phil Bump keeps up with some local news in his New York blog. On an (un)related note, Watch Dog really misses the snarky blog Bump didn’t have a hand in, their domain name is up for grabs… IA follows GOP gubernatorial wannabe/former eBay CEO Meg Whitman through courtroom proceedings where it’s looking more like Whitman has a little Jekyll and Hyde action.

The next time you get busted in San Jose, look for the EarCam. Some of San Jose’s finest will carry ear mounted cameras to record all “contact with a person.” The first 18 are provided by Taser International (pissed their friends in blue get bad press?), if San Jose police fully outfit the cost could run $4 million plus roughly $1.7 million yearly. Silicon Valley DeBug’s Raj Jayadev wasn’t so impressed suggesting “we can’t solve our problems with a new piece of gadgetry.”

The Merc’s Scott Herhold gets his Year in Review out early with a note that it’s all about following the money, studying the past and keeping an eye on the kids.

How many times do you need to hear it… Don’t bring things that go bang home from the war…

Protect San Jose is giddy with success declaring they are Movin’ On Up. Don’t worry, PSJ promises not to rest on their laurels…

Mission City Lantern outlines one of the Top 10 of 2009… The 49ers.

Morning News Round-Up – 11.10.09:

San Jose Redevelopment Agency chief Harry Mavrogenes took a beating Monday afternoon when County Executive Jeff Smith said the Agency is “so highly leveraged they cannot pay off their bills or even their operating expenses…” Smith was joined by Councilmember Sam Liccardo who hoped his cautionary tone might prove to be “off-key.” No doubt, Mavrogenes was thinking the same thing...

The Santa Clara Open Space Authority is breathing a sigh of relief, and keeping nearly $30 million from an “illegal assessment.” The agency now gets to figure out how to spend the ill-gotten gain, open some of that open space, hire a few rangers, build trails or purchase more parkland. Maybe Taxpayers Association Doug McNea could look somewhere more interesting next time...

Sporting a new t-shirt Morgan Hill resident/Medical Marijuana dispenser Batzi Kuburovich stands proudly next to Gilroy's shiny new medical marijuana dispensary. Councilmember Cat Tucker was pissed the dispensary opened in “blatant disregard” to the law and council decisions. We’re happy we now know where to go to get our doctors note for pot…

San Jose Insider/San Jose Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio was mighty pissed last week when colleagues ditched his idea to open labor negotiations for popcorn eating entertainment. Oliverio hopes to increase taxes on the city’s gambling joints and adding a pot tax for good measure.

The Merc’s Scott Herhold talked (government staff) layoffs with a friend over the weekend and offers a few ideas of his own for cost savings. Don’t let folks with skin in the game decide who pays their retirement shortfall (police and firefighter pension trustees – that would be you), don’t send San Jose economic geek Paul Krutko to Portugal – send him to Palo Alto, and, when you see your lawsuit going down in flames – stop throwing money at it (Santa Clara County’s “ludicrous” GIS battle).

Ooops. The Santa Clara Valley Water District is in a little hot water of its own. A trial began Monday that could have the district providing refunds to thousands of water drinking fans. Great Oaks Water Company hired forensic accountant Thomas O’Rourke to track the dollars collected and follow their flow.

If you love your Whole Foods you’ll be happy to hear construction is underway again in Almaden Valley. Sadly, if you live in San Jose’s Rose Garden, you have to wait for construction to resume – Blossom Hill has priority.

Mountain View High’s principal Keith Moody overcame tough odds and was a football star before his passion for education kicked in. Last month Moody was inducted into the Syracuse Hall of Fame.

Hoofers around Mountain View will be happy to hear MV wants to hear from you. Google maps are helping online walkers tell the city what works and what doesn’t.

Mission City Lantern sends a love note to Watch Dog with a reminder that Stanford trounced the Ducks. OSU Beavers bested the Cardinals. (Watch Dog (mistakenly) read the Mission City headline “Stanford Defeats Oregon…” with a giant beaver and was (apparently) too hung over to remember which wildlife was present.)

Tesla Chronicles: We Told You So Edition...UPDATED AT 8:46 PM

The rest of the world is catching up to Watch Dog...slowly...

You'll remember the full complement of Watch Dog's Tesla Chronicles previously posted on this site here, here, here, here, and here. And finally, on January 15th, Watch Dog broke the story that Tesla would not be coming to San Jose.

Well, it officially hit the old-school news outlets today. The SiliconValley/San Jose Business Journal, the Merc., and KCBS are reporting on the "news" that Tesla may not be able to move to San Jose. I guess the Business Journal, the Merc., and KCBS should check us out more often to see what is really happening...

Sorry Chuck (Reed). Sorry Harry (Mavrogenes). Sorry Paul (Krutko). This one isn't your fault...

UPDATE:

Two tidbits by way of update...

1. In an updated story from the mercurynews.com, a Tesla spokeswoman said that Tesla "...has not abandoned San Jose..." It seems that Tesla is responding directly to a previous Watch Dog post titled: Tesla Chronicles: Tesla Plans "Abandoned" in San Jose

2. The Mayor's spokesperson, Michelle McGurk, says that the the City is scurrying to find other sites for Tesla in San Jose. If Ms. McGurk had just read Watch Dog earlier, she would have known the Tesla deal was in trouble and the City wouldn't have to scurry so much...

The Tesla Chronicles: Tesla plans "abandoned" in San Jose...

Environmental stewardship = economic development is the pitch that Mayor Reed and the City of San Jose have been pushing for nearly two years. If you saw/read the Mayor's State of the City speech yesterday, you know that it is one of the things that Mayor Reed focused on as away out of the City's current economic shit-storm.

(If you missed the speech, Scott Herhold has as close to a glowing review of the speech as you could get, San Jose Revealed (obviously) takes the opposite view in their recap, and The Fly called it subdued...)

Tesla was/is the green feather in the City's environmental stewardship/economic development cap...after a competing with other Bay Area cities, San Jose rolled out more red carpet and gave more incentives the electric automobile start-up and landed the company last Fall. But since the celebrated announcement, the road has been bumpy for Tesla. If you've been reading Watch Dog at all, you know the writing has been on the wall for months about Tesla's challenges:

• 11.19.08 -- "Absolutely certain" Tesla won't go out of business...
• 12.02.08 -- More shak-ups at the senior level merry-go-round known as Tesla Motors...
• 12.05.08 -- The Tesla Chronicles: Harry/Paul/Chuck -- Are you guys nervous yet?
• 12.11.08 -- Tesla Chronicles: Is there another electric car company that needs space? San Jose will cuty you a great deal...

Now, the writing on the wall becomes even clearer (if that is even possible) with these two Watch Dog "exclusive" updates:

Update 1:
For those of you car geeks out there that watch the annual Detroit Auto Show closer than your teenage daughters watch Gossip Girl, you may have noticed an announcement about a car company building a 100% electric roadster with a sleek, cool, and fast Lotus body. Well, the Tesla Roadster is a 100% electric car built with a Lotus body...but this announcement wasn't from Tesla, it was from Dodge... Let's see: Both cars are electric and both cars are Lotus-like. One comes from a company you've heard of that has dealerships everywhere and the other is no-name brand with few dealerships...We know the Big Three are in trouble, but Dodge's Tesla rip-off can't be good for Tesla. (In fairness to Tesla, they have actually delivered just over 100 cars and Dodge's is just a concept...) Auto experts expect that if Dodge makes their Circuit into a production car, it will be on the market for (far?) below Tesla's $100K+ price tag. No matter how hard Tesla spins, this isn't good news. And bad news for Tesla is bad news for the City of San Jose which loves (and needs) Tesla.

Amazingly, that isn't even the really bad news...

Update 2:
Word made it around the Mayor's State of the City yesterday that Tesla's plans may already be dead. According to spies, someone with direct knowledge of Tesla's plans for San Jose was describing how the plans for the 650,000 square foot assembly plant for San Jose have been "abandoned"...begging the questions:

• Does the Redevelopment Agency know?
• Does the Mayor know?

Watch Dog thinks yes. And a quick scan of the Mayor's speech may provide hints that the Mayor does indeed know that Tesla's plans are dead -- but is keeping that news under wraps. Tesla name wasn't even mentioned once in the speech. Quite a change from a few months ago when San Jose almost broke its arm patting itself on its back about landing a big, green fish...

Watch Dog believes Tesla will not move to San Jose...perhaps this blog post will push the City of San Jose, or Tesla, to make that news public. Because right now, you won't find this news on the Tesla Motors website or anywhere else.

Sorry to disappoint everyone...

Tesla Chronicles: Is there another electric car company that needs space? San Jose will cut you a great deal...

Watch Dog called this some time ago. (November 19th to be exact ,with a post titled: "Absolutely certain" Tesla won't go out of business...)

And the saga with Tesla continues today...and gets more serious. But first a review of where we've been:

• When San Jose Mayor announced in September that the new Tesla manufacturing plant for their sedan would be in San Jose, everyone cheered. Since then a flurry of bad stories have surfaced and been covered here on Watch Dog.
• Almost immediately after the announcement, there was a second announcement (from Tesla) to say the SJ plant wouldn't open until 2011 at the earliest, pushed from the original 2010 date.
• Then there were a slew of shake-ups at the top of Tesla mixed in with some drama. That's when Watch Dog asked if the San Jose's leaders were nervous. ( Tesla Chronicles: Harry/Paul/Chuck are you guys nervous yet?)
  

Then, this week auto insiders learned that Tesla pulled their car that is supposed to be built in San Jose from of 2009 Detroit Autoshow...no big deal right, it is only going to be, "the biggest and best auto show next year."

And for Tesla (or the City of San Jose for that matter), that wasn't even the worst news of the week...You see, Tesla has been hoping/praying/begging for money ($450 million to be exact) from the (possible) bail-out for the Big Three pending in DC. But that doesn't look promising with Republicans in Washington putting up a huge stink about the bailout anyway.

So, as Watch Dog asked previously -- are we nervous that this company that is the centerpiece of the green tech revolution in Silicon Valley going to go out of business before they are really in business?

The Tesla Chronicles: Harry/Paul/Chuck -- Are you guys nervous yet?

Watch Dog has been following the Tesla saga closely. Our guess is that Harry Mavrogenes, Paul Krutko, and Chuck Reed in San Jose are as well -- since they have bet big on the company's success and use the company's planned relocation as a green feather in their economic development hats...

But all is not well on the Tesla front...

First there was this piece about their screwed up management battles...then this piece about another shake-up at the top a few weeks later...and now more...

With all the shake-ups, soon-to-be gone Tesla mouth-piece Darryl Siry told a tech blog recently that the downsizing wasn't a concern because, “We’re letting go of people who are either not the best on the team, or are working on something that is not a priority.” But then said some more controversial stuff on this way out the door that has led to a $2 million lawsuit.

Not wanting to be left out of the drama, co-founder Martin Eberhard posted a list of 26 soon-to-be-departed employees on his Tesla Founders blog – which was promptly taken down...but not before the list was published elsewhere. (Interestingly, the list includes "writer - owners' manual" -- which will suck if you buy one of these cars with a poorly written manual...)

Harry, Paul, Chuck -- are you nervous yet?