Values Advocacy Council: A deficit-ridden slush fund for Larry Pegram?

Here at Watch Dog, we aren't the smartest financial folks... heck, we run a blog that takes scores of hours a month to keep current and we don't make any money doing it.

Because we don't know much, we will share what we've learned (through a very smart Watch Dog) about Larry Pegram's right-wing non-profit, the so-called "Values Advocacy Council." Mr. Pegram just announced that he is running for City Council in District 9 in San Jose so we share it with you today because tomorrow is the filing deadline and there still time for Pegram to un-pull his papers...

(As an aside, we have been promised by three separate Watch Dogs that there is more dirt to uncover...)

Onto the Values Advocacy Council...

Did you that the only major expense for the Values Advocacy Council is paying Larry Pegram's salary? It's true, here are some numbers (click on the year to see the actual filing):

2006 - $68,455 (of a total of $99,331 raised -- or 69% went to Pegram)

2007 - $74,750 (of a total of $134,094 raised -- or 56% went to Pegram)

2008 - $78,000 (of a total of $215,018 raised -- or 36% went to Pegram)

Can you imagine another non-profit where upwards of 70 percent of all the money raised went directly to the Executive Director? Imagine if Pat Dando at the Chamber took in 70 percent of all the money raised... Or Cindy Chavez at the Labor Council took in 36 percent... Everyone would be outraged...

But at least Pat and Cindy have more than 2 other people voting on their salaries... You see, there seem to be only three "voting members of the governing body" of the organization, including Larry Pegram? Check out Part I, Line 3 on this document. "Number of voting members of the governing body... 3"

So it seems that Larry Pegram runs his own little slush fund: He raises the money, votes on where the money goes, and then collects the money he just voted on.

But perhaps the best part is that each of the past three available non-profit financials show that the Values Advocacy Council has finished the year in the red...

2006 - ($6,120)

2007 - ($7,902)

2008 - ($4,465)

At least Mr. Pegram has lots of experience dealing with deficits... that might come in handy at City Hall.

So what have we learned? Watch Dog doesn't really know... other than we still don't like Larry Pegram and that he runs a poorly-managed non-profit with little or no oversight and takes most of the money for himself...

Right Wing takes a blow...

Watch Dog bets that some (most) of our loyal readers were present (or watching) the goings on in San Jose City Council Chambers last night well past mid-night. If you watched, you saw that the right wing in San Jose took a blow (ha!) in their efforts to decide what you can and cannot view on a computer. More moderate voices prevailed...and there were many.

The final vote was 7 to 3, with the 7 supporting a proposal by Vice Mayor Judy Chirco, Councilmember Ash Kalra, and Councilmember Sam Liccardo and opposing Councilmember Pete Constant/Mayor Chuck Reed's proposal. (Chirco was not at the meeting, but would have voted for her own Memo, bringing the vote to 8 to 3.)

There was drama and anger last night. There was intelligent public testimony given and no shortage of misinformed hysteria. But like Wasilla, Alaska, cooler heads prevailed. What started 19 months ago ended (at least for now)...

The big winners of the night were the 7 (8 with Chirco) who stood up the right wing and took a tough vote:

• Councilmember Ash Kalra
• Councilmember Sam Liccardo
• Councilmember Kansen Chu
• Councilmember Nora Campos
• Councilmember Madison Nguyen
• Councilmember Rose Herrera
• Councilmember Nancy Pyle

As they took their vote, they were told that they didn't care about kids, and heck, those kids that view pornography are likely to become serial killers... Also, it was good to see a grassroots group combat the far right. Kudos to Books Not Filters as well.

The losers of the night are Councilmember Pete Constant, Mayor Reed, Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio, and the "Values" Advocacy Council.

• Constant: It took him 19 months to get 3 votes on a proposal. Which are probably the two other votes he would have had in 2007 when he raised the bad idea. He was clearly pissed at the end of the night and asked for one, last-ditch vote to save his proposal -- which was rejected by Councilmember Liccardo. (Perhaps Constant wants to re-think this. This might be legislative-courtesy karma coming back around...)

• Reed: We've said it before, this is an issue the Mayor should not have let come back to Council. It is divisive and anyone with any knowledge of the 18th floor would know it was going to fail. So, Watch Dog can only assume that the Mayor got threatened by a right wing opponent next year if he didn't bring the issue forward, just like Larry Pegram and the "Values" Advocacy wanted. It is never a good thing for the Mayor to be on the losing end of a 7-3 vote.

• Oliverio: Watch Dog doesn't care as much about how he voted, but does care that the guy seems to not be able to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate. Now, Watch Dog isn't one to talk, we can be very inappropriate. (Heck, check out the title of this post.) But Councilmember Oliverio is a Councilmember and used words like "fisting" and "double penetration" and few others that Watch Dog didn't even recognize. Thank you Pierluigi...we guess you really are familiar with erotica...

• Larry Pegram/"Values" Advocacy Council: The Council rejected his efforts to impose filters on San Jose Libraries. It is that simple. Watch Dog knows that Pegram isn't going away, but a short respite in his right wing efforts in San Jose would be nice...plus, exclamation marks will be outlawed on Watch Dog today...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.26.09: Spring (Training) has Sprung...

In case you missed it yesterday, Watch Dog noted that the recent bad weather had the effect of sprouting some new grassroots efforts: Baseball San Jose (to promote baseball) and Books Not Filters (to fight the so-called Values Advocacy Council and Ball Gag)...

It isn't just a grassroots baseball effort however. Former Mayoral candidate Michael Mulcahy, Councilmembers Liccardo, Oliverio, and Kalra, and others seem to be in a planning mode as well...Are downtown pieces (finally!) all coming together? These folks think so...(FYI: The A's tied (?) the Brewers yesterday 3-3.)

One of the overlooked, but beloved, pieces of a complete downtown San Jose, is the Sainte Claire News Stand. They are reopened next to Cafe Trieste and are having a grand opening party tomorrow night...the owners are perhaps the nicest people in Silicon Valley.

If you murder someone in the UK and want to get out of dodge and never be found again, apparently San Jose is not the place you want to go to...Jaswinder Singh Rana found that out yesterday.

A Gilroy High School teacher was arrested for sexual assault of a 14 year old who was not his student. The teacher met the girl on Tagged.com -- a social networking site. (The brain trust of Constant/Pegram must be working overtime to try to figure out how to make political hay out of this...insert your own brain/Constant/Pegram joke here _________)

Here is something new to Watch Dog -- the Saratoga City Council is adding a fee to the garbage rates in order to pay for road repairs...interesting concept. Perhaps they should also put up tolls for the thousands of massive SUVs that cruise Saratoga's tiny streets...

Just as San Jose is changing the way Police interact with downtown nightclub/bar goers -- Campbell (the party capital of Silicon Valley?) is changing their rules about downtown (drinking) festivals too...

The National Cheerleading Competition is a big deal to some folks -- including a group of students from Morgan Hill's Sobrato High School. But these (devastated) students won't be able to go because their coach turned in the paperwork 2 weeks late. Watch Dog is certain there is a an After School Special-type lesson in this story somewhere about being on time...

Surprise, surprise. A city-wide fiber optic network built by the City of Palo Alto is not likely to happen -- it seems -- after a decade of hoping and wishing and studying. It turns out it is expensive to build and maintain such things...really? (Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network figured out the same thing about a County-wide wireless network and apparently gave up on that effort...)

Or, perhaps it isn't the money, but the fact that Palo Alto-based utility-type things sometimes seem to be (perhaps) corrupt. The Palo Alto Utilities Department is being investigated by the US Department of Transportation for conspiracy to alter records...

And from the part of the media landscape that isn't imploding (blogs)...

Revealed gives the blow-by-blow of Tuesday night's Council meeting -- which, as always, is a pretty compelling read. Revealed has often pointed out racially insensitive remarks that sometimes appear in the "Comments" section of San Jose Inside -- but I guess when Revealed makes fun of Italian-Americans, that's ok. Not to sound too much like Dale Warner, but...

Erin Sherbert at the Metro/Inside digs a little (well, a lot) deeper into San Jose's Vietnamese community describing the competing business interests of the Yes on Recall and No on Recall folks. Surprise, surprise...one Vietnamese business owner has a strip mall called Little Saigon and another has one called Vietnam Town...

Finally, we never got around to talking about Mission City Lantern's love affair with Watch Dog. Thank you, James. We appreciate your kind words and we feel the love -- but Herb Caen we are not.

Morning (early p.m.) News Round-Up – 1.7.09: Larry Pegram vs. Darwin...coming to a school board near you

Sunnyvale City Council installed CSW (Chief Seat Warmer) Dean Chu to the City Council for Iraq-bound Councilmember Otto Lee last night, in spite of opposition from residents and former Mayors. Chu, who failed in his 2007 attempt to be re-elected, will hold down the fort for Lee. This sets up the dynamic where Chu will serve on the Council along with the guy that beat him in an election -- Dave Whittum. Awkward...

Metro’s Fly blogs about the reinvigorated efforts of the religious right to slap filters on public libraries -- and then some. The Values Advocacy Council, having helped in the passage of a constitutional amendment to prevent some citizens from getting married, is now calling their anti-free speech filters/stop teaching evolution b.s. the “Children’s Bill of Rights.” Watch out local school districts, the Scopes Trial is coming to your Board meetings...

The cost of housing each underage prison inmate is over $250,000 annually so it’s understandable that there’s a push to find alternatives to prison. A report released Tuesday said alternative programs show promise but lack accountability, a never ending story it seems. The County Supervisors will have their work cut out for them to maintain the County’s good reputation and not slide back to warehousing juveniles in the State prison system in the face of budget cut backs. Santa Clara County Probation Chief Sheila Mitchell said, "Keeping the kids here is common sense."

San Jose Revealed this week rationalizes why they were down (too many visitors), spanks supporters of Kevin Moore for making fun of a voice of support to Revealed on Facebook (Revealed has only 10 Facebook fans), updates reader 2008 highlights and predictions (...the Merc. will leave town), and ponders Mayor Chuck Reed’s upcoming State of the City speech (not exciting).

Silicon Valley technology at work…to choose boys? There’s an increasing number of boys being born among Asian immigrant families. According to journalist Preeti Shekar, a highly sought after gender selection tool has both, "sexist and racist consequences." San Jose’s Dr. Suresh Nayak refused to speak to the Mercury News about ads he runs offering to assist parents choose the gender of their child.