Morning News Round-Up -- 3.19.10: A very healthcare weekend?

The East Side Union High School District is facing signficant cuts. Parents and teachers and community leaders showed up to protest. That's not unusual. That's what's been happening in many/all school districts -- but not all school districts get a negative audit from the County Office of Education that criticizes how they spend money... and not all school districts fire their superintendent... and not all school districts appoint members to their board twice, even though voters said no to the twice-appointed member...

Gilroy Unified is also in pink-slip mode...

While East Side Union and Gilroy Unified would have a more difficult time doing the same thing, Cupertino Union parents are fundraising to save 100 teachers' jobs...

Meg Whitman spoke to a group from the Great Silicon Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce yesterday at Santana Row. (Which is the strangest part of that sentence? Meg Whitman speaking to the Hispanic Chamber or the fact that it was at Santana Row?)

Mountain View has something called the "Shoreline Community" fund, which seems to act kind of like a Redevelopment Agency for the Shoreline area in Mountain View. The problem with that is school districts sometimes get screwed in Redevelopment Areas -- and in the Shoreline Community area that seems to be the case. Essentially, the Mountain View-Whisman Elementary School District would like to get a bigger piece of Google's property tax. Unsurprisingly, not everyone on the Mountain View City Council likes the idea of sharing that tax money...

The League of California Cities is trying to get a measure on the November ballot to stop (again) the State from stealing local money to balance the State budget. But (unbelievably) two folks on the Saratoga City Council don't support it... Kathleen King and Jill Hunter. It seems King and Hunter don't want the County to get screwed even if Saratoga does ok under the measure. We wonder why Kathleen King is so concerned about the County... hmmmm...

With the old Mervyn's out of their Campbell store on Hamilton Avenue, Safeway is looking to build a cool new store.

Speaking of stores... What's the one thing folks in Milpitas need more than anything? How about an even bigger Walmart?

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.17.10: What's your vector Victor?

The Merc's Ed Board comes out with a strong pitch for baseball in San Jose and is pushing MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to do the same...

When the going gets tough on government, government starts looking at the easiest taxes to pass. Hence the 9-1-1 tax two years ago in San Jose and perhaps some others this year. One of the 'easy' taxes to get is to up the ante on the two card rooms in town on the June ballot. The other is not so easy: a 1/4 cent sales tax that will probably be worded as saving police and firefighters jobs in November. Watch Dog can only imagine how a sales tax hike on the November ballot will impact the planned ballot measure for a Major League Baseball stadium...

Former prosecutor Ben Field is in the news again... and it still isn't going Field's way. You'll remember that he was the former County prosecutor whose ethics (or lack thereof) were the focus of a Merc investigation which caused him to be disbarred, which an appeals board of the State Bar just upheld... (Recall also that Mr. Field is now a City Hall regular as he works for former Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez at the South Bay Labor Council.) We love this ironic line in the Merc story: Current District Attorney Dolores Carr also vouched for Field's honesty and integrity but conceded he failed to meet the office's overall ethical standards. He failed to meet the "office's overall ethical standards"? Really?

While we are on it... If you like graphs, methodologies, and candidate-sponsored poll results, you should check out DA challenger Jeff Rosen's website today. Rosen's poll says he's winning (big surprise)... but we guess if it didn't, we'd never see the results. Mr. Field should have had Jeff Rosen vouch for him...

This won't help the bottomline... there was significant damage to the West Valley College theater during the rain storms a few weeks back. The price tag? $500K or more...

Yesterday we learned about kids from Sobrato High School in Morgan Hill pushing for a proper football stadium, over the objections of San Jose Councilmember Ash Kalra... now we see that Monta Vista High School kids in Cupertino are pushing for lights at their football field. They have a 1,000-person petition on their side... but in this case, neighbors have some objections.

The Milpitas Walmart would like to expand its store to include a grocery store, be open for 24 hours, and sell alcohol. Expect a rowdy Planning Commission meeting in March on these plans...

San Jose Inside fills us in on San Jose being named America's Happiest Big City by Gallup's Well-Being Index. America's Bhutan... (Bhutan has a Gross National Happiness index...)

And finally, for all you conspiracy theorists: there will be Vector Control District helicopters spraying this week. "What's your vector Victor?"