Morning News Round-Up -- 5.3.10: Grade the Mayor!

Sharks win again. Now they are up 2-0 against the Hockey Town Red Wings... As Sharks history proves, this is when it gets exciting.

The Merc's John Woolfolk talked to "friends, foes" about San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed's grade for his first year... Woolfolk talked to Chavez (who apparently IS still talking to the paper) who said bad things, Terry Christensen who said pretty good things, Raj Jayadev who said bad things, some average voter-types who said pretty good things, and Supervisor (and loser to Reed in 2006) Dave Cortese who said, "What he promised is what he delivered..." which reads to Watch Dog like a back-handed compliment, considering Cindy Chavez has often criticized Reed for promising very little...

The story about the SJPD beating of Phuong Ho took another turn we learned on Friday. Mr. Ho, the Vietnamese national San Jose State student filed a federal lawsuit against the San Jose Police officers, alleging that the Police violated his civil rights by using excessive force... $6 million is being sought. Mr. Webby's importance to the Mercury News continues...

Say it ain't so... the head of the San Jose Police Officers Association thinks that cuts and layoffs to the SJPD would hurt morale and public safety... Right, because having officers sued in federal court and on the front page of the paper is good for morale...

2,600 undeveloped acres near the water treatment (sewage) plant would be perfect for... sports! According to a lengthy, and no doubt boring, public meeting this weekend...

If it's Sunday (and it was yesterday) it is Internal Affairs day in the Mercury News. And in the midst of a campaign season, the "tips" must be flying fast and furious to the Merc reporters who contribute to IA... this week's stuff:

• Steve Poizner was on the New York Times Best Seller list with his anti-Mount Pleasant book... or was he,
• Carly Fiorina has some ex-husbands,
• Facebook or not to (mention) Facebook, that is the question for Chris Kelly, and Kamala Harris, and
• The Golden Spiggot gets criticized again... again... again...

Speaking of politics...

The Merc gives a run-down of the Supervisorial candidates running in District 1 to replace one of the two pro-fast food County Supervisors...

Speaking of speaking of politics...

The Merc has an editorial that actually questions a parcel tax at a local school district (Alum Rock) for their exclusion of charter school in their parcel tax... This is not the Ed Board's normal reaction to parcel taxes, as we've mentioned before, from April 16th's Watch Dog

Shocking! The Mercury News says vote "yes" on the school district parcel tax elections on the (mail-in) ballot this May...

Continuing on politics...

Scott Herhold and the Merc Editorial Board agree on Proposition 16. More importantly for sports fans, Herhold gets the Rosie Ruiz analogy wrong. If memory serves from Watch Dog's marathoning, Rosie "ran" and "won" the Boston Marathon, not New York... "How can we trust anything he writes when he get such simple things wrong," Cindy Chavez (probably) said as she read the paper yesterday...

Morning News Round-Up -- 3.22.10: Are you a Proprietary Member of Fremont Hills?

Two stories of local politicians ignoring folks in their own backyards in order to court voters in Orange County: Tom Campbell "assails" healthcare reform and Steve Poizner goes anti-immigration. We can't leave this part of the Campbell story alone: Campbell delivered his anti-healthcare speech at the Fremont Hills Country Club in Los Altos Hills, a club that has... "...a total of 425 Proprietary Memberships, granting all members full privileges at the Club. All club memberships are by invitation only..." Oh, and an equestrian center. We can assume that zero of the owners of the 425 Proprietary Members goes without healthcare or finds it too expensive... But perhaps a neat follow-up story to this one (hint to Barbara Boxer's team) would be to see how many of the workers at the Fremont Country Club have health insurance...

The San Jose Independent Police Auditor search appears to be heading into its final stages (finally). And the Merc uncovered one of the finalists: former Judge and former Palo Alto Councilmember LaDoris Cordell. This cannot make law enforcement officials very pleased... which probably does make a whole bunch of other people very, very pleased. We guess no brothers or sisters of current police offices applied...

The Merc just can't get enough of the Happy Hollow Zoo opening... another story appeared this weekend.

Remember those fireworks that you used to love in downtown San Jose during the Fourth of July? Well, you can kiss them goodbye. Fil Maresca says the City's fees for the Police were too expensive. That's sort of what the Chamber of Commerce is saying about the Police as well -- at least their pensions...

Speaking of the Chamber...

The Chamber's political action committee, COMPAC, won a lawsuit and now the City of San Jose owes them $400,000+. Pat Dando can't help but gloat in the Merc's Internal Affairs.

Also Internal Affairs is something that was essentially lifted from San Jose Inside: one of the "also rans" in District 9 is both a Cortese and a karaoke genius...

Rounding-Up Internal Affairs this weekend, we learned Sunday that Steve Poizner shared a flight to the Southern California debate with Meg Whitman's press team. But more important than that are two more things that we learned that were embedded in the piece: 1. Whitman is flying a private jet (everywhere) and 2. the source of all things anti-Poizner that has appeared in Internal Affairs is Mary Anne Ostrom is working for Whitman now but used to work for the Merc. Hmmm... Debunking the myth that all reporters (and former reporters) are Democrats...

Attention Mr./Dr. County Executive: The Mercury News Editorial Board has a big problem with you and how you want to run the Valley Medical Center. Please report directly to the Principal's office for further instructions...

The Merc Editors have started their campaign endorsements. They start with Proposition 16 and recommend no.

There is a new blog in town... zzz...