Morning News Round-Up -- 5.5.10: Margaritas all around... the Sharks won...

Sharks win... and it was a doozy. Four words: Overtime, Breakaway, Joe Thornton.

Hey, Denis Theriault is back on the Merc's local political scene... he covers some young-ish Silicon Valley guns running for office: Chris Kelly (running for Attorney General) and Josh Becker (State Assembly)...

San Jose's City Council will extend a program that has curbed "drunk-in-public" arrests... This story allows the Merc to reprint their favorite line:

The pilot program followed Mercury News reports that San Jose police were arresting more people on charges of public intoxication than any other law enforcement agency in the state. Some community members alleged the statistics showed police were inappropriately using the public drunkenness law as "social control," a charge police denied.

Speaking of the San Jose City Council, the Merc's John Woolfolk provides a preview of the San Jose City Council 4 way race to replace Nora Campos. We learn that Nora is Xavier's older sister, that Manuel Herrera ran for City Council in a different district, that Aaron Resendez is a press operator, and that Magdalena Carrasco is "a hard charging mother"... (It seems the Merc's website is on the fritz, the URL for this story is:

www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_15016835

Gilroy will sue the Water District over their redistricting plans... this is going to be good. (That is, if you like one government agency suing another... and Watch Dog does like that, a lot...)

Speaking of Gilroy and the Water District... the "campaign" to overturn the groundwell fee failed. Everyone at the Water District is breathing a sigh of relief, until they get subpeoned in the Gilroy lawsuit...

Another Gilroy story... Gavilan College is really screwed up financially and so is its foundation. This story has the phrase "misappropriated funds" which usually tickles the DA's fancy...

It was an election day (sort of) yesterday. Mail-in ballot elections were due in several school districts... Palo Alto, Fremont Union, Union, and Loma Prieta school districts won their parcel tax elections... Lakeside lost...

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.20.10: 420, need we say more?

420... 'nuff said. Now, onto November...

It has been a bad few weeks for the South Bay Labor Council head honcho Cindy Chavez. First she got Jude Barry blacklisted -- which led to bad press. Then she sent a threatening letter to several Democratic Assemblymembers because they are supporting her "opponent" in a City Council race -- which led to bad press. Then her strong, yet unsuccessful, push to get Republican Dolores Carr endorsed for DA was uncovered -- which led to bad press. Today, the Merc's Scott Herhold ties it all up in a bow... He concludes: "...For such a sunny personality, hers are cold tactics indeed..."

"Hi Phil, it's Cindy. Can you relaunch sanjoserevealed as soon as possible? Thanks..."

Check out Watch Dog's piece from yesterday about Cindy Chavez, Dolores Carr, and Xavier Campos: United Carr Workers and Xavier Campos.

Watch Dog didn't really know something like this was possible, but... National Hispanic University was sold to a for-profit college conglomerate. Think of it as Walmart coming in to buy your small school. Laureate Education is the purchaser and their company is valued at $3.5 billion. If you are going to sell out, go big or go home, we guess...

Lately when anyone has been talking about Santa Clara, it has been about the 49ers or Yahoo... that's because everyone has stopped talking about the BAREC housing development that was controversial and contentious. But it is finally FINALLY moving forward as the clean-up starts... (If you know nothing about this development, then don't even try to understand the history...)

Yesterday was a bad day to be train-dependent. First a bomb threat that screwed up the afternoon/ evening community, then a suspicious package at the Caltrain Station in Mountain View closed things down for a while last night...

Speaking of trains... but a much, much faster one, hopefully. The Mountain View Council is studying the High-Speed Rail alignment options for Mountain View, and they really don't know what they like best... or least.

One Silicon Valley-ite who is running for high office has released his tax returns... Tom Campbell. And we learn what we already knew... he isn't a rich as Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, or Steve Poizner... Most stunning of all, he donated only $600 to charity in 2009. ... that's it. Perhaps the library in Almaden didn't need his help last year.

Speaking of Silicon Valley types running for office... Chris Kelly is a former Facebook executive running for Attorney General. (In case you didn't know that, and if you didn't know that, then you are in the majority...) He is facing some tough questions about Facebook's privacy policies. Questions like, does Facebook have a privacy policy?

Palo Alto is celebrating 420... well, Earth Day actually. They have a bunch of new enviro-sheek things happening.

To the blogs...

Protect San Jose answers a real(?) "Ask a Beat Cop" question today about a car getting stolen in downtown San Jose... of course the answer is about high-capacity night clubs...

Mission City Lantern has some advice for Cindy Chavez...

Morning News Round-Up -- 2.3.10: Scrappy or Wimpy?

Unbelievably, there is no story about District Attorney Dolores Carr today...

Downtown San Jose may start looking a downtown in real city now that the City Council has allowed more electronic signs. Now the "going out of business" signs will attract a lot more attention... just kidding everyone, just kidding.

Poor Republican Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner. Obviously not the 'poor' like he has not money, but the 'poor' like he keeps tripping over himself... In a sad piece, the Merc's Scott Herhold rips into Mr. Poizner (as the students once called him and will call him again... soon) for his weak press conference earlier in the week where he likened the 'threats' the Whitman camp had thrown at him to the Sopranos... Herhold calls him a "laughingstock"... Poizner's Last Stand got another story today about whether the press conference made Poizner look scrappy or wimpy, wimpy, wimpy... We know what Herhold thinks...

Another local rich guy is running for statewide office as well... Chris Kelly of Facebook fame, put in $2 million into his own campaign last year to lead all the Attorney General candidates in "fundraising"... of course, his rivals actually had to fundraise rather than get out their checkbooks. Leading the real fundraising is Kamala Harris ($1,247,353) then Rocky Delgadillo ($1,185,429) then Silicon Valley's neighbor Alberto Torrico ($1,125,982) then Ted Lieu ($1,023,357)... Watch Dog guesses that anyone who is willing to put $2 million into a race is probably willing to put at least $2 million more... sort of the Meg Whitman strategy. (Thank you Politicon Valley...)

In other campaign finance news...

No shock here, the 49ers are putting money into the campaign that will (they hope) get them a new stadium in Santa Clara. So far, the 49ers have spent $350k on campaign stuff... expect more, a lot more. The 49ers must be freaked out... their opponents raised $825. Plus, the 49ers have James Rowen beating up the opposition everyday at Mission City Lantern...

The East Side Union High School District had some good news in the paper today...

Eddie Garcia, the President of the Board of the East Side Union High School District, adapted his State of the District speech for the Mercury News Editorial pages today. He lays out what 2010 will look like for the ESUHSD. Which brings up the question: How did someone who voters neglected to put into office actually become President of the Board? (Remember, Garcia is a twice-appointed Board member...)

and some East Side Union High School District bad news...

"Audit blames East Side board, not former Superintendent Bob Nunez, for lapses" Perhaps the voters were right...

You remember the story of the Sarah Botill (daughter of a Firefighter) in Gilroy who died after a night drinking (at a former City Councilmembers house). Well, the toxicology report came back and it says that she only had a "moderate amount of alcohol in her blood."

Joe DiSalvo over at San Jose Inside recaps a Charter School Summit that happened last Saturday. He hopes the Summit will start to heal old wounds... good luck with that Mr. DiSalvo.