Morning News Round-Up -- 4.10.09: Fiber Optic Vandal Edition...

In case you missed this week's San Jose Police Department news, check out our post from mid-day yesterday: "A Consortium and Task Force walk into a bar..."

You may have realized the phone craziness yesterday. Tens of thousands of folks had their phone lines screwed up all day. AT&T blamed the problem on vandals who cut fiber optic lines. The episode caused emergency response and public safety officials to declare a state of emergency because 911 lines were messed up.

The Merc’s Editorial Board has declared the arrival of detente for the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara. Crediting Mayor Reed and Supervisor Don Gage for starting the effort 2 years ago and former Councilmembers/Supervisors Dave Cortese and Ken Yeager, the breakthrough comes in the form of a plan for sharing Redevelopment monies.

San Jose’s financial woes seem to mount daily. Compared to San Diego, San Jose’s employee disability claims are triple that of San Diego. Mayor Chuck Reed says he’s disappointed the problem isn’t under control and perhaps San Jose should “subcontract all this out to Santa Clara County.” Disabled/Councilmember Pete Constant disagrees with proposed changes to make it harder to go out on disability saying in his experience the City waits too long to send employees out on disability. (If you are interested in Councilmember Constant's history of disability with the City, here is a little bit, it came up earlier this year...) On the plus side, at least this isn't another story about the Police Chief.

It’s not funny, really, but it does sound a lot more like Animal House than Stanford…Palo Alto’s downtown was the scene of a wet-noodle assault...

Mountain View Councilmembers saw a dizzying array of budget cutting ideas this week but weren’t sure they understood the trade-offs involved. Several Councilmembers admitted they didn’t understand the budget. Councilmembers Laura Macias and Ronit Bryant were frustrated by the process, Bryant said budget decisions in the past have been a very passive process but the current crisis requires Councilmembers to step it up. Y'think?

Los Altos managed to get their Standard & Poor’s credit rating headed up, unlike many of their Silicon Valley neighbors. City Finance Director Russell Morreale credits their “pay-as-you-go” attitude.

One year of dropouts from San Jose high schools lose hundreds of millions in potential earnings, are likely to be the source of over 500 violent crimes, and cost the State bundles. People Acting in Concert Together (PACT) is pissed off about that and managed to get a pledge out of two of East Side Union High School Trustees to reduce the dropout rate. Study director Russell Rumberger pointed to San Jose Unified as exemplary in fighting the dropout problem.

The Merc’s Editorial Board hopes voters in the Moreland School District read the news that dropouts can be prevented during the early years – and vote yes on Moreland’s Measure A parcel tax measure.

Students at Santa Clara’s Wilcox and New Valley High Schools staged a mock funeral at the end of two days of the grim reminders of drunk driving. Santa Clara Police Chief Steve Lodge hopes the training will help students think before driving after getting sloshed. Or, maybe he hopes they’ll hold off on getting sloshed until out of high school…

They’re not NIMBYs they’re YUMBYs say High-Speed Rail opponents on the Peninsula who banded together as a consortium and skipped right past the local meetings to meet with Assemblymember Ira Ruskin. Ruskin is glad they did and pulled the High-Speed Rail Authority officials into the office for a chat. They are still NIMBYs...

Los Gatos’ residents lost their emergency room at 1:00 this morning as Community Hospital closed its doors. New owners, El Camino Hospital, hope to re-open in July. Until then Good Samaritan hopes to serve your emergency needs.

Saratoga’s Chamber of Commerce, still reeling from revelations that Executive Director Elizabeth Borbolla made off with Chamber funds, is working furiously to keep the doors open. Van Nelson, Chamber President, voiced disappointment in his protege saying “she was rising to the challenge. She was teaching herself the skills she needed to do the job. And we could afford her.” And she was stealing your money...

Alum Rock Adults Behaving Badly...

Trouble was brewing in Alum Rock long before election day 2008.

Watch Dog has been following the latest drama that looks an awful lot like bickering children in a first grade class. Add to the ongoing turmoil, money desperately needed for education is given to lawyers and departing district staff, well over a million dollars in the past 7 years. Here are some background items that may be helpful as you hear about the latest controversies...

• Recently (re)elected Trustee Esau Herrera, is back after a stormy relationship with the district and fellow Trustees in the 1990’s when he accused a colleague of trying to run him over.

• Before the most recent Superintendent bilked the District, the two previous Superintendents started the trend...fired Superintendent Joe Carrillo took home $225,000 in 2001 and Alfonso Anaya received at least nine months pay to when he was asked to leave in 2004. Pretty good for a chronically cash-strapped District.
  

• New Trustee Dolores Marquez, a former Alum Rock employee, has a legal order which prevents her from going on school grounds during work hours. Now, she is fighting a District lawsuit to prevent her from keeping her seat. But don't worry about Marquez...when the opportunity presented itself last week to vote on firing the District legal team pursuing the lawsuit against her, Marquez did not recuse herself saying, “I do have the right to sit here.” An interesting opening move by Marquez...
  

• Over the course of the last school year the District paid over $500,000 in legal fees, by comparison, the Evergreen School District with the same number of students, spent $193,400.

• Recently paid-off Superintendent Norma Martinez has had a rocky relationship with PACT (People Acting in Community Together) over the “small schools” since she started in 2006. PACT wants the schools to continue. Martinez – wasn’t their biggest fan and clashed with the non-profit and small-school supporters. But the struggle over the small schools started before Martinez became Superintendent. In spite of their success, the funding for the schools was a source of contention. The small schools wanted autonomy over their budgets and the District wanted control -- presumably to pay for more lawyers and for Superintendents' golden parachutes...
  

• Alum Rock’s bevy of high priced legal eagles recommended giving Superintendent Martinez a farewell gift of $300,000 and insurance benefits of over $500,000. Sounding like King Henry VI (Shakespeare), Herrera (a lawyer) declared first "Let's discharge all lawyers..." Trustee Gustavo Gonzalez wants to start fresh while Trustee Patricia Potter wants to keep the current team in place.

As much fun as it is to watch grown adults behave like children, the District, the parents, and the kids need the Alum Rock Trustees, Superintendent, and staff to step up to the plate and work together – like adults.

We’ll keep watching, and hope you do as well, if you sniff out interesting news send it to Watch Dog.