Morning News Round-Up -- 2.9.10: It depends what your definition of "all" is...

Dolores Carr just can't help herself. She has some sort of addiction to bad decisions that inevitably lead to bad press... Her addiction and the bad press lead directly into more ammunition for Jeff Rosen's campaign. Remember the Memo she issued to her entire staff that said something like -- don't take any cases to a specific judge, you know, the boycott Memo. Well, she has been taking some serious heat for that decision... so she has back-tracked. Apparently Dolores Carr didn't mean it when she wrote: "I have decided to exercise a challenge to Judge Bryan pursuant to CCP 170.6 in all criminal cases." She is disputing the definition of the word "all" -- very Clintonesque Ms. Carr, very Clintonesque...

Speaking of interesting June 2010 ballot battles... the Santa Clara City Council will decide about what the actual ballot language will be on the ballot related to the 49ers stadium election. One small problem, the City Staff in Santa Clara seem to have a different idea of what voters should read and vote on in June versus what the stadium backers feel voters should read and vote on. Watch Dog's guess is that the 49er's language will take the day... This is such big news (apparently), even the Chronicle has a story...

Speaking of politics...

Mayor Reed did a big favor for the SJPD (and the POA) when he penned a very critical letter back to Assemblymembers Joe Coto and Paul Fong. Remember, Coto and Fong have asked a State Assembly Audit Committee to look into the San Jose Police Department training and practices in light of all the news stories and community complaints. By the way, the letter appears nowhere on the Mayor's website... only on Protect San Jose.

And more politics... and sports...

Matt Artz in the Tri-City Beat in the Contra Costa Times (you know you read it too) has a great piece about an imaginary conversation between Bug Selig and Lew Wolff about baseball and the Bay Area... Watch Dog's favorite line is from Imaginary Lew Wolff to Imaginary Bud Selig:

Bud, please, it doesn’t make sense to have two teams in one metropolitan area, and have both of them 40 miles from the area’s largest city.

That pretty much sums it up... unless of course your pitching ace is in arbitration...

Yesterday the Merc delved into the disagreement between San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and City Manager Deb Figone over how to revamp the City's pension boards. Figone had one way to do it, the Mayor had another way that was developed as a compromise. The Merc gives props for the Mayor for trying and encourages the reform, but ends with this: "But it's a shame taxpayers will still fall short of majority representation."

There was a huge fire in an East San Jose warehouse yesterday. You probably saw the smoke.

Soccer fields, soccer fields, everywhere there are going to be soccer fields near the new Earthquakes field.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board is about to get a new member soon to replace retired old-timer Sig Sanchez, who retired at the beginning of the year. The South County folks would like his replacement to be South County-centric. There are 14 folks whom the Board of the Water District interviewed and they will get resumes back soon... check out the list of folks who applied.

Scott Herhold gives some perspective on MediLeaf in Gilroy in his column today. Herhold thinks Gilroy is wasting money on a lawsuit against an establishment that isn't that dangerous because Gilroy thinks pot is the boogey-man...

This is fun: A Palo Alto public meeting on High Speed Rail design options. Expect a lot of angry folks yelling and screaming... And their neighbors to the north (Atherton and Menlo Park) are threatening to re-open lawsuits against the High-Speed Rail Authority...

More fun in Palo Alto... the City Council is getting out of the Palo Alto promotion business and letting the hotels in town spend the money it collects from a new "Tourism Business Improvement District" to promote themselves...

Morning News Round-Up -- 4.8.09: San Jose A's...the first pitch

“Play Ball!” erupted from the usually very mellow Mayor Chuck Reed as discussion began for baseball’s migration to San Jose. Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino calmly ran the numbers reflecting support from local large business. Joining Guardino in support of baseball were local luminaries, former Mayor Janet Gray Hayes, former Mayor Susan Hammer, County Assessor Larry Stone, and Pro Baseball San Jose’s co-founder Michael Mulcahy. Plus a bunch of ballpark neighbors in support, and far fewer in opposition. Lew Wolff must be smiling widely today. San Jose's stadium moving forward (seemingly) and the A's big bats showed up yesterday.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported a letter drafted by freshman Supervisor Dave Cortese to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig. The letter reads, in part “When the Giants obtained its territorial rights to San Jose in 1992, it was based upon the assumption that the Giants were going to move from one wealthy enclave to another; namely from San Francisco County to Santa Clara County.”

San Jose’s financial woes are mounting…First finding out that the City's deficit could reach $78 million within the year and now the devastated pension funds (remember, they lost $1 billion). City Manager Debra Figone had to present the bad news -- the pension fund could force an additional $50 million out of the cash strapped City. Mayor Chuck Reed said the City is head towards “major layoffs.” Councilmember Sam Liccardo called it delusional to ask taxpayers to keep up with current funding levels.

Metro/San Jose Insider Erin Sherbert muses Chief Davis might not survive the current Drunk Task Force/Arresting Latinos everywhere crisis. The ever-quotable Police Officers Association President Bobby Lopez says “[Chief Davis] is adamantly in the hot seat right now… Issues are cascading. And at the bottom of them is the signature ‘Robert L. Davis’” Lopez and Sherbert aren't wrong, in Watch Dog's view. Davis is getting hit from all sides right now -- and the City Council's support seems to be cracking...

Mountain View also faces serious budget problems. City Manager Kevin Duggan’s proposal of a “hybrid” strategy that included use of rainy day funds had Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga saying “it’s pouring.” Mountain View Councilmembers are asking residents to get involved early reviewing proposals leading up to decisions later this year.

The Veterans are leaving the Valley. Senator Barbara Boxer’s office says Vets must travel farther to find an open base and is one reason for leaving. Another is the naturally declining population. But the largest reason seems to be a migration of war Vets abandoning the city to head to the country.

The Merc’s Editorial Board sends a message to high school and college graduates facing a grim job future – consider domestic service with AmeriCorps. As President Obama prepares to sign the Serve America Act of 2009 thousands of two year positions will open up with programs like City Year San Jose.

Programs that train high school students and career changing adults could see their funds disappear altogether after the State budget gave flexibility to local districts on using the money. Schools face terrible decisions and program loyalists clamoring to keep their programs running. Nora Ho, Principal of San Jose’s Ruskin Elementary worries bright children will lose the special programs that keep them motivated.

In a sign of the times Kip Berdiansky and Jordan Zewigoron are capitalizing on the Valley’s need to laugh in hard times. The partners took their strange sense of humor and added the American sugar laden treat – the doughnut – to come up with Psycho Donuts. The Merc’s Patty Fisher wasn’t impressed with the tasteless trappings and thinks minor tweaks will remove the offense while keeping the funny.

Things aren’t easy on Mountain View’s Easy Street – some residents arrived home to find they’d been burgled. The cops set off looking for the teens who’d been hanging around earlier and found them with jewelry and a game console stuffed in their pants.

San Jose Revealed muses that it might not be in San Jose’s best interest to subsidize a newsletter featuring politicized commentary bashing Revealed’s friends at Labor. Revealed says the Chamber of Commerce’s six figure subsidy might be an area to look for budget cuts. Revealed has also been prowling survey’s from the Pew Research Center – this time the (un) surprising news that “Latinos have substantially lower confidence in the police” than others. Revealed offers Chief Davis the link to the report, in case he’s interested.

We Are Leaving Oakland...a Lew Wolff timeline

Remember E.F. Hutton? When he talked, people listened.

Well, Watch Dog has been keen to point out that Lew Wolff is the Bay Area's version of E.F. Hutton. And E.F. Hutton is talking.

Check out this recent timeline and progression of Lew Wolff's (obvious) goals...:

• March 13, 2009 - We Are Leaving Oakland: Wolff let folks know that he doesn't want to stay in Oakland, but he does want to stay in Northern California. (Remember his "shot across the Oakland bow" statement?)

• March 26, 2009 - We Are Leaving Oakland, and We Heart San Jose: Wolff speaks to a group in SF, and officially adds the word "San Jose" into the conversation.

• March 30, 2009 - We are Leaving Oakland, We Heart San Jose, and So Will MLB: Wolff got his friends at MLB to give him some breathing-room. Wolff is in the firing line with his current City, Oakland, because he doesn't want to be there anymore. And now, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig had appointed a 3-person Commission to look at the A's options. This will sound like San Jose boosterism (which Watch Dog is generally not prone to), but San Jose is going to look really, really good for this MLB Commission, especially because Corey Busch is on the Commission and who had a love affair with San Jose when he worked for the SF Giants.