City Hall Diary
This past Tuesday, the City of San Jose discussed its midyear point, which is where we consider how we should spend or not spend any “extra” money that was not part of the regular budget proposal. This year approximately $13 million is up for discussion.
Cities have some accuracy in forecasting budgets, but there is always an unpredictable deficit or overage. The final budget dollars are predicated (as best as they can be) on economic actions outside of City Hall. For example, San Jose’s coffers are fed when consumers buy “stuff” at Santana Row, Eastridge, Valley Fair, Oakridge, etc., by creating sales tax. In addition, developers building a housing development will generate construction and conveyance tax. However, a slowdown in the housing market will affect real estate transactions and a slowdown in our spending habits will limit the amount of tax the city receives.
This midyear money ($13 million) could be spent on anything, including police, parks, etc. Having extra money at a midyear point is positive, since there is always the risk that it could be the other way around. The city’s economic uncertainty reserve fund has shrunk from $15 million to $4 million over the last few years.
The reason we have $13 million extra is due to the spending cuts which closed the gap on the $16 million deficit for 2007-2008. Also, the city has kept most of its open positions frozen by not hiring anyone.
Unfortunately, San Jose is forecasted to have an even larger $25 million deficit for its next fiscal year (2008-2009), so the need to watch our spending is still a major concern. In June 2007, we passed a balanced budget and also made a policy to use any extra funds we had midyear in a limited manner to correct errors and reflect updated cost information, and then split the funds 50-50 between street maintenance and future deficit reserve.
Many neighborhood roads are in disrepair and saving money is a wise thing to do; therefore, I support the 50-50 split between roads and reserve funds. Street maintenance and saving money may not deliver a new capital project, but we have to make choices that serve the long-term goals that are best for the whole city, not just individual districts.
I believe our personal upbringing can influence the way we decide to spend or save money. My parents (who grew up during the depression, own their home outright and have paid over $100, 000 for personal medical bills, all on teachers’ salaries) taught me to save money, live below my means and to try to make more money overall. As an adult, I saved to buy a home, drive used cars and have kept weekend employment, even though I was fully employed during the regular work week.
I think the city should do the same by putting money aside in reserves, being prudent in money spent (which includes community-based budget reviews) and allowing land use policies for new retail opportunities in San Jose to capture more sales tax.
Related to this, the city council last week also passed the San Jose Retail Strategy to allow for more areas to construct retail shopping. San Jose as a city has sales tax leakage of 24 percent, based on a Bay Area Economics (BAE) study in 2004. If San Jose were able to cut that leakage in half, where San Jose residents purchased products in San Jose versus neighboring cities, we would add approximately $12 million to city coffers or roughly half of next year’s budget deficit.
Also, based upon the methodology developed by BAE, if our city grows in population as per the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) 2005 Report, and assuming our sales grow at the rate they have over that last five years, our leakage would increase to 41 percent by 2015.
As San Jose continues to grow, we must be fiscally prudent and prepared. Saving money and balancing budgets should be commonplace. We all know that there is “that one project” that just needs “a couple million.” However, if we don’t commit to saving and spending money on prudent citywide necessities (like public safety officers), then our city will never get out of the rut it’s in.
Full Disclosure – –
The views expressed in this posting have not been reviewed, edited or approved by Phaedra Ellis-Lampkin, WPUSA or its research and policy director.
Let me comprehend
Do you, councilman, intend
To cut what we spend?
Is this what you recommend?
How can you defend?
This position to the end
The status quo will upend
BUT WAIT, NO vital services will descend
Criminals we can still apprehend
It won’t be a bitter end
Education will transcend
Libraries and parks we can blend
Roads and streets we can mend
YES, I will SUPPORT you my friend
On that you can depend
Unwavering support, I will not bend
I’ve said it and penned
It’s hard to get too worked up about this when Councilmembers have time to pander to extreme religious groups that want to limit information availability at the library. If the Council has time to deal with this silliness then they are not serious about tackling the real problems we are facing as a city.
Mr. Councilmember, if you are serious about dealing with our budget mess, then you will tell those folks who think they know what is best for the rest of us to go away and come back only when they want to address the real issues we are facing as a city. Censorship is not an essential city service and the Council should not waste time on this. Fix the budget mess and leave the library system alone.
Hey PO—One BIG piece missing from your well stated strategy for getting SJ back in the black far enough to fund facilities and services that the folks, not the all powerful politicos and special interests, want—-WASTE. I’ll bet your folks had some opinions on that depression era obsession. Though you don’t have acres and acres of new, unused hundred million dollar bombers rotting in the sun in the desert like the Feds, there ought to be some attention given to waste in SJ. I’ll bet your folks would serve on a WASTE subcommittee, and so would I. Two plans for landscaping the airport intersection at 880? 2 million dollar net for a money losing golfcourse? etc., etc. Evaluating city employees for efficiency and effectiveness?
And your point about “leaking sales tax”—if you had a brilliant plan for downtown SJ, there wouldn’t be any tax leaks. The surrounding villages—Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, Cupertino would be leaking. The two biggest failures this year in SJ City Govt. have been no plan contemplated for downtown, no evaluation of employees. (Look what happened to the County Supt of Schools when after 14 yrs. she was finally evaluated—on just her “management” style.) George Green
#3 By extreme religious groups are you lumping in the neocons at Channel 7 news?
Even those vast right wing conspiracists at ABC7 news were in disbelief that nothing has been done in the year since their initial report highlighted the perverts caught masturbating at library computer terminals and the 10+ cases of child molestation at the library.
But let’s not rush to accept Channel 7’s take. Let’s get the word of library employees.
“Since the I-Team story aired Wednesday, we’ve received several e-mails from staff at the library who say they don’t like being exposed to porn, especially the child porn we spotted, on a daily basis and that it’s a hostile work environment.
Erik Larsen, S.J. City Employees Union President: “It is uncomfortable for employees to be in that position.”
The city employees union president says it’s especially disturbing because so many jobs have been cut since the dot-com bust. The library is counting on 15 and 16-year-old pages to do a lot of the work, and they’re having to deal with the porn.
Erik Larsen, S.J. City Employees Union President: “You can’t have young folks under the age of 18 monitoring children or adults when it comes to this type of issue with pornography.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_7240765
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=5716705
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=4815686
#3- Brad, I both agree and disagree with you. I personally worry about our government getting involved in freedom of speech issues, and other areas of personal freedoms, and privacy. I do not want to see children exposed to porn ANYWHERE, but I also do not want to see censorship. It’s a real tough thing to talk about, and decide where to draw the line, and how to protect children.
I’m also not to happy about Council Members passing no smoking laws in open parks, nor am I sure they should be naming shopping centers after special interest groups because it further separates immigrants from acclimating into our culture, and gives privileges to one group and not another. The list of getting into everyday citizens rights is endless and is a very volatile issue.
If you look at what’s been happening across the country, you will see our freedoms and rights slowly disappearing everyday. There are cameras everywhere documenting everything. Some cities don’t allow you to wear perfume! Man, it’s getting really crazy.
As to the budget, well Pierluigi, if the city’s budget is like mine, it’s ever changing. Emergencies come up, and wipe out my savings. I just pay off my credit card and my car breaks down so I have to charge it, because I had to use my savings, on and on. But the difference between my budget and the city’s is that I prioritize mine. No one stands over me claiming I owe him or her something because they voted for me. I don’t donate to charities unless my necessities are fully covered. I don’t spend money on trips and stay at the best hotels either, if I need to pay a doctor’s bill, or tune up my car.
My point is that too many expenses passed on to taxpayers are things that the city could have done without. High consultant fees! Okay, my question is why do you pay six figure incomes to department heads, and then go outside the city; pay someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for an opinion you can get from an experienced department head? Or why don’t you hold public meetings get input from taxpayers, and actually apply those suggestions to the project or issue being discussed?
I ran a non profit for six years, and I can tell you if I had run my non profit group’s budget, and treated my volunteers the way the city runs it’s budget, or treats it’s employees, I’d have been bankrupt going out the gate!
Sorry, Brad # 3, but it is not censorship to decline to provide free internet porn access at the public library to cheapskates. Nobody has the right to unfettered access to porn paid for by the taxpayers.
I am not a religious activist. Indeed, I am a non-believer.
There is no Constitutionally protected right to free access to internet porn to poor people or to people too cheap to but it.
Kathleen #6: I don’t see it as hard to draw the line at all. Everyone is entitled to view whatever porn they want…at their own expense. No-one is entitled to view porn at the taxpayers’ expense. It’s not a censorship issue at all. It’s an issue of paying for what you get, and not foisting the bill on others.
Novice’s examples of molestation and masturbation at the library just add icing to the cake; but the issue is clear—if you want to view porn, that’s ok; just don’t force me to pay for you to get your rocks off.
Pierluigi et al:
How is there “extra” money if six month’s hence there’s a $25 million deficit? BUT, if the council is going to spend some of this extra money, please begin by repaving Moorpark from Winchester to Saratoga Ave. (It’s a joke). And, repave Mitty Way…aka perhaps the most beat up piece of road in W. San Jose.
Re: Porn at the library…In theory, if a library worker has porn on his computer during his lunch break, that’s sexual harrassment, and a hostile workplace, and illegal…BUT, it’s OK for people to be viewing out in the open around kids, etc.
This issue reminds me of the true story (about 10 years ago) when the “Naked Guy” was walking around the CAL campus. No one did anything about it until one day, one of the female students said that she felt threatened by it. They busted him after that.
Pete Campbell
I must agree with George Green # 4 re the issue of waste.
The vast majority of the city’s operating budget is personnel. THus, that’s where the most savings can be made by eliminating waste.
Unfortunately, the hardest part of doing so is thwarted by collective bargaining agreements that let most personnel get away with poor productivity. The other area is frills.
How many deputy assistant managers for cultural affairs and other similar positions do we fund? Are we as bloated at the top as the Santa Clara Valley Water District (38% of employees earn six figure salaries)?
Kathleen is correct—when individuals are met with too much month at the end of the money, they make choices on what to cut back. Governments rarely do that, and when they do, it’s not driven by clear setting of priorities…it’s driven by lobbyist and union input.
I’d wager we have much duplication in management functions throughout the government. I’d also wager we have HUNDREDS of positions that are great in theory, that help make the city more pleasant, well-rounded, and livable. But they are WANTS, not NEEDS. When there ain’t enough money, people dispose of their wants, and concentrate on their needs. Government must be FORCED to do the same, because it will never do so of its own volition.
City government needs to set firm priorities and eliminate all that it cannot afford. Police & Fire (public safety) in numero uno. Basic infrastructure (well maintained streets, sewers, utilities) is numero dos. All else is fat if the money runs out before those things can be paid for COMPLETELY.
Schools are important, but that’s not the city’s responsibility.
So, PO, you and the council need to stop dancing around the major issue. The $13 mil you speak of is checkenfeed in a budget over a $BILLION.
BACK TO BASICS. If they aren’t paid for, all the rest of the folks have to go out and get real jobs.
#7- JMO, “Kathleen #6: I don’t see it as hard to draw the line at all. Everyone is entitled to view whatever porn they want…at their own expense. No one is entitled to view porn at the taxpayers’ expense. It’s not a censorship issue at all. It’s an issue of paying for what you get, and not foisting the bill on others.”
Thank you for the information. I had no idea that this was the case. I agree then that it should not be allowed in any case. If these perverts are using the library like the Pink Poodle club, or a strip joint then I say boot them out. Public masturbation or exposing one self publicly is against the law so is molesting children. The law needs complete enforcement, and a zero tolerance attitude towards this violation of children.
As to your other comments about cutting the fat in City Hall, there are way too many six-figure salaries for people the city doesn’t need. If you look at how many department heads there are that only have the job, but not the skills, and that got that position because they’ve out lasted previous supervisors, you can see why we’re in this mess. I’ll bet you ten bucks if these over paid department heads actually had to meet today’s educational, and skill sets being mandated today, they’d never qualify for the job.
An example of this would be, a Council Aide is required to have a BA to earn $28- to $35K a year! Just to answer a phone or email a taxpayer back. In my day, yes I’m old, 50; a BA got you an executive position.
What City Hall needs to do is what the San Francisco Mayor is doing, and that is to clean house big time. Cut out programs that where developed during good budget times, slice employee positions that are not serving our needs, and get rid of the old timers who are just sitting around collecting big paychecks, while collecting dust. I’d start in the City Manager’s Office and work down.
Porn in libraries?
Dang when I was a kid going to the library all I had to pass time was the scantily clad women in the advertisements of Cosmo and the Sports illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
Although I think that the viewing of pornograpy should be limited to ones own house, or adult motel how does the city create and enforce policy to enforce it.
Where does the line get drawn? Are women in bikinis okay? What about thongs? What about two women wearing thongs kissing, is that pornographic?
What if i aspire to be a plastic surgeon, can I go research what a perfectly augmented pair of breasts look like at my local library? What if I’m a sexual researcher? Shouldn’t I be able to study at my local library?
How would porn websites be filtered? As most of you probably are aware, the Internet is constantly evolving. As i type this message maybe a hundred new porn sites have been created. Sounds like we would need full time staffing with probably multiple positions for porn filters.
What if I wanted to read some literature on the KKK, would that be allowed in our libraries. I mean im sure if there was an African American library employee who saw me looking up a KKK website, that would create a REALLY hostile work environment for that employee right? And she would have a good reason to sue the city. Why are porn sites filtered, but one can look at the KKK website.
Once the city gets into the business of censorship, it becomes a real slippery slope. I do want a safe place for children and adults to learn and study. But attempting to filter porn, is not the right answer.
Senti, capo:
Below is a post I made in another folder here. Please review and implement. Grazie mille!
Yeah, Kathleen #55, there are a whole lot of positions that could be eliminated to give us more cops and firefighters and proper roads.
I haven’t perused the budget, but I suspect there are a whole bunch of “managers” who “manage” no more than a handful of people. So, what they really do is push paper upline and downline, in suitable beauracratese, but which add no value to the task at hand.
The mayor and council need to task (a beuaracratic word if ever there were one) each dept. head to justify EVERY SINGLE PERSON in her/his staff before the six month review Pierluigi spoke of on his recent post.
East Side Dre # 11 makes the usual points re censorship. But censorship is not the issue.
The US Supreme Court has already ruled in a case filed by the US Library Federation, or some such outfit, that libraries receiving federal funds MUST filter porn or lose their federal funding.
Numerous high quality filters exist that allow parents to filter porn from home computers. That’s the starting point. Could they be bypassed by seriously horny, computer savvy folks? Probably. But that isn’t the point.
The point is that there is no Constitutional or statutory requirement to give taxpayer paid free porn on demand to those who can’t or won’t pay for it. Nor should anyone (adult or child) be required to put up with someone masturbating in the public library (a crime in itself, remember) while watching free porn on the library’s computer paid for by taxpayers in the name of free speech.
Our head librarian champions allowing anyone unlimited access to free porn on demand. Perhaps she should be required to watch all those who masturbate in her facility to the freebie she champions for them.
Geez, the anti-porn brigade is really on a roll. Of course this issue has nothing to do with being anti or pro porn. It has to do with who decides what can and cannot be viewed and how to prevent legitimate sites from being censored by the filters. In spite of those who love to toss around the aberrant behavior of a few who can already be dealt with under existing laws, the real issue gets ignored—each group that wants filters also has its own agenda: religious groups won’t want family planning sites available, others won’t want sites that provide information to the gay community, others will want this or that filtered out. Which of you pro-filter folks are going to decide what we can and cannot view? None of us are qualified to judge for others but that is exactly what some of you want to do. Maybe if parents took as much interest in what their kids are doing and seeing instead of wanting the library to their parenting for them, our whole society would be in much better condition than it is today.
You just have to love the level of perfection demanded by the left when it comes to internet filtering and ‘free speech’.
– What about girls in thong bikinis kissing? Will that be banned from viewing in the library?
– What about plastic surgeons using the library computers to see what a perfect pair of breasts look like?
– What about veterinarians using library computers to research STDs transmitted during human-animal intercourse?
And now we’re down to blaming parents for their kids getting exposed to sub-humans viewing child porn on library computers.
If it weren’t for parents and their darned children this place’d be utopia!
About CIPA
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html
US Supreme Court ruling in favor of CIPA (library filtering of internet content).
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/02-361.pdf
It’s quite a good read – if you happen to be interested in the facts.
I suppose the question re:porn on public library computers should be framed this way:
Your kid is doing online research at a computer at the library. What do YOU think: is it inappropriate for the person next to them to be viewing XXX sites?
I don’t even have kids, but the answer is pretty clear: NO!!!!!
Here’s the text of an email I just sent to SJ councilmember Forrest Williams. This is in reply to the council voting 10-1 to ban smoking in public parks. Councilman Williams public comments regarding the issue were especially objectionable.
Let’s see if I get a response from the councilmembers ofice.
Councilmember Williams,
Did you really say regarding cigarettes:
“I think we ought to eliminate cigarettes all together,” said councilman Forrest Williams. “Let’s just get rid of them.”
Really? You sound like a real fascist. Did you flunk history in school or did you ever read about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s and 1930’s. For your edification, it was formally known as the “Volstead Act”.
Councilmember Williams, what was the end result of the government attempting to ban alcohol all in the name of the “public good”?
Let’s see, prohibitions encourage illegal trafficking, law-breaking, organized crime (prohibition was the great kick-starter the Mafia used to entrench itself in America), black markets and a host of other societal ills too numerous to mention here. But the real problem is that the prohibitions create greater problems than those they allege to solve. Even a pea-brained politician like yourself should be able to come to that conclusion.
People like you have no business in public office. You are venal, small-minded, and you suffer from a constipated brain.
Please do the rest of society a favor and resign your position immediately. You represent the very worst of public life in America and it’s people like you with their totalitarian ideas that are destroying this country.
You are nothing more than a nihilist of the first order.
PS – I don’t smoke. Never have. Never will. And I do find tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke objectionable. But what I find more objectionable than smokers is the attitude of small-minded petty tyrants like yourself.
You would’ve been right at home in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. You are certainly not an American. Not by any definition that I’m aware of.
Go away.
Mark
41. San Jose Public Library San Jose $110,198.16
http://www.library.ca.gov/loc/board/agendas/TelecommReports/16B.pdf
15 – And you know for a fact that our library receives funding from the E-rate program??? That’s a fact you seem to have left out.
#14- “Maybe if parents took as much interest in what their kids are doing and seeing instead of wanting the library to their parenting for them, our whole society would be in much better condition than it is today.”
You raise a very valid point here. I’ve noticed that parents dump their kids off at the mall, and 5 minutes later I’ll see these young kids in the R rated movie I’m going to. Or in my fiancé’s apartment complex, I’ll see parents tossing their kids outside and never checking on them. Some pervert could grab em and no one would know in time to stop them. They’re out there from morning until after dark, screaming tearing things up, climbing on people’s cars. And my fiancé lives in a pretty nice complex in a good part of D 9.
When I’m at our local library, I see parents drive up, dump off their kids, and leave em there unsupervised. My parents never did that when I was a kid.
Having said that, I must say that when I go to the library, the last thing I expect to see is someone viewing, “Donna Does Dallas, and The 49 Niners!” Hard core porn is not something I think is appropriate in a library. In a X rated club, or movie theater yes, library no. At least if you go into an X rated movie or club, you know what you’re in for.
Novice,
Those E-rate figures appear to be from 2000.
Anything more current?
Is there a cost estimate on how much porn filters are going to cost the city?
What is the point on spending tax dollars on ineffective software?
East Side, Those were the only numbers I could find.
Thanks, Novice. We can always count on you to provide us with the facts. Although $110,000 seems hardly worth the effort to sell our souls to the Feds and put inadequate filters on the computers that probably won’t do the job anyway.
Ok, regarding the programs in charge of filtering the websites our children access at the library:
How much will this software cost to purchase?
How much will the support plan we need to purchase with the software (in case there are software glitches) cost us?
How much will the additional software/hardware we need to purchase to make the original software work cost us?
A purchase like this is NEVER straightforward and simple for the City of San Jose. There are always glitches, and additional costs. ALWAYS
Never underestimate the intellectual laziness of the average leftist bay area robot.
Or maybe it’s not laziness at all but intentional filtering of facts that run counter to their koolaid based worldview.
But I digress…
CIPA states…
“An authorized person may disable the blocking or filtering measure during any use by an adult to enable access for bona fide research or other lawful purposes.”
Translation? Filters are on by default, if you’d like filtering disabled, contact a librarian.
If that’s just too oppressive and smacks too much of jackboot-on-the-throat fascism I have a better idea.
Set up a special ‘adults only’ computer room at the library that’s unfiltered all the time (and can only be accessed via the street). There Brad and Tina can enjoy free as the wind internet access and rub shoulders with the garden variety perverts and miscreants to their heart’s content.
Library nirvana achieved.
Exit question.
Brad, Tina, are you posting your missives from public library computers?
Thought so.
The Information Age brings us many issues we as a society must deal with. The current one impacting our libraries is the question whether or not to filter “porn.”
Well, what exactly is porn? How is it defined? And just who defined it? (For the record I think #11 East Side Dre hit the nail on the head with the points he raised.) Can the definition of porn be up to me? Or you? Should we leave it to the church? If so, which church? Or do we look to our government? Fact is, no one will be happy with whatever decision is made.
RE: Taxpayer money. Well, there’s a lot I don’t want my taxpayer money going to, especially things that negatively impacts children, but where do we start? Porn is but one issue, there are several I wouldn’t want to support, if I woke up tomorrow as Queen.
Now, I have to ask WHERE in the libraries ARE THE PARENTS?? They need to be there to help mitigate these issues which really don’t belong to a library staff person.
Also, why didn’t Councilmember Constant mention filtering sites that hate on various populations, promote hate groups, teach people how to make home-made bombs, etc. (These things also hurt children, both physically and emotionally.)
I’d rather see parents step up and monitor/be there for their children, the cops arrest those who are publicly giving themselves a “happy ending” and let the library continue to do it’s job of providing any/all information in various forms of media to the public.
Tina Morrill
27 – You can’t possibly be as much of a moron as you pretend to be, can you?
You conveniently ignore the points being made and immediately lower the level of discussion. As as has been said but you fail to understand, no one is advocating for the misuse of the computers or abusive behavior. In fact, no one has been advocating for pornography. The discussion is much bigger than that, in spite of the fact that you prefer to focus on it. Certainly the actions of a few that have been cited should not be tolerated and there are existing laws to deal with that. What you like to ignore is that filtering library content will not deal with that problem and penalizes the majority for the acts of a few. You also like to ignore the fact that the filters don’t work that well and block legitimate information. Why should someone who uses the library have to ask permission to get the information they want (and we all pay for)? And, another area you love to ignore, is who decides what is legitimate information? Should it be you? Me? Who should have the moral authority to decide what we can and cannot view? Certainly not Councilman Constant and his church groups who have their own agenda. Certainly not you since you believe the library is only populated with, using your words, “…garden variety perverts and miscreants…”
As for your closing statement, it is so pathetic it deserves no further comment.
You know, there’s one aspect none of us are considering here and that is this, why is it that when a few perverts, or criminals do something like use a library to view XXX porn, molest children, or use pay phones to make drug deals, we have to suffer the loss of our civil rights, or the access to pay phones, and have to foot the bill for these idiots?
Since when do violations of the law become a punishment for good law abiding citizens? Why aren’t parents policing their kid’s activities?
Why do people who wear perfume or smoke have to stop wearing it, or stop smoking in their own homes, or in open air parks because some small group objects? Or why do card clubs get slammed because too many people with gambling problems have to be baby-sat?
I don’t know what the hell this world is coming to, I really don’t. We have an anti Police supposedly neutral Police Auditor, Labor Unions and lobbyists running our States, Cities, and Counties, along with who gets elected. I think our country is in deep trouble. When does the insanity stop?
What points?
Oh you mean the disenfranchisment of plastic surgeons and those researching bikini clad women kissing?
You don’t like the filters? Go get a librarian to disable them. Done.
But I’m starting to get a feeling this is about something else.
“The discussion is much bigger than that”
You are more right than you even know.
CIPA offers such a reasonable solution to the problem – but the resulting outrage from ‘free speech-ists’ is so overheated and so overdone – there has to be more to it than ‘free speech’.
And there is.
This is about the culture war.
The left’s social agenda is anti-children, anti-family values, pro-promiscuity, and promotion of anything goes alternative lifestyles.
Anything that slows or threatens to reverse the moral and cultural decay of this country is a direct affront to the left’s self-loathing based agenda.
In this case the ‘threat’ happens to be the proposed restriction of the flow of internet sewage into our public libraries.
Brad, is that you behind the MacBook widescreen sipping on socially conscious coffee whilst less fortunate downtown residents are forced to deal with the porn vermin at MLK?
Thought so.
Hello Novice.
When I first read your response (#27) I wanted to send a heated reply. But then my conscience reminded me that, although I may not like what you have written, you have the right to freedom of expression.
You have the right to freely express your opinions on this blog, just as you have the right to choose whether or not to sign your name to what you post.
I am very thankful for this freedom of expression, and celebrate the diversity on this site; diverse thoughts and opinions of folks who post here give me a lot to ponder.
Novice, have a happy day.
Tina
This is about the culture war.
True.
The left’s social agenda is anti-children, anti-family values, pro-promiscuity, and promotion of anything goes alternative lifestyles.
False.
If the “left” has any agenda, it is anti-stupidity, while the Social Conservatives, and other members of the lunatic fringe, are pro-stupidity and anti-science.
Congratulations on being a shining example of the pro-stupidity crowd.
11 and 25 both get it. Do you really want some narrowly focused religious group and a pandering councilmember deciding what you can and cannot view? That is hardly the principles this country is founded on but there are always those on the fringe who think they know what is best for everyone else.
As has been said, if they were really concerned with this then they would be focusing on the parents. The library is not a free daycare center. Children must be supervised everywhere these days but they are not. Many parents have abdicated their responsibility and simply dump their kids at the library, mall, etc. and then are outraged when they get into trouble.
If Councilmember Constant continues along his current path he will join the heap of other forgettable councilmembers who thought their religious beliefs were more important than our constitutional rights. You all remember such noble crusaders as Fletcher, Ryden, and Schaffer, don’t you??
Brad#14 wrote:“It has to do with who decides what can and cannot be viewed .”
His sentence is incomplete. What really is at stake is who decides what can and cannot be viewed at no cost to the viewer that the taxpayers pay for.
There is no Constitutional right to a free public library, so how can there possibly be a Constitutional right to free porn on demand at the public library? There isn’t even a Constitutional right to free books of any kind. There is no RIGHT to a public library. Any person or entity, private or public, that provides a service, whether free or at a cost, has the right to control access to that service.
The US Supreme Court has already ruled that such filters are indeed CONSTITUTIONAL.
Just because someone cannot afford a computer does not mean that the public must subsidize that person’s desire to view porn on a publicly subsidized computer.
That’s not censorship. It’s capitalism.
I do agree with what he also wrote, however:“Maybe if parents took as much interest in what their kids are doing and seeing instead of wanting the library to their parenting for them, our whole society would be in much better condition than it is today.”
But all that avoids the real issue—why should the taxpayers subsidize socially unaccaptable behavior. The free speech argument is a red herring. Watching porn for free at the public library is not SPEECH, even if they moan as they ejaculate on the library floor.
And no, I’m not a religious nut. In fact, I am a non-believer.
Numerous bloggers seem to be suggesting that parents should be right next to their kids at the library, and that constitutes good parenting. I’d like to think that a library is a safe place for kids to be alone, without their parents. But many bloggers and our head librarian seem to disagree, and believe that a few cheapskates who won’t pay to go to the x-rated movie houses ought to be able to intrude upon kids trying to learn @ the library by viewing porn at taxpayer expense. I just can’t get there.
The mantra used to be, what I do in my bedroom is my business and not that of the government; a position with which I wholeheartedly agree. But to say whatever I do in the public library is nobody’s business doesn’t get any traction with me.
Sorry, Brad #26, there is no CONSTITUTIONAL right to free porn at public expense. There isn’t even a Constitutional right to a public library.
The leakage in Sales tax revenue continues. Morgan Hill has under construction a “major mall” at the Cochrane- U.S.101 intersection ( on the Morgan Hill/San Jose boarder) positioned to once again rob San Jose of Sales tax revenue when Coyote Valley begins to develop.
When we look at our history of previous city administrations, this is exactly what happened, today we are paying the price.
When I look at the intersection of Hamilton and Bascom, I see the City of Campbell collecting a bonanza of sales tax revenue at San Jose`s expence. Not counting the Pruneyard`s retail (close by) there is 63 retail successful retail facilities right on the Campbell/San Jose boarder.
This intersection has the “best retail” demographics in the County. San Jose leaders provided the dense residential area, Campbell built the best retail macine to service San Jose residents needs. San Jose has all the continuing expenses in this area (police,fire dept, libriaries) while Campbell built the banks to capture all this retail sales tax income. Campbell wins, San Jose loses.
The same thing happens on the Santa Clara/San Jose border and again the Milpitas/San Jose border. North San Jose future development has very little plans for retail, no major mall or auto dealer row,(Milpitas has begun the auto mall already for this area).
It`s 2007 and San Jose contines to build residential to help its smaller neighboring cities become rich at our expense. Our developers could care less about what is happening to us. The unions just want jobs, no one seems to care.
Don`t forget we don`t have to support shools financially, but we have to provide valuable land in our city to build schools. More land with a loss of revenue.
Hello again,
Perhaps putting filters on the kids computers in the Children Section is where we start instead of a “one-size-fits-all” filter approach to ALL computers in ALL libraries.
I still promote the approach that parents stay with their kids and not be in other library sections, unattended and peeping over adults shoulders! Further, the cops must be called in to arrest the few* “pervs” who are not conducting themselves appropriately in a public place, just as they do in parks, alleyways, on the steps of the post office (yeah, I saw that one – ugh!), etc.
RE: Filters. There continue to be issues with filters as well, and a report was published at the Brennan Center at NYU Law School: http://www.brennancenter.org-dynamic-subpages-download_file_36649.pdf.
Last, an interesting Opinion with some eye opening information was in the Cambrian Resident, Oct. 25th edition. Evidently this push for a ban on “porn” is being funded by the Alliance Defense Fund who are a Christian values based organization. This same organization also openly opposes some gay/lesbian rights, like the right to adopt children for example.
I don’t have a good feeling about this at all, it just feels like only the start of our rights being removed.
Tina
* Per a library source, the number of instances have been VERY FEW in comparison with the millions of library users.
As usual, Novice appears wrong again. I believe you will find that San Jose does not take CIPA money so your entire premise falls apart. They may have at one time but no longer. I guess the free and open dissemination of information was more important than taking a few tainted dollars from the Feds.
Also, as usual, you immediately go to the right-wing playbook and blame everything on leftists, liberals, etc. We get it. You get the memos everyday from the mothership and you are required to regurgitate as often as possible that everything is the fault of the left. It’s old, it’s tired, it’s silly, and I know you will respond by accusing me of being a liberal or something like that. If that’s the best you can the rest of us can continue to chuckle at your blatherings and consider the source.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this at all, it just feels like only the start of our rights being removed.”
As we like to say here at SJI, let’s go to the tape.
“CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST, joined by JUSTICE O’CONNOR, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS, concluded: 1. Because public libraries’ use of Internet filtering software does not violate their patrons’ First Amendment rights, CIPA does not induce libraries to violate the Constitution,”
KENNEDY, J., and BREYER, J., filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
San Jose library is taking CIPA money yet has failed to implement the filtering required.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems clear to me that San Jose is in violation of federal law and the US Supreme Court has ruled that your rights are not being violated regardless of how it “makes you feel”.
Have a happy day.
Is Jane Light the Mother Theresa of MLK?
Is the American Library Association a veritable Switzerland of neutrality in these highly polarized times?
For the answers to these questions let’s peel the onion and get a readout.
“According to a sample gathered by PoliticalMoneyLine in July [2004] … Almost 18 actors gave to Kerry for every 1 who gave to Bush.
For self-described authors, the ratio was about 36 to 1. Among journalists, there were 93 Kerry donors for every Bush donor.
For librarians, who must like Faulknerian, sprawling paragraphs, the ratio of Kerry to Bush donations was a whopping 223 to 1.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/11/opinion/11brooks.html
Librarians as a whole are nothing less than one of the most partisan, leftist agenda driven groups of people in this country.
We’ve peeled the onion. Now it’s time for some math.
Who’s entrusted with maintaining a ‘balanced’ collection of library materials.
plus
Who’s making the noise about censorship.
equals
Hypocrisy 101.
That you’re coming down on the side of leftist social dogma over common sense and decency and the health and well being of kids speaks volumes re your lack of moorings.
Have a happy day.
Novice, perhaps if you didn’t refer to people in a stereotypical way, your points might be taken more credibility. Not everyone agrees with censorship. Some of us are die hard First Amendment Rights folks. Some of us feel parents need to be more mindful of policing their children’s activities, rather than passing laws that punish good people because a few perverts are acting badly in the library. Some people just want to protect children, and some of us think filters are wrong. That doesn’t make us leftist, or far right either; it makes us citizens who differ on how to handle the issue at hand.
You sound like a young, intelligent college student/person, who feels strongly about your position. I do love that about you. I just have difficulty fairly considering your point of view when you use inflammatory stereotypical language in expressing your opinions.
Just my two cents~
So Pearl hips us to the fact (link please) that Jane Light opts out of federal funding in order to avoid installation of internet filters.
Meanwhile back at the library…
– Pat Lopes Harris, a spokeswoman for San Jose State University, which co-manages the city’s main Martin Luther King Jr. Library downtown, said university police this year received 37 complaints of lewd acts at the library. Of those, 26 involved computer use, two involved online child pornography and 17 led to arrests or citations.
– San Jose police have had six complaints of sex-related offenses at all city libraries since 2005, including three for child molestation and one for indecent exposure, according to Sgt. Nick Muyo.
– “San Jose’s police blotter last year listed several arrests for child porn at the library—at least 10 cases of child molestation or other sex crimes involving kids and several cases of men viewing porn and performing a lewd act, right there at the table. Guards caught one man on surveillance camera.” according to ABC7’s 2006 report.
– Since the I-Team story aired Wednesday, we’ve received several e-mails from staff at the library who say they don’t like being exposed to porn, especially the child porn we spotted, on a daily basis and that it’s a hostile work environment.
– 15 and 16 year old pages are being forced to deal with perverts viewing porn on library computers according to Erik Larsen, S.J. City Employees Union President.
Yep. There’s a lot there to chuckle about Pearl.
There’s no comic relief quite like that provided by child molestation and other sex crimes at our public libraries.
Richard #36—we could solve some of that problem by merging all these independent cities into one magalopolis; and think of all the politicians that would have to find real jobs.