In Sunday’s Mercury News, reporters Linda Goldston and Vinne Tong wrote, “Arizona’s SB 1070 allows police to stop and ask about a person’s immigration status when they suspect the person could be in the U.S. illegally.”  Is that true?

A joint Mercury News/KGO TV poll indicated that Santa Clara’s Measure J (The 49ers’ Stadium) is likely to pass. Weeks prior, a poll was commissioned to measure the level of support among voters for a baseball stadium indowntown San Jose.

QUESTION: When will some agency or press outlet sanction a poll to ask local residents about their feelings towards breaking the unions’ vice-grip on the delivery of city services? (“Would you support allowing 50 percent of city services to be done by the private sector?”). I’ll bet the “yes” category would approach 90 percent.

Do the citizens of San Jose have an advocate on the San Jose City Council?  At times like these I’m not so sure.  When it comes to talking about the San Jose City Government budget and the efforts to close the over $116 million deficit, the focus of debate is not about providing for optimum city service levels, it’s about making payroll.  Seriously, no one is really talking about quality of service, they’re talking about salaries and pensions.  In San Jose, the emphasis is on filling pockets instead of potholes!

In a recent letter to the Mercury News, San Jose resident Pirouz Maghsoudnia questioned the wisdom of giving a public subsidy to a baseball franchise in these troubled economic times.  “The City of San Jose…does not have money to fix its streets, cannot provide police and fire protection for its residents or keep its libraries open, but has millions to bring a baseball franchise to downtown.”  Maghsoudnia points out that taxpayers are being asked to prepare for service cuts while the city is selling assets for $20 million to assemble the lot for the stadium.

A couple of Sundays ago. the San Jose Mercury News ran a front page story with the headline, “Megasaurus’ $150 Million Bid For Governor.”  What’s a Megasaurus?  Is it fair for the newspaper to attach such a label to Meg Whitman, a serious candidate for Governor of California?

Today, April 2, 2010, is International Autism Awareness Day. We should all become aware of the fact that autism is a growing epidemic.  According to Autism Speaks, one of the biggest advocacy groups for the autism community, every 20 minutes, another family receives the devastating news that their child has been diagnosed with autism. The prevalence of autism is growing, and nobody knows why. Roughly one in 110 children are being diagnosed with the disease. For boys, the rate is even higher, with one in 70 being diagnosed on the spectrum.

This just in…the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors have decided to take their concerns about “junk food” a step further. Here’s an excerpt from their next press release:
FROM THE SANTA CLARA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
SAN JOSE, Wednesday, March 31-For Immediate Release: Henceforth, all donuts, cakes, and cookies sold in Santa Clara County must remain unsprinkled.  We believe that sprinkles on donuts, cakes, and cookies entice children to eat more.  While not a part of this new legislation, bakers and cake decorators are also encouraged to refrain from using bright-colored frostings.  We recommend an increased use of white colored frostings and battleship-gray.  We thank you in advance for your cooperation.  Now go jog a few laps.

Nationally syndicated New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that it was the most inspiring evening that he has had in Washington DC for 20 years.  Friedman had attended the awards dinner for the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search.  “It left me thinking, if we can get a few things right—immigration, education standards, bandwidth, fiscal policy—maybe we’ll be OK.”

Friedman’s column contained two stories that reflected well on San Jose.

While San Jose may not exactly be the Capital of Silicon Valley, it certainly is at the center of many important things. The San Jose area is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country. A lot of wealthy and smart people live or work in San Jose and its surrounding cities and towns. What happens here matters. I wonder if the citizens of San Jose would take it upon themselves to provide leadership for the rest of the nation by questioning the legitimacy of the 2010 Census in its present form.

In a recent Open Forum article published by the San Francisco Chronicle, the city auditors for Oakland and Berkeley advanced the argument that city officials and citizens need to work together to define what the core services are for their respective cities: “Local government cannot afford everything it’s doing, so where do cities cut spending? To bridge budget gaps, lawmakers can choose either to implement across-the-board cuts-or they can define core services and cut strategically. Defining core services means aligning what services citizens expect with what cities can afford.”

“Those who don’t understand history are condemned to repeat it.”  When it comes to the San Jose Airport expansion and renovation project, it’s looking more and more like city officials failed to learn from the costly experience of the Taj Mahal city hall.

Have you noticed, there’s been more than a few angry letters to the editor submitted to the Mercury News by San Jose residents over the past few weeks?  It seems that folks are a bit ticked-off by the present condition of their city, and are placing the blame on the city council and the unions that run them.  (Yes, that’s right…the unions run the council.)

Have Americans lost their ability to exchange ideas and discuss politics without the equivalent of a high-school cafeteria food fight breaking out? Over the past few weeks, from San Jose to Washington, some of the language and rhetoric that’s been on display has been quite amazing.

The parent company for the Mercury News is filing for bankruptcy/reorganization and the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle now costs $3 at news stands. These two pieces of information speak volumes about the current plight of the newspaper business. Isn’t it only a matter of time before they stop the presses completely and put everything up online? If this happens, will people be more or less informed?

I continue to be amazed, and at times, amused by the quality and tone of some of the arguments being made by some politicians and fans wanting to bring the A’s to San Jose.  One of the central arguments being put forward is that the Giants don’t have a “right” to deny the people of San Jose a baseball team.  In fact, they do.  Major League Baseball extended the territorial rights to Santa Clara County to the San Francisco Giants.  That’s a fact, and nothing’s going to change that, unless, and until, the baseball owners change their minds and vote to reverse their decision.  Not likely.

The “Census Tour” came to San Jose last week in an effort to promote awareness about the upcoming Census campaign.  San Jose residents will be asked ten questions.  Some of the questions are centered exclusively on race and ethnicity.  And, amazingly, one question contains labels that some people find offensive.