I found the reaction to my posting last week interesting. After all, I’m just pointing to news. I didn’t expect it to stir up so many passions. Yes, I featured stories from the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, but then, they’re the first news outlet to regularly feature our stuff.
Of course there’s other stuff going on in San Jose. For instance (and I haven’t talked to anyone named McEnery about this, but thought it might be of particular interest to our readers, Tuesday, June 7 at 7:30 PM there will be a special screening of Erin McEnery’s documentary The Search For The Captain at the Camera Cinema 12 downtown, hosted by KLIV. After the screening will be a Q & A session with Erin. They’ll even give away a pair of tickets, on a first come, first served basis, to those faxing their name, phone number and mailing address to (408) 995-0823. KLIV has been doing an interesting report on public art in San Jose. I saw the film at Cinequest and give it high marks.
Now, here are the headlines from the Community Newspapers this week.
Willow Glen resident Susan Espinoza sent a petition to San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales to save a hose wagon and three firefighters at San Jose Fire Station No. 6 from budget cuts… By Irene Kew
When she’s not saving lives at hospitals, emergency physician Karen Pike is busy prescribing medical plots for ABC’s prime-time hit Grey’s Anatomy… By Irene Kew
Almaden Resident to sponsor Summer music series at Graystone Park… By Sarah Holcomb
Almaden artists to be featured at ArtFest at the Triton… By Sarah Holcomb
St. Nicholas gears up for the annual Greek Festival… By Mary Gottschalk
Exotic bird purveyors buy Andy’s Pet Shop… By Mary Gottschalk
It’s all topped off with a cartoon by Decinzo.
Today the San Jose Mercury News reported Steve Wright has been appointed the editorial page editor, replacing David Yarnold. According to the article, Mr. Wright lives in Dublin with his wife and two children.
The editorial page editor can have a great impact on life here in San Jose so I ask: should the editorial page editor actually live in San Jose? In the industry here I believe this is called “eating your own dog food.” Mr. Wright will miss much about our city commuting mile to his office, writing some opinions about San Jose, and heading home to Dublin for evenings and weekends.
p.s. I would still like to see other sources of San Jose neighborhood news even though the SVCN papers were the first to cover your web site.
I haven’t seen today’s Merc yet but it seems to me that living in Dublin will never provide Mr. Wright with a feel for what life is all about in San Jose. OK, San Jose is predominantly suburban, but Dublin has absolutely no center, no downtown, and never did. How can this guy have any passion for what goes on in San Jose if he’s living under a suburban cheese bell over there?
News will be made tonight at the Planning Commission meeting (6:00 PM, City Hall, second floor) which will take up both the North San Jose development plan and the reduction in LOS (level of service) proposal.
If any reader is serious about the prospect of a new downtown stretching along and around North First Street from 101 to 237, tonight is the time to get active and give testimony. I’ve seen a lot of comments on this blog about the impact of Santana Row on the current downtown, but the North San Jose development plan will put the current downtown in the dust—literally.
The LOS proposal refers to the attempt by the City to increase the acceptable length of time by drivers to pass through dozens and dozens of intersections from “D” level to “E” and “F” levels. This will affect traffic congestion, air pollution, and public safety. The whole purpose of the proposal is to allow much higher housing density along major transit lines and arterial streets without requiring street improvements to maintain traffic flow as is now the case. (Developers will still be required to pay traffic mitigation fees but the money will be deposited into a new slush fund, not spent to improve traffic times.)
These two proposals, if approved tonight and at the City Council on 6/21/05, will change the face of San Jose forever with no particular benefit, and undermine the quality of life that most residents now enjoy.
If blog readers and downtown civic leaders do not participate in this public debate, they may as well plan to carp on this blog about the negative impact of these proposals for the rest of their lives.
Check out this month’s edition of American Style magazine. The top 25 cities for arts in all sizes: large, medium and small. That’s the total of 75 cities included. San Jose was not included on the list: the only city not mentioned! Also, check out the new book that just arrived. It’s called “Apple America” by R.W. Apple. It covers the 40 U.S. and Canada cities to travel and play as well as going over history of those cities. San Jose is, once again, not mentioned in the book. It’s the only major city not mentioned in the book as the list of cities to check out. San Jose is the most embarassed in the world and the least known city in the world. It happens all the time when news publications provide the list of cities for facts, travel and other purposes. San Jose is constantly snubbed. If you’ve read Frommer’s, Fodor’s, and various travel books and business magazines, in terms of cities ranking, San Jose is snubbed. I bet you’ve read Conde’nast travel magazine or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Gamour and Vanity Fair. They never mention San Jose. What a lousy less than small town mentality city we live in. Everything is reverred to San Francisco. San Jose is even less respected than back in 1972! It has 2 times the population than back then. What a disgrace! It’s own people who makes and accepts this rotten situation. San Jose is not in the shadow of SF but shadow of itself.
Seems the merc has picked a guy that could make sense. Why not have a person from a sleepy bedroom town run the editorial for our super sized bedroom town newspaper.
Cross our fingers this guy has something to offer; but I’d assume the merc is sticking to it’s boring bedroom cowtown approach.
Smurf, this is what decades of poor planning will do to a town. Emphasis on “town” since nobody (see publications listed in Smurf’s entry above) considers this place to even qualify as a city. Only under Tom’s watch did we get any effort at all to provide a sense of place here. Otherwise it has been a a long parade of unsophisticated types calling the shots—both inside City Hall and also among the electorate. We’re spinning our wheels like so many hamsters here until the voting public gets off the me-first suburban agenda and starts supporting, or more like demanding, a complete urban experience dowtown that we can all be proud of and enjoy. There is so much money in this valley, so much conspicuous consumption, and the right leader can tap into that wealth to help advance this town culturally. Good luck finding him/her in the Council or Mayoral hopefuls, though.
Kevin:
Did you see this cartoon?
Doug F.
http://www.saratoganews.com/sn-op-decinzo.shtml
Is it any wonder that San Jose is not considered a big city and is forgotten by many?
When we have the mayors from many of the world’s cities meeting in San Francisco (you know that smaller city to the north) and our mayor has too many items on his calendar to attend, what does that say to you?
“Mayors from at least 66 cities, including Shanghai, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Capetown are expected. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown will speak. San Francisco’s Gavin Newsom will host numerous events.
San Jose, the largest city in the Bay Area, won’t be represented, however. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales supports the general goals of the conference but had scheduling conflicts, a spokesman for Gonzales said.
“We did receive an invitation,’’ David Vossbrink said. “Going up to San Francisco is a half day at best. It’s always a challenge. He has a lot of other meetings on his calendar.’’”
entire story : http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/11786151.htm
It must be more time consuming to make all those city hall back room deals than it is to run the entire State of California – The Governor made time to attend:
“This afternoon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to appear at San Francisco City Hall to announce new targets for California to reduce greenhouse gases.”
Even Al Gore had time to attend:
“And on Saturday, former vice president Al Gore is scheduled to give a speech to delegates in Union Square about global warming.”
Well, that’s not a fair comparison…. he has nothing else to do!
But really, our mayor couldn’t spare a half of a day? I’m sure all of the mayors were given ample notice.
PS- I’m surpriesed this topic didn’t warrant its own posting.
PRIORITIES PLEASE
Question: Who mishandled good timing and spectacular opportunity to produce the most unmemorable bore, the city leaders of San Jose with their downtown, or Pauline and Albert Gore, Sr. with their son Al, Jr.?
Snubb and be Snubbed:
You couldn’t be more right!
You should do a freedom of information request for today’s schedule and see what was keeping the Mayor for a world conference 45 minutes away…
No. 8 is correct—there should have been an entire posting about this item. Seventy mayors from around the world had time to spend more than half a day dealing with perhaps the most critical issue facing our quality of life, but our guy was “too busy.” Can it get any more embarrassing??
Hey now, lighten up on Gonzo. After all, he sent Linda LeZotte up there for a few hours to cover for him. I guess Andy Diaz wasn’t available.
This just in – turns out our mayor did indeed make a last minute appearance in SF – wearing a “Stop Global Worming” sandwich board.
Linda is by far the superior to sending Gonzo. She actually believes that caring for our environment is important and works hard to make the Mayor and Council more sensitive to these issues. Obviously, she has a huge task in trying to do that with this group.
Adam-
Yeah, LeZotte was on the radio this morning saying “I wish I had more time to spend at this event…” after she dropped in. But the point is this was a conference for MAYORS.
Hey Mark, I think saying Monterey has better weather is a bit of a stretch, but it’s all in what you like. Your comments are right-on about SJ having no tourism draw, and Monterey has many.
As someone who was born on Peachtree Lane, I can tell you that whole development replaced apricot orchards so there were never any peach trees there in the first place. Nor were there walnut trees on Walnut Grove or redwoods on Redwood, but I suspect there may be plenty of clover growing on Clover.
I get a kick out of street names like River View when there isn’t a river anywhere in sight.
So while I’m at it, who is it that allows streets to change names as they cross larger arteries? In the Rosegarden area they built homes on the old SJ Unified Admin property and instead of logically extending the name of Fremont St. into that development, they had Fremont change names to Selborn after crossing Park Ave. What is up with that? Developer egos at work or what?
Gonzo is getting ready to launch his own development company. By the time he leaves office, you’ll be able to just fax a RFBPF (request for buiding permit form) and start construction withing 48 hours.
I believe that there is more to the new CH “Rotunda” than meets the eye.
Anyone notice a resemblance?
http://www.bio2.com/images/gallery-destination/pages/westlung_jpg.htm
I think the “Rotunda” is actually a biosphere so that the city council can ride out any ecological disasters headed down the pike.
Now it’s starting to make sense why it costs so much.
Two thoughts –
1). Agreed that it’s embarrassing that San Jose’s non-mayor couldn’t attend the Mayors Conference in SF. Although, I have to say that alot of this global warming fear-mongering is simply bullshit and the real goal of the global warming crowd is a redistribution of the world’s wealth – ie: How can we get more of America’s $12 trillion dollar GDP to distribute around the world. It ought not to be lost on anyone that the big pushers of global warming fear-mogering are socialist-democracies of Europe and Turd-World tinhorn dictators.
Let’s not forget the ever-venerated Kyoto Treaty specifically exempts two of the world’s largest polluters (China & India) from having to participate in meaningful pollution reduction targets.
For a real contrarian viewpoint of this global warming crapola – I suggest that you read Dr. Pat Michaels commentaries at the Cato Institute (http://www.cato.org). Michaels is well informed, reasoned and is a scientist and he tells it like it is. Funny Al Gore refuses to debate him. I guess Mr. Bore knows that Michaels would kick his ass and be permanently discredited.
2). RE: San Jose being left of Fodors and other travel guides. Why should San Jose be included? In reality, there’s no city as large as San Jose that has as little to offer the visitor as San Jose. Yes, it is embarrassing that a city of nearly 1 million people has so little in the way of legitimate tourist attractions, historic buildings, etc. On the other hand, take Monterey – a city of 30,000 -offers more to the tourist than does San Jose. Better restaurants (per capita), better views, better weather, lots of history, interesting things to do, etc. Monterey is not only a great place to visit it’s a great place to live. San Jose is a nice place to live, but why would you ever want to vacation here?
Oh, here’s something uniquely San Jose. We tear out orchards and name housing developments after trees that no longer exist.
IE: Can you find a cherry tree on Cherry Ave?
Are there any Peach Trees on Peachtree Lane? And I’ve never found a Bon-Bon on Bon-Bon Lane!!!
The neat thing about global warming is that you can never be wrong.
The polar ice caps are shrinking.
It’s global warming!!
The polar ice caps are growing.
It’s global warming!!
Al Gore giving a global warming rant in New York on the coldest day in 100 years? Priceless.
I actually give Gonzalez points for missing the event.
Mark T. –
Here’s a couple of screwy SJ street names: Moorpark and Parkmoor? (This absurdity is right around Meridian where the old White Front store used to be). And near the old SJ City Lines bus yard we had Sunol St. and Lonus St. (Sunol backwards) How San Jose!!!
I think Steve Wright went to San Jose State with Yarnold. So at least he’s familiar with the city.
On another note, it looks like the Merc is finally catching on to how blogs should be done. There was a link off the homepage yesterday to this new Merc entertainment blog in beta:
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei