I’m sure you’ve all seen it…but today’s Mercury News calls out the Mayor to come clean.
On Wednesday, Del Borgsdorf tipped his hand and showed that he is not going to be afraid to throw the Mayor under the bus…the Mercury News would like to see the Mayor throw himself…
The smartest person in this whole Norcal saga is Joe Guerra. Anyone notice how he disappered from the story. At first it was Guerra and Gonzales now it’s Borgsdorf and Gonzales.
Even in the politcal cartoons its the City Manager.
For those living in senate district 11, Joe Simitian will be at a town hall meeting tomorrow:
WHO:State Senator Joe Simitian
WHAT:Town Hall Meeting
WHEN:Saturday, September 24, 2005 – 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
(Light refreshments will follow)
WHERE:Palo Alto City Hall
250 Hamilton Avenue
Gary Richard’s Roadshow column reported this week that the City of San Jose has a traffic signal backlog list of 200, and that it will take years for these signals to be paid for and installed.
Add to this, the fact that San Jose currently has a backlog list of 300 miles of roads that are in need of resurfacing. The city’s department of transportation indicated that it costs $300,000 per mile to resurface a road, and that the city is currently dedicating less than one million per year to the job! (Do the math…the city needs $90 million to just take care of the backlog!)
San Jose has been run into the ground. City leaders keep touting those “faux awards,” …“most liveable city etc,” but the truth is San Jose is a very poorly managed city and its leadership is corrupt.
Yeah, Pete, but we have an office of public art with a director and lots of minions; which is duplicated by the SJ Airport people searching for public art for the new terminal, with a $10 million budget. We have all kinds of nonsense programs, but we can’t pay for the basics.
Since it’s Open Mic Night here at SJI, here’s a little something to mull over…
Much has been said here about the competence of our City Government, but has anybody thought about the actual COST of some of the recent screw-ups? Here are a few that come to mind:
The City agrees to pay Tropicana Shopping Center owner Dennis Fong to settle a lawsuit over the boneheaded eminent domain takeover attempt.
Cost: $6.5 Million.
The Mayor’s makes a secret deal to fund the extra labor costs in the Norcal deal. (To be fair he says the City Council knew about it, and if they didn’t…well they SHOULD have. Oh yeah, and a dog ate his homework.)
Cost: $11.5 Million.
Let’s not forget the price overrun for the new City Hall. (Boy, now there was a surprise!)
Cost: $45 Million.
I’m sure that there’s more, but working off this short list that’s 63 MILLION DOLLARS the taxpayers of San Jose will have to eat. Meanwhile the folks who are supposed to be minding the checkbook stand around and say “Oops!” point fingers at each other and write a lot of memos.
Mal: Let’s not forget all the CH items that are off budget, or the cost to defend and settle the suit by the late Al Ruffo over the location.
Then there’s the cost of the additional investigation of Garbagegate. I’d bet Rick Doyle paid outside lawyers to consult on all the other identified screw-ups mentioned by Mal.
If you allocate the cost of in house services to the Tropicana, Garbagegate, CH problems, there’s millions more.
But there’s no money for roads, and Gonzo wants us to hike the sales tax again for BART?
San Jose Inside is to be thanked for encouraged the many local political, business and community leaders to write daily Blog comments which along with the other blogger
JMO’C-
Oh, I’m sure there is much, much more to add to the list. I’m just scared to do any more math!
We all know that government is expensive and I suspect most of us are willing to pay our fair share when we are getting something in return. This is money, your money and mine, that must pay for MISTAKES.
Besides road repairs, just think of all the other millions of dollars in cuts to city services, laid off employees and funding for worthwhile projects that will instead go into the Municipal Oops Fund.
If you had employees that were costing you this much money, what would you do with them?
Please, include me on your daily discussions.
I consider California my home State and want to make changes.
California is changing, Right!
I don’t want my kids to live the same cycle of poverty and discrimination that my parent and I experienced. I don’t want to see anybody to experience poverty and discrimination or the lack of an opportunity because of ethnic background. To ensure this, I would like so see representation for every ethnic group that I know in California so that we all work together to fix the problems. We will fight corruption and bad funds allocations. We all want justice and freedom for all.
California is changing and we need the right leader to ensure that we are moving in the right direction.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Let me be your voice.
All the way to LA
You are not the first one with those comments.
I had heard the same comments in Sacramento, LA, San Diego, San Jose and many other places. Believe me, I am the man of your dreams.
I have campaigned all over California and outside California.
But the question is…did you questioned Arnold with that, too?
Probably not!
I am expecting millions of people like you on my way there.
I am also, expecting millions of people going with me up there.
Registered Voter has a good question – Please list your credentials.
If what you have commenting on SJI to date which is mostly bragging and disjointed comments is an example of your ideas, thoughts or intelligence I doubt anyone will ever vote for you.
Please either start making worthwhile comments or do not waste peoples time with your comments
To answer your question: if I had employees that cost me as much as Gonzo-Guerra-Borgsdorff(who’d like to get off that ship WAY too late) and Mosher, I’d have fired the lot of them WAY before they cost as much money as these bozos have cost the taxpayers.
But to use a line I am using way too often these days—there’s a lot of apathy out there, but who cares?
When Madison Nguyen waxes effusively about how many more voters showed up for the runoff than the primary, and it’s like 1500 more, for a total of a paltry 8700 or so, I get REAL scared about who she is. That’s before I even think about how the labor lobby will completely control her every vote. I understand pols have to make silk purses out of sow’s ears, but her statement is ridiculous. Fewer than 9000 voters bothered to show up, with not one, but count ‘em two, vietnamese contenders. WOW!. So, let’s await her final report on spending and then see the cost per vote.
Apathy is rampant at all levels. Why? because most of us realize that we have ZERO say in what goes on unless we are major contributors to the coffers of those who feed from the public trough—politicians. I have ZERO faith in any of them. So, as a guy who used to love politics and still follows it, if I am TOTALLY disillusioned, what about Joe Sixpack? Why vote? It’s meaningless.
Remember that Berkeley “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” rant? Where did that go? The people have no power. And you’re hearing this from a fairly conservative republican guy. It has gone way beyond a simple remedy. We’re gonna get flushed down the toilet soon if we don’t get real.
There’s a group out there that believes term limits must go, so we have some “institutional memory”. All the institutions remember is how to spend other peoples’ money on bullshit, while we can’t get roads built or repaired, or public safety funded. Instead we have a public art coordinator or director or whatever she is called, and kids can’t get health care.
And the professional pols just trade up and down the line for political offices, because they can’t get real jobs (like Jerry Brown, Willie Brown’ Manny Diaz, Jim Beall). Why can’t they get real jobs? Because no-one in their right mind would hire them.
Thus concludes another JMO rant. And ya know what’s REALLY scary? As bad as we are, we still have the best system going worldwide. WOW! THINK ABOUT IT! If we’re as good as it gets, what’s the outlook for our kids and grandkids? BLEAK.
So, you have campaigned “all over California and outside of California”. Really? For what?How has that escaped us all? Was it a silent campaign in the dead of night?
I’ll make a deal with you. If you can prove to me that your Spanish is even marginally better than your English, I’ll teach you better English if you teach me better Spanish. We’ll both be winners in the language department, and you can campaign more effectively. DEAL?
Interesting today. A couple of thoughts:
Why do any of you bother responding to Evaristo? It’s a waste of time;
Mosher was not one of the bad guys. He was extremely competent, which is a negative in this administration. He was prevented from speaking by you know who;
At least the Council doesn’t meet again until next week so at least we are safe from public meetings until then, but who knows what secret meetings will be taking place??
There seems to be a bit of a buzz building around Evaristo’s campaign.
In fact Phil Matier was handicapping his chances for Governor on KRON this afternoon.
At this point Matier says it’s still Arnold’s race to lose. But the Evaristo-nator has leapfrogged into second place over the fast fading Steve Westley and Phil Angilides.
Kevin’s blog today was one of his best yet, judging from all the passionate postings which followed. (Just kidding Kevin. Thanks for letting us play in your yard.)
A few random thoughts rattling around an idle mind:
The world needs more Evaristos to attack our windmills. If elected could he be any worse than what we already have?
Along those same lines I was greatly saddened to hear that Andy Diaz had “retired” from politics…kind of a neat trick for someone who was never actually elected. Still, you can’t say that he didn’t try! But what will he do with all those signs?
JMO’C: I’ve gotta disagree with you on public art. At least we are getting SOMETHING. It may resemble a pile of doggie dookey, but maybe someday we can melt it down and turn it into something useful…like a plaque for the relocated Fallon Statue on the north end of the Plaza. Seriously, I don’t think the art budget can be blamed for the failure to deliver other city services. I also think public art adds an indefinable quality to a city that makes it more appealing. That being said, the airport is not a particularly great place to devote so many of the city’s public art dollars. How about spending it for the people who live here?
Pete: If our roads are falling apart maybe someone’s trying to send a message: “You WILL vote for BART damnit!” What better way to drum up support for a sales tax that dedicates a small percentage to road maintenance than to let the roads go to hell for a year before the vote?
If Carl Guardino leads the Silicon Valley Leadership Group does that make him the leader of Silicon Valley?
Where can you find good kosher deli in this town? Valley?
How about a good Greek restaurant?
Which Mexican restaurants offer chips made from flour tortillas? (La Paloma in Santa Clara used to, but the last few times I asked it was nada.)
Have you driven past the corner of King and Story lately? There is so much road construction and lane closures going on at all four corners you might think the city is trying to drive business away from a certain shopping center.
I would spend more time and money downtown if the parking rates were more reasonable. A buck for 20 minutes? Get real!
When are they going to admit that the old library building, now city offices, that sits in front of the McEnery Convention Center really, REALLY needs to be torn down?
Local tomatoes are really good right now. Try Cosentino’s, a produce stand or one of the better farmers markets. Don’t bother with the usual grocery store #%^*.
Whew! I feel much better now. Have a good weekend!
VTA recently predicted that 110,000 riders/day will be using the proposed SJ BART extension. The latest entry at http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/ reveals some interesting facts behind why VTA’s latest numbers can’t be taken seriously.
Personally San Jose needs BART to San Jose…like the Gulf Coast needs another hurricane. The fact is, VTA barely keep its own buses running. You know things are bad when you see a 321 limited stop bus being repaired by a mechanic in front of one of Intel’s research buildings. A member of my group also mentions how buses serving the 121 express line to/from Gilroy have broken down a lot lately.
When you decide whether or not to support the latest sales tax proposal, ask yourself: What good will having BART here be, when the only way you can get to it will be with your automobile?
I can tell that the nothing just arrived.
Fantasia is vanishing and our kingdom is about to disappear (vanish).
From the movie “The never ending Story”.
Speaking of public art, I found an interesting web site recently that showed how the 8” Quetzalcoatl was turned into the 8’ Quetzalcoatl that now sits in downtown San Jose. We should have just bought the 8” version and placed it in a glass display case in city hall.
Steve, Thanks for that web site listed in your above blog, http://www.kreysler.com/serpent on the Plastic Serpent in Cesar Chavez Park.
But can Mal Content please clik on that web site and see that resin can not be melted down. That is an $80,000 dollar process. Now, apolgize to JMO!
Mal, do your home work and report back to the bloggers.
So what happen to the other $420,000.00, We paid for it,with 70% of the dough up front? Quetzalcoatl was born in NOR CAL. Hum?
The Village Black Smith
I’m sure you’ve all seen it…but today’s Mercury News calls out the Mayor to come clean.
On Wednesday, Del Borgsdorf tipped his hand and showed that he is not going to be afraid to throw the Mayor under the bus…the Mercury News would like to see the Mayor throw himself…
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12720793.htm
The smartest person in this whole Norcal saga is Joe Guerra. Anyone notice how he disappered from the story. At first it was Guerra and Gonzales now it’s Borgsdorf and Gonzales.
Even in the politcal cartoons its the City Manager.
Smart Joe, dumb Del.
For those living in senate district 11, Joe Simitian will be at a town hall meeting tomorrow:
WHO:State Senator Joe Simitian
WHAT:Town Hall Meeting
WHEN:Saturday, September 24, 2005 – 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
(Light refreshments will follow)
WHERE:Palo Alto City Hall
250 Hamilton Avenue
See his web site for more details: http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/senator/Simitian/
May this encourage Rebecca Cohn to do the same one day.
please visit this web site for a short History class
California today
http://www.csustan.edu/ppa/shm/Pages/psci1201/California-chpt1.pdf
Let me be your voice
Dear San Jose:
Gary Richard’s Roadshow column reported this week that the City of San Jose has a traffic signal backlog list of 200, and that it will take years for these signals to be paid for and installed.
Add to this, the fact that San Jose currently has a backlog list of 300 miles of roads that are in need of resurfacing. The city’s department of transportation indicated that it costs $300,000 per mile to resurface a road, and that the city is currently dedicating less than one million per year to the job! (Do the math…the city needs $90 million to just take care of the backlog!)
San Jose has been run into the ground. City leaders keep touting those “faux awards,” …“most liveable city etc,” but the truth is San Jose is a very poorly managed city and its leadership is corrupt.
Pete Campbell
Yeah, Pete, but we have an office of public art with a director and lots of minions; which is duplicated by the SJ Airport people searching for public art for the new terminal, with a $10 million budget. We have all kinds of nonsense programs, but we can’t pay for the basics.
Roads crumbling?
The response from 500 million dollar CH?
“Let them drive Hummers.”
Since it’s Open Mic Night here at SJI, here’s a little something to mull over…
Much has been said here about the competence of our City Government, but has anybody thought about the actual COST of some of the recent screw-ups? Here are a few that come to mind:
The City agrees to pay Tropicana Shopping Center owner Dennis Fong to settle a lawsuit over the boneheaded eminent domain takeover attempt.
Cost: $6.5 Million.
The Mayor’s makes a secret deal to fund the extra labor costs in the Norcal deal. (To be fair he says the City Council knew about it, and if they didn’t…well they SHOULD have. Oh yeah, and a dog ate his homework.)
Cost: $11.5 Million.
Let’s not forget the price overrun for the new City Hall. (Boy, now there was a surprise!)
Cost: $45 Million.
I’m sure that there’s more, but working off this short list that’s 63 MILLION DOLLARS the taxpayers of San Jose will have to eat. Meanwhile the folks who are supposed to be minding the checkbook stand around and say “Oops!” point fingers at each other and write a lot of memos.
Amazing, eh?
Mal: Let’s not forget all the CH items that are off budget, or the cost to defend and settle the suit by the late Al Ruffo over the location.
Then there’s the cost of the additional investigation of Garbagegate. I’d bet Rick Doyle paid outside lawyers to consult on all the other identified screw-ups mentioned by Mal.
If you allocate the cost of in house services to the Tropicana, Garbagegate, CH problems, there’s millions more.
But there’s no money for roads, and Gonzo wants us to hike the sales tax again for BART?
San Jose Inside is to be thanked for encouraged the many local political, business and community leaders to write daily Blog comments which along with the other blogger
JMO’C-
Oh, I’m sure there is much, much more to add to the list. I’m just scared to do any more math!
We all know that government is expensive and I suspect most of us are willing to pay our fair share when we are getting something in return. This is money, your money and mine, that must pay for MISTAKES.
Besides road repairs, just think of all the other millions of dollars in cuts to city services, laid off employees and funding for worthwhile projects that will instead go into the Municipal Oops Fund.
If you had employees that were costing you this much money, what would you do with them?
Hi Everyone
I am your future Governor of California
Please, include me on your daily discussions.
I consider California my home State and want to make changes.
California is changing, Right!
I don’t want my kids to live the same cycle of poverty and discrimination that my parent and I experienced. I don’t want to see anybody to experience poverty and discrimination or the lack of an opportunity because of ethnic background. To ensure this, I would like so see representation for every ethnic group that I know in California so that we all work together to fix the problems. We will fight corruption and bad funds allocations. We all want justice and freedom for all.
California is changing and we need the right leader to ensure that we are moving in the right direction.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Let me be your voice.
All the way to LA
Mr. Guerrero,
I have never heard of you outside of this blog.
If you want to be Governor, I’d be interested in knowing your credentials.
P.S.
The State Capital is Sacramento, not Los Angeles. This would be a good thing for a future governor to know.
Young man
You are not the first one with those comments.
I had heard the same comments in Sacramento, LA, San Diego, San Jose and many other places. Believe me, I am the man of your dreams.
I have campaigned all over California and outside California.
But the question is…did you questioned Arnold with that, too?
Probably not!
I am expecting millions of people like you on my way there.
I am also, expecting millions of people going with me up there.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Your future Governor
Evaristo,
Registered Voter has a good question – Please list your credentials.
If what you have commenting on SJI to date which is mostly bragging and disjointed comments is an example of your ideas, thoughts or intelligence I doubt anyone will ever vote for you.
Please either start making worthwhile comments or do not waste peoples time with your comments
Thank you
Mal:
To answer your question: if I had employees that cost me as much as Gonzo-Guerra-Borgsdorff(who’d like to get off that ship WAY too late) and Mosher, I’d have fired the lot of them WAY before they cost as much money as these bozos have cost the taxpayers.
But to use a line I am using way too often these days—there’s a lot of apathy out there, but who cares?
When Madison Nguyen waxes effusively about how many more voters showed up for the runoff than the primary, and it’s like 1500 more, for a total of a paltry 8700 or so, I get REAL scared about who she is. That’s before I even think about how the labor lobby will completely control her every vote. I understand pols have to make silk purses out of sow’s ears, but her statement is ridiculous. Fewer than 9000 voters bothered to show up, with not one, but count ‘em two, vietnamese contenders. WOW!. So, let’s await her final report on spending and then see the cost per vote.
Apathy is rampant at all levels. Why? because most of us realize that we have ZERO say in what goes on unless we are major contributors to the coffers of those who feed from the public trough—politicians. I have ZERO faith in any of them. So, as a guy who used to love politics and still follows it, if I am TOTALLY disillusioned, what about Joe Sixpack? Why vote? It’s meaningless.
Remember that Berkeley “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” rant? Where did that go? The people have no power. And you’re hearing this from a fairly conservative republican guy. It has gone way beyond a simple remedy. We’re gonna get flushed down the toilet soon if we don’t get real.
There’s a group out there that believes term limits must go, so we have some “institutional memory”. All the institutions remember is how to spend other peoples’ money on bullshit, while we can’t get roads built or repaired, or public safety funded. Instead we have a public art coordinator or director or whatever she is called, and kids can’t get health care.
And the professional pols just trade up and down the line for political offices, because they can’t get real jobs (like Jerry Brown, Willie Brown’ Manny Diaz, Jim Beall). Why can’t they get real jobs? Because no-one in their right mind would hire them.
Thus concludes another JMO rant. And ya know what’s REALLY scary? As bad as we are, we still have the best system going worldwide. WOW! THINK ABOUT IT! If we’re as good as it gets, what’s the outlook for our kids and grandkids? BLEAK.
Evaristo:
So, you have campaigned “all over California and outside of California”. Really? For what?How has that escaped us all? Was it a silent campaign in the dead of night?
I’ll make a deal with you. If you can prove to me that your Spanish is even marginally better than your English, I’ll teach you better English if you teach me better Spanish. We’ll both be winners in the language department, and you can campaign more effectively. DEAL?
Re: #18, Right on JMO. Especially that next to the last paragraph.
Fun blogging with everybody these past couple of days.
Have a nice weekend everybody.
Evaristo # 6: If you want us to be your voice you have to let us all know who the heck you are.
Interesting today. A couple of thoughts:
Why do any of you bother responding to Evaristo? It’s a waste of time;
Mosher was not one of the bad guys. He was extremely competent, which is a negative in this administration. He was prevented from speaking by you know who;
At least the Council doesn’t meet again until next week so at least we are safe from public meetings until then, but who knows what secret meetings will be taking place??
#22
I have to disagree.
There seems to be a bit of a buzz building around Evaristo’s campaign.
In fact Phil Matier was handicapping his chances for Governor on KRON this afternoon.
At this point Matier says it’s still Arnold’s race to lose. But the Evaristo-nator has leapfrogged into second place over the fast fading Steve Westley and Phil Angilides.
…City Hall $$, Interns, Cisco, NorCal are just the first few chapters of a long story and expensive escapade. More to follow…
Kevin’s blog today was one of his best yet, judging from all the passionate postings which followed. (Just kidding Kevin. Thanks for letting us play in your yard.)
A few random thoughts rattling around an idle mind:
The world needs more Evaristos to attack our windmills. If elected could he be any worse than what we already have?
Along those same lines I was greatly saddened to hear that Andy Diaz had “retired” from politics…kind of a neat trick for someone who was never actually elected. Still, you can’t say that he didn’t try! But what will he do with all those signs?
JMO’C: I’ve gotta disagree with you on public art. At least we are getting SOMETHING. It may resemble a pile of doggie dookey, but maybe someday we can melt it down and turn it into something useful…like a plaque for the relocated Fallon Statue on the north end of the Plaza. Seriously, I don’t think the art budget can be blamed for the failure to deliver other city services. I also think public art adds an indefinable quality to a city that makes it more appealing. That being said, the airport is not a particularly great place to devote so many of the city’s public art dollars. How about spending it for the people who live here?
Pete: If our roads are falling apart maybe someone’s trying to send a message: “You WILL vote for BART damnit!” What better way to drum up support for a sales tax that dedicates a small percentage to road maintenance than to let the roads go to hell for a year before the vote?
If Carl Guardino leads the Silicon Valley Leadership Group does that make him the leader of Silicon Valley?
Where can you find good kosher deli in this town? Valley?
How about a good Greek restaurant?
Which Mexican restaurants offer chips made from flour tortillas? (La Paloma in Santa Clara used to, but the last few times I asked it was nada.)
Have you driven past the corner of King and Story lately? There is so much road construction and lane closures going on at all four corners you might think the city is trying to drive business away from a certain shopping center.
I would spend more time and money downtown if the parking rates were more reasonable. A buck for 20 minutes? Get real!
When are they going to admit that the old library building, now city offices, that sits in front of the McEnery Convention Center really, REALLY needs to be torn down?
Local tomatoes are really good right now. Try Cosentino’s, a produce stand or one of the better farmers markets. Don’t bother with the usual grocery store #%^*.
Whew! I feel much better now. Have a good weekend!
About Ron’s BART vision thing:
VTA recently predicted that 110,000 riders/day will be using the proposed SJ BART extension. The latest entry at http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/ reveals some interesting facts behind why VTA’s latest numbers can’t be taken seriously.
Personally San Jose needs BART to San Jose…like the Gulf Coast needs another hurricane. The fact is, VTA barely keep its own buses running. You know things are bad when you see a 321 limited stop bus being repaired by a mechanic in front of one of Intel’s research buildings. A member of my group also mentions how buses serving the 121 express line to/from Gilroy have broken down a lot lately.
When you decide whether or not to support the latest sales tax proposal, ask yourself: What good will having BART here be, when the only way you can get to it will be with your automobile?
Eugene Bradley
Founder, Santa Clara VTA Riders Union
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/
I can tell that the nothing just arrived.
Fantasia is vanishing and our kingdom is about to disappear (vanish).
From the movie “The never ending Story”.
Who is going to safe us now?
Zorro or Terminator!
A man without dreams is a no man.
Setting Higher Goals for our intellects.
Speaking of public art, I found an interesting web site recently that showed how the 8” Quetzalcoatl was turned into the 8’ Quetzalcoatl that now sits in downtown San Jose. We should have just bought the 8” version and placed it in a glass display case in city hall.
See http://www.kreysler.com/projects/serpent/serpent.htm
Steve, Thanks for that web site listed in your above blog,
http://www.kreysler.com/serpent on the Plastic Serpent in Cesar Chavez Park.
But can Mal Content please clik on that web site and see that resin can not be melted down. That is an $80,000 dollar process. Now, apolgize to JMO!
Mal, do your home work and report back to the bloggers.
So what happen to the other $420,000.00, We paid for it,with 70% of the dough up front? Quetzalcoatl was born in NOR CAL. Hum?
The Village Black Smith
http://www.kreylser.com/project/serpent/serpent.htp. Who forgot to mention that it
(Quetzalcoatl)was not bronze? I would replace it with a bronze piece for $100,000. But what happened to the balance of the $500,000 paid?
The Village Black Smith
http://www.bronzemanufacturer.com