The Banksters are falling! The Banksters are falling! Leave your homes and cash behind and run for your lives! But before you do, take a moment and tell us what has your gut wrenching in this weekly open forum that is safely sheltered in a secure, undisclosed location.
San Jose Inside
San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
RIP Paul Newman.
Great actor. Greater man.
I rode the Coyote Creek trail down to Morgan Hill on a free Friday afternoon, and was floored. The Coyote Creek trail remains a biking and hiking gem, but what happened to downtown Morgan Hill since the last time I was there? It’s all groovied up! Exceptional traffic calming of Monterey Highway. Nice converstion usage of old buildings, the victorians and bugalows off downtown nicely cleaned up. Trendy sidewalk cafes and restaurants. Super walkable and pedestrian-friendly. Bike lanes everywhere, and the 68 bus takes you back to Diridon (with your bike on the front rack) in less than an hour. Los Gatos, watch out!
Where have Mark T and Kathleen Flynn been?
Does anyone know what happened to them?
San Jose Water Company – Part One
I’m preparing a complaint to the Public Utilities Commission (“PUC”) against the San Jose Water Company (“the SJ Water Company”) on several grounds. This is a volunteer, unpaid effort. Kindly let me know if you have any concerns you’d like to have included. There appear to be three water retailers to San Jose residents: the SJ Water Company, the San Jose Municipal Water System, and the Great Oaks Water Company.
Excess Water Fees
The San Jose Water Company gets most of its water from the Santa Clara Valley Water District (“the Water District”), and sells it to San Jose residents at a much higher rate just to deliver the water than it pays the Water District to purchase the water. The mark-up is, I believe, unconscionable and should be sharply reduced. I believe it is a higher rate than that charged by either the San Jose Municipal Water System or the Great Oaks Water Company.
The San Jose Water Company will be introducing a new “tiered” water billing system on November 19, 2008, and this needs a careful examination or re-examination by the PUC.
I suspect a lot of residents will find the new tiered rate increases of great interest.
Bad Customer Relations
In a way it is a joke to describe the interactions of the San Jose Water Company with residents as “customer relations.” One example is that if someone finds a leak on his or her property, and calls the SJ Water Company, it will send someone right out to shut the water to the house off….no advice, no ideas, no help, no referrals. It has been explained that the reason for abruptly shutting off the water is to avoid a later conflict with the homeowner about the loss of the water and its cost. But the abruptness in shutting off the water can hardly be described as helpful or courteous. It’s the behavior of a monopoly that does not respect its customers.
Another example is that if a bi-monthly billing gets lost in the mail, the harshest language is used in the SJ Water Company’s very first “Service Termination Notice.” Filled with brazen threats and intimidating vocabulary, it makes very clear the arrogant attitude of the SJ Water Company. I would have never dreamed of sending such an arrogant, snotty notice to a client with an overdue bill. It’s the behavior of a monopoly that does not respect its customers.
Texas Controls
The SJ Water Company is controlled by a Texas company that purchased the San Jose Water Corporation, the parent corporate owner of the SJ Water Company. I’ll discuss this slight of hand trickery in Part Two.
Greg #1:
With Carl as a voting member of the CA Transportation Commission, it should come as no surprise that the Commission decided to grant the funds now. The timing is not an accident. Anyone over there at SVL take an ethics course lately?
Looks like the SVLG folks are in the final moments of desperation.
Followed quickly by the ballot language lawsuit, it now appears that Dr. Feel Good has coerced a couple of transit agencies to front millions in funding for BART to SJ.
Ahhh, the magic of timing… can Carl pull the wool over the heads of two-thirds of the voters?! I doubt it very much.
#4
Only those individuals can accurately answer your question. However, I will postulate regarding Kathleen.
Almost from the start, she tried to use this site as if it were her own. If anyone questioned her posts she called them cyber-bullies, and complained to the moderators. Of course, she completely missed the irony of her actions.
Anyway, after one of finfan’s usual racist posts she got into one of her tiffs, and starting complaining. After the site moderator informed her, via a response to her post, that he was not going to remove finfan’s tripe, and she should just ignore finfan like everybody else does.
Well, Kathleen did not like that answer at all, and she, and her boyfriend, have not posted since.
“Wool over the head” must entail having a vision of what San Jose/this valley will be like 10,20 or 30 years down the road: a larger population with higher urban densities to boot. A great employment center in downtown San Jose, along with environmentally-sound transit-oriented communities on the proposed BART line and light-rail system. Together with high-speed rail, electrified Caltrain, and existing light-rail, a true world class transit system serving San Jose and Santa Clara County. Yes to BART/Measure B and Yes to high-speed rail/Prop. 1A!!!
Tony-
Measure B isn’t enough to build BART. It’s half the size of the 2006 measure A, and even that was insufficient. All this is true even assuming full funds from the state and feds.
It’s so bad VTA hasn’t released their expenditure plan in over 2 years. (The current version still assumes a few billion dollars in revenue that aren’t in VTA projections.)
Where, exactly, will the rest of the money come from?
Tony,
Mmm, I do have a vision for our fair city and valley. Let those who benefit pay for BART to SJ – Alameda County residents. What a refreshing thought!
Carl and his gang are going down in a ball of flames this November. Success may come next time around if they’re above board and send the bills to the proper county.
#10 Greg—
I am in violent agreement and disagreement with you.
You are spot on that the beneficiaries are the ones who should pay for it. However, you are citing only the benefitting ridership. The other half of that equation is San Jose downtown businesses.
Either way, county sales tax as a source of funding doesn’t pass the ‘Robin Hood’ test.
Once again, the crooks in Washington have demonstrated that they can always depend upon the doe-eyed innocence and bovine stupidity of the American people.
Don’t start with the, “since you called someone a racist you must be racist yourself” crap!
East Side Dre,
bigot; 1)a person who holds blindly and intolerantly to a particular creed, opinion, etc. 2)A narrow-minded person.
“History Lesson” is probably not a racist (racism is a word that gets thrown around way too much) but he did prove himself to be a bigot with his reckless and irresponsible accusation of racism based solely on his own narrow-minded beliefs. He is intolerant of the idea that frustrated finfan’s political views could be motivated by something other than racism.
Is it customary for VTA bus drivers to take breaks in the middle of doing a route? The drive of the 22EB bus did that this evening in downtown SJ. I guess someone had pulled the cord a few times without getting off, and the driver got pissed off, threw a tamper tantrum, and took a smoke break. Fortunately, I only had to walk a few blocks to get to the light rail, but geez, if I had to go to work or school…there’s the professionalism of the VTA at work.
#7, History Lesson’s assessment of the Kathleen situation appears to be accurate. But then he’s got to get in a gratuitous “racism” allegation of our friend Mr. Finfan.
Isn’t it ironic that the most eager accusers of bigotry are also it’s most avid practicioners.
Hypocrisy personified!