By Guest Blogger Jerry Estruth
I had the chance to spend a couple of days in the Valley of Hearts delight last week and several things became clear. I don’t miss the traffic at all. The Mercury News still does its thing, whatever that is. It used to be a good paper but something happened to it. Actually it had a great editorial about the Silicon Valley Land Conservancy and the good work that Don Gralnek, Eric Brandenburg and Pat Sausedo are doing to preserve open space in the Valley of Heart’s Delight, before it is all paved over and painted green.
The stench from City Hall rivals the days in north San Jose when the tide was out before the Sewage Treatment plant was built. The mayor cops to lying, Guerra cops to being Rasputin, and who knows how far this scandal will go. Some pols should consider falling on their swords because of the personal disgrace, but I doubt that anything will happen because, like my old Plymouth Valiant, they’re a bunch of moral and ethical gutless wonders.
Oh well, a scandal here, a scandal there and that keeps the pot a-boiling. The G-men look like they’re trying to outdo Chicago and San Diego for ugly. It may be a photo finish with lots of pix on post office walls.
There was even talk of two nascent scandals that are percolating in the DA’s office. It’s going to be interesting to see how these play out against the background of the race for a new DA. If the candidates have any “agallas” there could be lots of fireworks by this time next year.
I liked the food, the diversity, the amount of infill housing that’s being constructed and seeing my old friends, but as they say, “the times they are a-changing and it’s time for movin’ on.” Watching the politicos “strut and fret their hour upon the stage…” is interesting and disgusting to watch from afar. Maybe this is the World according to Gonzo and maybe it happens in all big cities, but the Citizens of San Jose deserve far better than what I see from this vantage point.
Jerry Estruth served on the San Jose City Council from 1978-1984. He was Vice-Mayor of San Jose in 1980. He now lives in Arizona.
It seems that the message from the high-end ethics consultant brought in after the Terry Gregory debacle hasn’t exactly been taken to heart by our dear leader.
It scares me that nothing may happen to Gonzo because not enough people care….
Jerry has always been among the most ethical leaders in San Jose. It was his election to the City Council that broke the gang of four in 1978.
We could use his counsel on this board, for even though he lives in Tucson, no one has a better knowledge of the history and needs of San Jose.
For the record, I once worked on Jerry’s staff at City Hall and he remains a great friend.
San Jose is not a big city; a big suburbn, definitely.
I admire and love Jerry Estruth. He believed in and practiced the politics of inclusiveness, long before this conpcept became a popular theme[but seldomed practiced!]. He should be appointed Mayor of San Jose on a permanent basis; if not San Jose, then at least the Mayor of Santa Clara county, where he can have an even greater impact! Unfortunatley the “stench” that he speaks of goes way way back including his tenure as perhaps our most respected city wide leader in the history of San Jose politics. For the record, Mr. Estruth and I served on the first duly elected board of directors for the Open Space Authority.l