The election is over and the citizens are safe for a brief respite before the clamor and cacophony of the General Election. There are things even more important than the fate of professional football at stake—like the future direction of the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara—that will be set in some significant and perhaps unchangeable ways.
In San Jose, it is hard to see how the addition of two new members in Evergreen and South San Jose will do much change the direction now being set by the mayor and the council majority. But adding two new members to the five person Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, a forty percent change, will certainly begin what could be a major change on the staid and boring body that allows twelve years in office—an eternity—instead of the eight given to San Jose City Council members and state legislators. And the issues facing the county in social services and criminal justice are of immense importance to each and every person in our valley.
Here on San Jose Inside, we are most interested in the above and will be making some major efforts in this area. First and foremost, we will be asking those knowledgeable in certain areas of campaigns (we also have a few regulars in that area) to weigh in on what happened yesterday, and what the tealeaves are saying for the future contests.
There have been some excellent suggestions that we invite some of the last ones standing to go on the record and tell of their ideas for elections and policy, as well as having some of the successful candidates talk of what they hope to be doing in the immediate future. Also, we will be asking numerous officeholders to express views on how to deal with the most egregious examples in their area of policies and decisions that are taking us in the wrong direction. Of course, we will want to know their proposals for improvement.
Additionally, we are going to be delving into areas of independent analysis and factual presentation that will be most revealing to those who watch the various machinations of certain power brokers and entrenched interests in our city and valley. This will be virgin territory.
Stay tuned because it is going to be a very lively summer.
Tom, you said above… “First and foremost, we will be asking those knowledgeable in certain areas of campaigns (we also have a few regulars in that area) to weigh in on what happened yesterday..” Then your column is followed by a post from Dan Pulcrano. OH LORD, I hope that’s not what you meant because you might as well shut down SJI right now. He starts out his column with some conceited drivel like “dude, you can blog in the limo…” He has more admiration for himself than anyone in San Jose and we can’t believe you’re still in bed with him.
When are we going to see the real political commentary return to SJI again?
#3-Simon Griffith,
I’m not a Pulcrano fan either, but he has a right to his opinion. You can just skip over his column like I do.
“When are we going to see the real political commentary return to SJI again?”
We have had some pretty great posters, and conversations over the last few days. We can have that anytime we chose to. It is up to us to hold the kinds of intellectual, educated, respectful conversations we want to participate in.
Tom,
Thank you and Jack for giving us what we want. I think it will be a great addition to SJI, and it will certainly be interesting to see who takes you up on your offer to participate. Hopefully, we can all be respectful in our comments to these folks, even if we don’t agree with them. (And yes, I’ll do my best to practice what I preach!)
“…we are going to be delving into areas of independent analysis and factual presentation…”
…as opposed to what you’ve been giving us until now?
Tom,
I designed my own Corporate fund raising tile at the Discovery Meuseum many yeras ago.
“Discover The Past. Create The future”
We expect this of our children. Should it not be expected of our elected officials and lobbists as well?
The Village Black Smith
Simon/Kathleen
Politics is getting a bit more interesting in SJ after the surprises of last night -stay tuned and “keep the faith”, oops, sorry, I disavow that comment, “trust us” because sji is going to be red hot in the next few months. TMcE
Sounds great. I am just disappointed SJI showed so little interest in the June 3rd election. With the abysmal coverage in the Mercury News, I have no idea how San Jose residents made an informed decision. Maybe they didn’t as in council district 2 Jackie Adams who dropped out of the race on day one earned almost 20% of the vote to come in second place behind Ash Kalra.
Tom,
If what I’ve been hearing in the last few days is true, you won’t be putting anything on here that will surprise me, but you never know. I know one thing for sure, if SJI puts candidates who will be in run offs on here, more of their passionate supporters and campaign managers will be blogging anonymously in droves bashing anyone who disagrees with them.
Sorry Tom, but that is not my idea of “Delving into areas of independent analysis and factual presentation.” Red hot may be, factual no. I understand you are trying to give a forum to enlighten us on people, and issues but with that comes an awful lot of unexpected consequences. All you have to do is look at the bloggers comments on the Merc to see what I mean~