A joint Mercury News/KGO TV poll indicated that Santa Clara’s Measure J (The 49ers’ Stadium) is likely to pass. Weeks prior, a poll was commissioned to measure the level of support among voters for a baseball stadium indowntown San Jose.
QUESTION: When will some agency or press outlet sanction a poll to ask local residents about their feelings towards breaking the unions’ vice-grip on the delivery of city services? (“Would you support allowing 50 percent of city services to be done by the private sector?”). I’ll bet the “yes” category would approach 90 percent.
* * *
Newspaper readership continues its steep decline. The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported an average 8 percent drop in circulation for American newspapers. Only the Wall Street Journal added subscribers.
In the Bay Area, the Mercury News dropped 5.4 percent, and the San Francisco Chronicle experienced a 22.7 percent decline in circulation (!) as reported by the Mercury News. The Mercury News put an interesting spin on this story, reporting that it is now the eighth largest weekday paper in the country, moving ahead of the Chicago Tribune. They arrive at this figure by designating the Contra Costa Times, The Oakland Tribune, and other papers owned by the Bay Area News Group as editions of the Mercury News.
* * *
Last week, the City of San Jose cautioned that more than 1,100 full-time city employees might have to be laid off due to the $116 million budget deficit. As many as 88 police officers and 74 fire fighters might be eliminated to help close the budget gap. Is there any rhyme or reason to these possible layoffs? Shouldn’t all “non-essential” city departments be reduced before any public safety positions are eliminated? For example: every position in the city’s Cultural Affairs Department should be cut before one cop or fire fighter loses her job.
I realize Mr.Campbell is focusing the discussion on unions and City Hall and he has the floor. May I just make a quick comment on his well written lead?
The stadium poll results for Santa Clara took the naysayers by surprise. In move that reminds one of a horror flick, the No on J zombies began to issue blood curdling screams about the Mercury News. One naysayer even tried to insist the Mercury News fudged the results. Like a wombat who drank spoiled Hazelnut cream, one naysayer claimed the house owned by a cousin of the Mayor burned down due to divine punishment. Six weeks till June!
Jim:
Rest assured, the stadium project is likely to pass notwithstanding your tireless efforts to insult and degrade anyone who might vote otherwise.
Wow Pete, just when I like your politics. Maybe you’ll throw me an endorsement in the years to come. In the meantime I’ll be catching up on CSJ recent history and corruption, and reading some of your archives whilst I avoid mortar shells and sharpened bamboo and tire blockades in Bangkok.
By the way, they have municipal and private sector working together here. There are privately owned buses and Vans working routes, I think we sell our old school buses to Peru and they do something similar there too. A lot of innovative systems are functioning in third world Democracies to raise the standards of living for their people. I personally don’t think we need to get to their level of disparity before we do the same for our people. Good read.
Do the research before you put your credibility on the line for Police and Fire jobs. Did you know that the highest paid San Jose employee is a Deputy Fire Chief who made $433,000?!!! Did you know that 19 of the top 25 paid city employees work for Fire and Police? And its not the Police Chief or Fire Chief, its all the employees that get massive overtime.
Check it out for yourself… http://www.mercurynews.com/public-employee-salaries#results
How many of those police officers and fire fighters jobs (and non public safety) could be saved if employees’ schedules were managed right and not given all this overtime? Did you know that their pensions are based on highest paid year that includes overtime?! I value Fire and Police – but there is some inefficient draining of public funds here.
Its so easy to pick on nonpublic safety service and call this work non essential. I call for reform into labor agreements way before cutting other valuable city services, which are a drop in the bucket.
Let’s go all the way…convert Police and Fire to Public Safety Officers (as in Sunnyvale) Train them to do both jobs…then make some cuts.
Pete,
Regarding your last paragraph, I posed the below two questions to Pierluigi in his Monday column but never got an answer. Any chance you can provide the info?
1) What is the current staffing level for the Dept. of Cultural Affairs? I believe it was 16 earlier this year. Have we zeroed out budget for that organization, or do we still fund 16 employees and, if so, at what cost?
2) Regarding Downtown celebratory events, I understand there will be nothing for our Independence Day. Is the City providing any funding (cash, safety officers, custodial work, etc.) for Cinco de Mayo and, if so, at what cost?
Hi Greg:
I don’t have the answer to either one. I (think) that the Cultural Affairs group is only 10 or 11. As for Cinco De Mayo, the city always picks up overtime for cops when there are large events in the downtown.
p.s. I think that the city should pop for fireworks on the 4th of July.
Greg, I asked Kim Walesh (Director, Office of Economic Development) question #1. Here was her prompt reply (excluding a couple of paragraphs relative to goals):
“There are currently 15 people in OCA. 5 of these are public art staff funded exclusively by capital projects (i.e., positions will go away if there are no capital projects). One of the positions you see on the website is a Sr. Arts Program Coordinator position in Public Art that has been vacant for quite some time and is proposed for elimination.
Last year, we eliminated 3 positions in OCA, and this year 2 more are proposed—which will take us down to what I consider a very skeletal staff.
.
.
.
Note also that in the current budget proposal, the number of cultural affairs staff funded from the Transit Occupancy Tax (rather than General Fund) could increase from 2.3 to 3.6. Then, only minimal General Fund dollars would be used for the Office of Cultural Affairs, with the GF supporting the 3 Events Staff being appropriate since events generate more-than-commensurate city sales tax and other revenue.”
Pat,
Thanks so much for the information.
Oh, no! Now what are some of you going to gripe about since your dreaded OCA is not the cause of our current budget crisis?
Maybe now you will focus on the real causes like binding arbitration?
Just,
Thanks for the sarcasm, that was so very thoughtful of you. I agree that nuking binding arbitration is the single most effective thing that could be done.
But I also believe that the OCA staffing level is the “canary in the coal mine” indicator, which assesses how serious our politicians are about budget shortfalls.
Wondering if Wondering works for the OCA….
Greg,
As far as I can tell the American GI Forum of San Jose takes care of the Cinco de Mayo festival. From their web site:
“Fifteen years ago, the City of San Jose saw the Festivals in grave danger of being discontinued. The City was proud to host the important cultural celebration, but they were a financial failure.
The City officials asked the San Jose GI Forum, as a responsible financially reputable community organization, with a broad Hispanic American membership to come to the rescue.
After study and vigorous discussion, we decided that the Fiestas Patrias were too important to our community to let it die. We accepted the challenge.
With good management, a large volunteer labor force, and a lot of very valuable community goodwill, we have made the Fiestas Patrias successful, and it has been placed as one the biggest festivals in our Nation.”
As others have pointed out, I’m sure the city will have to provide extra officers to manage the crowds.
So the lack of a 4th of July celebration is because the city can’t afford it and no outside organization has adopted responsibility. Maybe you should start one
. I’d love to see fireworks downtown again.
The entire midnight police briefing is coming in 4 hours early on Friday and Saturday night and working 14-15 hours shifts just for Cinco de Mayo. This translates into thousands of hours of overtime to keep a lid on Cinco de Mayo so it doesn’t get out of control like it has in the past. Yet the city does not have enough money to put on a 4th of July celebration.
Isn’t that the job of police, to be there to make sure things don’t get out of control? What would you suggest? They don’t adjust staffing levels even when they know large crowds will be present? That will keep us safe. Supplying extra police when necessary is not the same as paying for a cultural event. Or are you suggesting that the council ban people coming to patronize business downtown on big drinking days (St. Patrick’s Day, Fat Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo)?
Rationalize it any way you care to, but we all know the wet noodles on the City Council would pick Cinco de Mayo every single time, over the Fourth of July, were such a choice presented to them. And I think its clear that’s what everyone is rather getting at here, with respect to this issue.
And while I’m on the subject, “Red Devil”-type fireworks should be legalized for use on the Fourth in San Jose once again, the way things were prior to about 1981 or ‘82.
Out of Control,
What would I suggest? It’s very simple: don’t issue permits for giant-arse events that require thousands of hours of police overtime. Not sure why you couldn’t have figured that out on your own. Do you work for the City?
Ironic that the city is suppose to supply extra officers for St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, and Cinco de Mayo, yet they cancelled the 4th of July celebration because ostensibly they could not afford the extra cops, fireman, and emergency medical personnel.
Pete,
Bring on the 49ers! The taxpayers of San Jose need some entertainment while they agonize over the city budget.
Tell the Merc its time to go paperless.
Quit stumping for the cops and firefighters; they have all the help they need. Who is speaking for the rest of the union workers? Everyone needs a little culture.
“The Mercury News put an interesting spin on this story, reporting that it is now the eighth largest weekday paper in the country, moving ahead of the Chicago Tribune. They arrive at this figure by designating the Contra Costa Times, The Oakland Tribune, and other papers owned by the Bay Area News Group as editions of the Mercury News.”
In other words, THEY LIED. Just what I look for in a newspaper.
I subscribed to the Mercury for the majority of my adult life (I was born in 1970), but I wouldn’t accept it if it were delivered for free, these days. Its not worth hauling out to the recycling bin, because there’s virtually nothing in it. An issue of The Metro is more interesting than the Sunday edition of the Mercury, along with its weekly “Eye” section, combined. And I don’t even particularly mean that as a compliment to Metro, but solely as a criticism of the pathetic Merc. Its a shame, because a dozen years ago, that was still a pretty good paper. Now it flat out sucks. Its a little like “Time” magazine ie., they only people who read it are elderly shut-ins.
Speaking of declines, over the past several weeks, the shelves at my local PW Supermarket have gotten emptier and emptier. None of the local media are discussing this. They closed a store on Foxworthy a few months ago. Is this local chain in a death spiral?
Yeah, what IS going on with the PW on Meridian? The beer department, in particular, is in a disgraceful and shameful state of neglect. Maybe the City could kick in some Redevelopment money to help restore this blighted aisle to it’s former glory.
As Kathleen might exclaim, “So sad.”
From what I gather, the owners brought in some loser execs from Safeway a couple of years ago. Apparently, these guys couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag.
All that bad management has resulted in the owners not being able to pay the bills, or not wanting to. It’s sad that PW flourished for more than half a century and is now little more than an embarrassment.