Last Tuesday at the council meeting, we spent approximately 90 minutes discussing the Teamsters Union at the Convention Center. Long story-short, this is a labor dispute between two different union locals that will be settled by the National Labor Relations Board. However, in the meantime, the Convention Center (which is the largest source of the City’s hotel tax receipts and drives airport traffic) is getting negative PR which is affecting prospective convention business in San Jose.
Whether it’s one union local or another, the fact is the Teamster jobs are taxpayer subsidized jobs since the City owns and operates the Convention Center where they work. When everyone chooses to fight as we are then we slit our own throats, since the taxpayer is on the hook for the annual subsidy—which will grow if we are unable to book convention business.
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Last Wednesday, at the Neighborhood Services committee, there was an update on the anti-graffiti program. The City painted over 100,000-plus graffiti tags last fiscal year. The City is meeting its goal of removing gang graffiti in 24 hours, although the staff is resource- constrained.
Also related to graffiti was the annual year-in-review by the San Jose Downtown Association last Friday morning. At the meeting, they spoke about the success of the Groundwerx crew that is privately funded by a Property Business Improvement District. Groundwerx spends much of its efforts cleaning Downtown, with an emphasis on graffiti. I think it would be great if a judge (who presides over graffiti taggers) made those offenders do community service with Groundwerx to help clean Downtown for days/weeks/months, rather than the small penalties today.
One particular challenge with graffiti are the utility boxes that are all around our city. These boxes are privately owned by the likes of ATT, Comcast, PG&E., etc. The graffiti bozo’s (with the City lacking Singapore-style punishment) constantly mark up the boxes with their tags or gang tags. The committee discussed the possibility of creating an ordinance that would remove graffiti from those utility boxes asap. Ideally, we would not need an ordinance as the utility companies would clean it up themselves in a timely manner; unfortunately, that does not happen. So one way we could ensure that the companies would understand the importance of taking care of the property in San Jose is to adopt and execute a fine to the utility companies for any graffiti left on a box for more then 72 hours. Or they could contract with the City to pay us each time we clean up the tag.
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The big vote this week in front of the Council is whether or not to give direction to city attorney to make binding arbitration for police and fire open to the public. The arbitrator who does not reside in San Jose makes binding decisions on police and fire contracts but is not accountable to the taxpayers. Yet the arbitrator has the power to force the city to spend unlimited amount of tax dollars. Not even the Mayor or a Councilmember is allowed to hear what is said. I bet you can already predict the votes as the last vote to make union negotiations public was 3-8, with the «no» votes prevailing.
Better ramp up the anti graffiti program. San Jose keeps annexing pockets of county neighborhoods that are filled with blight and crime and have been neglected by the county for years.
Is the city council discussing anything to relax business regulations and penalties, I mean fees, to encourage big business to locate in San Jose?
Excellent article by former police chief Joseph McNamara on the bias of the local media against the SJPD, how the council caved in to special interest groups, and how understaffed the SJPD is at the present time.
http://www.protectsanjose.com/blogs/4-guest-bloggers/150-a-tale-of-two-cities
> The graffiti bozo’s (with the City lacking Singapore-style punishment) constantly mark up the boxes with their tags or gang tags.
So, how many graffiti bozo arrests have there been in San Jose?
And what is the typical disposition of an arrested grafitti bozo’s case.
If I had to guess, I would say that the answers are probably “zero” and “nothing”.
Answer: City staff who recommends and Council members who vote No on Opening up meetings to the public:
1. binding arbitration for police and fire,
2. labor negotiations
3. all city contracts
unless state or federal laws conflict.
“…although the staff is resource- constrained. “
P.O.—you of all people should not be speaking in this bureaucratic gobbledygook. “resource constrained”??
How about : althought we are short-staffed? or something similar. “resource constrained”?? Shees!!!
A part of each and every convicted tagger’s sentence should be a MINIMUM of 100 hours removing tags…at THEIR expense. AND, tag each convicted tagger’s property, so the little pricks would realize how it feels to have their property violated.
> A part of each and every convicted tagger’s sentence should be a MINIMUM of 100 hours removing tags…at THEIR expense.
This supposes that there taggers who are actually caught and convicted.
I can’t imagine that a “city of refuge” for illegal aliens would actually contemplate arresting a tagger, let alone convicting one of anything.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that the National Endowment for the Arts might actually be giving grants to taggers.
Doofus,
What are you talking about this time? It is hard to keep track of the fantasy worlds in which you exist.
Don’t even bother asking. S/he is either as ignorant as his posts or he just does it to annoy people—kind of like a school kid at recess. Either way it’s not worth responding to the posts.
“You are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions.”
– Adlin Sinclair
Offensive and hurtful.
It is also damaging to my self-esteem.
From now on, I would like to request that only kind-hearted people read my postings.
“One particular challenge with graffiti are the utility boxes that are all around our city. These boxes are privately owned by the likes of ATT, Comcast, PG&E., etc.”
There has been a massive build-out of the ATT U-Verse system over the last couple years. Every refrigerator size box they install becomes a graffiti palette. And there are hundreds of these unsightly new cabinets now in the City. Excuse my cynicism, but…what did you expect? Should this be a surprise to anyone? I’d be surprised if anyone could find an ATT U-Verse box that has been installed for more than a week that has not been tagged.
The ATT U-Verse cabinets may be privately owned but they are installed through a permitting process established by the City. Where was the City Staff and the Council when this build out was proposed and negotiated? Why wasn’t the graffiti issue anticipated and addressed as part of the permitting process and the ATT/CISJ agreement that launched the proliferation of these above-ground curbside graffiti magnets. In short, the City is equally responsible for creating this “mess”.
The city should have mandated that they use that anti-grafitti paint that makes it easy to clean off the tags.
Rather than an out of city arbitrator, how about letting the voters decide? Might provide incentive for the negotiators to reach an agreement rather than submit their proposals to voters.
Who is going to pay the $1 million to put the issue on the ballot, Pat?
Given the millions of dollars that arbitration decisions end up costing the taxpayers, I would recommend the city pay for it. We would probably be better off.