Jan 31, 2014
Sports fans, the paper chase is on! FPPC reports are rolling out for San Jose, Santa Clara County and the State Legislature. We’re compiling total contributions and expenditures to date as they get released and we promise to update you over the weekend as we review interesting contributions and eyebrow-raising expenditures. Tweet
Jan 31, 2014
California Attorney General Kamala Harris is drawing the ire of the San Jose Mayor. The title and summary of Reed’s proposed statewide pension initiative explains to voters how the measure would “eliminate constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree health benefits for current public employees.” Mayor Chuck Reed plans to sue the Attorney General over the wording. Tweet
While Tea Partyers in Congress ground our federal government to a halt last fall, California is in the process of moving from a state that many once thought “ungovernable” to one that’s arguing about what to do with our budget surplus. And contrary to the media elites who often blame voters for creating our problems in California, we are turning…
Jan 30, 2014
For over 30 years many of us have engaged in a dispute with our political party. Not over values; but over tactics. The dirty little secret is that Democrats should never lose an election. There have always been more Democrats than Republicans and if we got a majority of those people registered and turned out to vote; we can’t lose.…
Jan 29, 2014
In his recent blog post for San Jose Inside, Santa Clara County School Board Trustee, Joseph Di Salvo, who voted to deny Navigator Schools’ appeal, asserted that the school board members, district staff, teachers, classified employees, parents, and community members who e-mailed and spoke publicly are “adults who wish to continue the unsustainable status quo in education.” Trustee DiSalvo is entrusted with…
Jan 28, 2014
The San Jose City Council will decide today whether to condone corporate greed and poverty-level wages for workers or apply city law to Starbucks and a large developer who want to lease property at the San Jose Convention Center. San Jose would normally require businesses leasing the property to pay employees a living wage, but the City Manager’s Office recommends an…
Jan 27, 2014
For many people not familiar with Silicon Valley policy and politics, this may seem less like a “Left Hook” and more like something out of “Left Field.” Brace yourself. In Silicon Valley, the business community and the labor community work together much more often than we work against each other. At a minimum, that is certainly the case when it…
Jan 27, 2014
San Jose Living Wage comes back to Council As we told you last week, the San Jose City Council is bringing back potential changes to the Living Wage Policy. Councilmembers took to memos on Friday to telegraph their arguments. A quick refresher on the subject; the Council is considering a change to the Living Wage Policy to eliminate the requirement…
Jan 24, 2014
Mega Whopper In a recent editorial, the editors of the San Jose Mercury News supported efforts of the San Jose City Council to “tweak” (the Mercury’s term) the provisions regarding disability retirement in Measure B, Chuck Reed’s flawed and failing pension reform initiative. While agreeing that some tweaks needed to be made, and pointing out the Mercury News had in…
Jan 24, 2014
The recent court ruling that gutted San Jose’s Measure B was a huge blow to the city’s efforts to simply write off the rights of its employees. And it was a big win for all city employees, but it won’t stop police officers from leaving the City of San Jose. Although I do believe it will slow what could…