Jan 23, 2014
Our schools are brimming with children who have families on the brink of homelessness. Surprised to hear that? How about this: In Santa Clara County more than 3,000 students attending local schools were homeless by the standards of the U.S. Office of Education. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Yes “we.” A strong workforce is…
Jan 22, 2014
Education of poor children without real stability for poor families will not create the community change needed to stamp out poverty. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that Head Start, a federal pre-school program created decades ago to help lift poor kids out of poverty, isn’t doing the job. Born of the federal government’s War on Poverty, Head Start…
Jan 21, 2014
San Jose Change to the Living Wage Policy Picking up right where they left off at the end of 2013, the San Jose City Council is bringing back a proposed change to the City’s Living Wage Policy. In a memo, City staff writes that clarifications to the City’s living wage policy would eliminate ambiguities or inconsistencies in the interpretation and…
Jan 21, 2014
“The news of my death is greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain California High Speed Rail would already exist if we had listened to Governor Jerry Brown in his first term in the 1970s. Ever the visionary, Brown extolled Californians to look to the future. At the time he was ridiculed for his efforts. Now in his third term and in a…
Jan 20, 2014
Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man whose dream of equality and human rights changed the course of history. His legacy is remembered this week by people of all colors and creeds who believe in the American Dream and who continue his fight for fairness, justice and human dignity. Dr. King was…
Jan 17, 2014
Galactic Whopper During the 2012 elections, opponents of increasing San Jose’s minimum wage spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread distorted and false information. Although the voters decisively rejected their fear tactics, they’re still at it. This time they’ve published a phony report and bought advertising to show the negative effects of the minimum wage increase on “San Jose…
Jan 17, 2014
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith, dated 13th November 1787. This is as true today as it was in 1787. We need the tree of liberty to be refreshed in the 2014 campaign season. I…
Jan 17, 2014
Little more than a year ago the County Board of Education approved 20 Rocketship charters all at once, but Wednesday night the same Board showed it is no longer rubber stamp for charters. With staff opposed to two charters in Morgan Hill – including another Rocketship charter — and Board members raising serious questions, Rocketship withdrew its appeal of a…
Jan 17, 2014
I am pleased to inaugurate this new column entitled “Whopper of the Week.” The mission of the column is to identify statements, quotes, articles, reports, and other forms of communication that contain a “whopper,” – a presentation that is highly inaccurate, misleading, distorted or deceitful. Three categories of whoppers will be identified – based on the scale of the misinformation…
Jan 15, 2014
The people’s right to speak and be heard is a cornerstone of our democracy. That right would be strengthened by my bill, AB 194, which was approved Wednesday by the Assembly Local Government Committee. The bill puts more teeth into the Brown Act with penalties that will make local agencies think twice about shutting out citizens. I sponsored this bill…