Jul 7, 2014
Summer’s here and many of our elected officials are on recess. With the exception of Cupertino’s Master Plan Study Update (7/7) and Mountain View’s study session on the San Antonio Precise Plan (7/8), not much is on deck in the way of policy. The picture of Clint Eastwood is just cool. Ahhh, summer! Tweet
Jul 3, 2014
To many people Brazil consists only of Rio De Janeiro and São Paulo. Conflicting images persist of beautiful beaches, Carnaval, and vibrant music or the favelas of the poor and the impoverishment of the rural landless and indigenous. Throw into the mix a month of the World Cup simultaneously enjoyed by many and despised by some. This grand mixture reflects…
Jul 3, 2014
It’s been made startlingly clear this week that U.S. Supreme Court justices are playing politics with the health and well-being of women. The Court’s recent rulings have curtailed women’s rights to enter health centers without harassment and hindered affordable -access to the most effective birth control methods. If you were wondering whether we can trust this Supreme Court to dispense justice…
Jul 2, 2014
One of the most bizarre political web sites to pop up recently attempts to defend Sunnyvale Council member Patrick Meyering against a recall campaign by comparing Meyering with both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The comparison is both absurd and offensive. Elected in 2011, Meyering has spent his partial council term fabricating accusations of corruption against city workers, citizens,…
Jul 1, 2014
“It’s because of you we’re out of work!” That was the accusation shouted by the two laid-off, white workers of Detroit’s dissipating auto industry, before they proceeded to beat to death a young, Chinese American man by the name of Vincent Chin – who they had mistaken as Japanese –with a baseball bat. This year marks the 32nd anniversary…
Jun 30, 2014
Dear Readers: Summer agendas are typically light fare allowing elected officials to escape on vacation. We’ll still be covering local policy issues we think you should pay attention to, but when the agendas are light (like this week) we’ll use this space to link to other things we think you should know about. Tweet
Jun 27, 2014
John Vasconcellos family and friends said good-bye last Saturday. For 38 years he represented Silicon Valley in the legislature, fighting for the under served, and seeking to live an authentic life worthy of the talents he possessed and inspiring others to take up that same challenge. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, he did it his way. Brian Murphy, a longtime friend and adviser, set…
Jun 26, 2014
When the Board of Supervisors passed the new Santa Clara County budget last week, one of the most important new public safety items was the Trauma to Triumph program I supported at Valley Medical Center. While the $289,480 one-time cost will cover only one year of this gang intervention program – on which we partner with the City of San Jose…
Jun 24, 2014
Assembly Bill 60, passed and signed into law in 2013, will allow undocumented immigrants in California an opportunity to apply for a driver’s license in California effective January 1, 2015. Since February of this year, Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) has engaged activists, community members and other stakeholders by holding nearly two dozen community education presentations in Monterey,…
Jun 20, 2014
This week’s whopper is an editorial by the San Jose Mercury News regarding Superior Court Rolf M. Treu’s decision declaring California’s tenure rules for teachers to be unconstitutional. Part of Judge Treu’s reasoning was that the tenure rules allegedly make it extraordinarily difficult to discharge incompetent teachers and incompetent teachers deny students a quality education. The first component of the whopper…