Feb 17, 2015
San Jose City Commission Appointments: Ethics and Planning Council will interview the 5 applicants for the Ethics Commission [formerly known as the Elections Commission] and appoint up to 3 to terms expiring March 1, 2019. An applicant must receive at least 6 votes to be appointed. If any vacancy remains, City may continue recruitment efforts and bring forward additional applicants…
Feb 12, 2015
San Jose’s city worker unions are joining together to insist city leaders address the mess that is Measure B and not put it off until 2017, as the Liccardo administration is suggesting. As one union negotiator put it “these groups have no interest in kicking the can down the road and are looking for a public acknowledgement from the city…
Feb 11, 2015
County leaders hope a program to create summer jobs for teens will help cut down on the crime that traditionally rises that time of year. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted yesterday to create 500 paid summer internship and job opportunities for at-risk and low income youth. Tweet
Feb 6, 2015
The Santa Clara County Board of Education seems to be getting the message that it can’t just give a rubber stamp to charter schools. This comes with the addition of new board member Claudia Rossi, elected last November. Wednesday night, the Board unanimously denied the appeal of the Wei Yu Mandarin Immersion charter petition in West San Jose’s Moreland School…
Feb 5, 2015
CAPITAL & MAIN’S NEW MONTH-LONG SERIES EXPLORES HOW ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IS TRANSFORMING CALIFORNIA, AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REBUILD OUR VANISHING MIDDLE CLASS. The California Chasm As it pushes historic levels, inequality has become a hot topic. Activists have organized around the rich-poor divide, with “The One Percent” and “The 99 Percent” becoming a part of everyday language. Tweet
Feb 4, 2015
No sooner than the November 2014 elections were over, San Jose found itself preparing for another race for City Council seat in District 4, this time on April 7th. The seat was vacated by Kansen Chu after he won his race for the State Assembly in District 25. Just like other Council races, this one will be very critical for the…
Feb 2, 2015
The campaign to replace Assemblymember Nora Campos when she terms out in 2016 is already off the ground for at least two candidates interested in the seat. San Jose City Council Member Ash Kalra kicked off his campaign over the weekend, drawing a strong and supportive crowd, as lion dancers ushered in the lineup of impressive names there to endorse…
Feb 2, 2015
Palo Alto: Raise the Wage Colleagues Memo from Council Members Berman, Burt, DuBois, and Wolbach Regarding a City-Wide Minimum Wage Ordinance. Tweet
Jan 27, 2015
Newly elected members of Congress had barely finished moving into their Capitol offices before ramping up their attacks on access to essential women’s health care. With a list of bills lined up and ready to go—six have already been introduced —the new Congress of ultra-conservative zealots is not letting up in its anti-reproductive-rights crusade, which disproportionately affects low-income women and…
Jan 23, 2015
Inequality in the country has exceeded that of the Great Depression. Zoom in to Silicon Valley, and the crisis is magnified. Silicon Valley, the poster child of groundbreaking innovation and wealth has sadly also become the nation’s capital of inequality. With the highest per capita millionaires and billionaires in Santa Clara, a raise for the lowest wage workers is way…