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San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan began his first term with an optimistic lens on resolving homelessness in the city. Eight months later his position has hardened. The mayor has confronted reality in a city where 89% of the population wants the homeless problem to disappear. Solutions are not happening fast enough for Mahan. After homeless people...
Silicon Valley family exposes need to reform conservatorship law
When Andy was 20 years old he had his head bashed into the cement during an unprovoked attack. Severely beaten, his mother thought he was gone, but Andy survived. A month later, he started hearing unexplained voices. Andy’s symptoms worsened during the next few months, and his mother, Kathryn, took him to San Jose Medical...
Editorial: Education equity is the answer to affirmative action in Silicon Valley
California scrapped affirmative action from its public university landscape, decades ago, making last week’s Supreme Court ruling a moot point. The state’s private colleges, however, were able to keep the program in place. Now that’s changed. The state’s private institutions may be looking to their public counterpoints for solutions, as they struggle to level the diversity playing...
Editorial: San Jose families—lock up your firearms to prevent tragedy
Over the last couple months, children in the San Jose Unified School District have been subjected to lockdowns and Code Red alarms triggered by potential danger. The source of this heightened fear is students bringing firearms to campus and making social media threats to kill classmates. Parents are terrified, and the lack of succinct and swift information from the...
Editorial: What will it take to revive downtown San Jose?
For decades, mayors, developers and business owners have claimed to know the secret for helping downtown San Jose come of age. Builders erected high-rise apartments, condominiums and office towers, and as the skyline changed city officials proclaimed the people would follow. The tech sector went on a tear, conferences sold out at the convention center and hotels...
Editorial: San Jose shouldn’t bulldoze the past to build the future
Downtown San Jose is in the middle of a transformation. Cranes are changing the skyline from its once low-rise persona to towers of steel and glass. CityView Plaza will reshape the landscape across from Cesar Chavez Plaza and the Icon and Echo Towers will rise kitty-corner from San Jose City Hall, as the downtown core marches ahead...
Editorial: Santa Clara County children’s psychiatric facility is long overdue
When a child has a medical emergency and is rushed to a hospital, doctors and nurses are ready. But if that same child has a mental health emergency, there is no hospital in Santa Clara County available to treat a minor. For decades the problem remained under the radar, until one day a friend of...
Editorial: San Jose council was right to appoint members
When the San Jose City Council appointed two new members last week, it felt like a snub of democracy for some. It was the culmination of a heated and lengthy debate over how to fill two open seats on the 11-member council. District 10 became vacant after former Councilmember Matt Mahan became mayor and District 8 opened...
Editorial: San Jose ‘landmark’ is a waste of time and money
For decades San Jose has tried to find its identity through an iconic landmark. The latest quest is an art installation called Breeze of Innovation, culled from nearly 1,000 international submissions. The 500 flexible, 200-foot rods are designed to sway in the wind and light up the sky at night. In renderings the idea looks like...
Editorial: Why did Santa Clara County rush its CEO hiring?
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors had a rare opportunity to right a wrong after twice violating state transparency rules in a closed-door meeting, and they blew it. After San José Spotlight this month exposed Brown Act violations linked to a secretive decision to appoint a new county executive and questioned the rush to hire, officials admitted...