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Poorly-designed streets, excessive use of force and car accidents caused by city officials are just a few examples out of hundreds of claims made against San Jose this past year. The city spends millions of dollars in legal fees annually to resolve claims and lawsuits filed by residents and organizations. Most recently, the city faced two...
How much do Silicon Valley nonprofits pay their executives?
In Silicon Valley, leading a nonprofit fighting for a noble cause can be a profitable business. Many of these organizations receive millions of dollars in public funding to solve homelessness, feed the needy, build shelters, help troubled youth and alleviate other social problems. Earlier this year, San Jose authorized $11.3 million to pay for homeless...
Is San Jose still the 10th largest U.S. city?
The heart of Silicon Valley might have lost its claim to fame as the 10th largest city in the nation. During a Charter Review Commission meeting Monday night, San Jose State University retired political science professor Terry Christensen made a statement that raised eyebrows during his presentation: the city of Austin, Texas surpassed San Jose in...
Santa Clara County lags behind in COVID vaccination rates
Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 vaccination rates continue to lag behind other large counties in the Bay Area. Officials hope a new federal vaccine supply will help close the gap. The county celebrated last week as it received an extra 300,000 doses from a federal program, releasing thousands of additional appointments across the South Bay. All Californians...
How San Jose mayor’s ally helped Bloom Energy skirt a natural gas ban
Two weeks before San Jose passed a landmark ban on natural gas for new commercial buildings, city officials introduced an exemption that benefited a local energy company, Bloom Energy, whose vice president is a personal friend to the mayor. And the way they did it shows the stark difference in access granted to political insiders...
San Jose slow to respond to AAPI attacks, advocates say
Despite being home to an estimated 380,000 Asian residents, advocates say San Jose’s response to a rise in violence against AAPI has been alarmingly slow. For example, Oakland and San Francisco saw dozens of organizations step up in the wake of the violence to provide financial resources and help. San Jose has just three. Those...
Behind closed doors: These are San Jose’s top 10 lobbyists
In the heart of Silicon Valley, local policies and laws, especially on land use and the economy, shape our way of life. But key policy discussions don’t always happen in public. Despite a global pandemic shuttering in-person meetings for more than a year, a data analysis by San José Spotlight found lobbying remains to be...
A year of despair and resiliency: How COVID-19 changed San Jose
For many residents in the South Bay, March 17, 2020 marked the beginning of a year like no other. One year ago, Santa Clara County and five of its neighbors became the first in the nation to impose a shelter in place order, as the COVID-19 virus silently engulfed the globe. There were 258 confirmed...
What Santa Clara County renters, landlords should know about evictions
Renters affected by the pandemic likely took a sigh of relief when, early this year, California lawmakers extended the statewide ban on evictions for those facing financial hardships until the end of June. The law also created a rental assistance program to help lift lower-income renters out of rental debt. The program started taking applications...
How progressive is Silicon Valley? The answer might surprise you
Among the seemingly solid-blue picture of the Bay Area, pockets of a more conservative population are growing. When former President Donald Trump first ran for office in 2016, roughly 20% of Santa Clara County residents, or 144,514 people, voted for him. As hundreds of thousands turned out to vote again last year amidst the rampant...