As minority businesses struggle to survive during the pandemic, the San Jose City Council is amplifying its efforts to ensure smaller, BIPOC, LGBTQ and women-owned businesses get a fair shot at competing for government contracts. The San Jose City Council voted unanimously Jan 12. to advance a proposal from Vice Mayor Chappie Jones and Councilmember...
UPDATE: San Jose joins lobbying group to protect its casinos
San Jose has long had a love-hate relationship with its two casinos. But with those businesses threatened by new state regulations, the City Council voted 10-1 this week to join a group of other California municipalities to try to stave off the new rules. The reason comes down to simple dollars and cents — San Jose’s...
New COVID-19 relief fund dedicated to East San Jose businesses
East San Jose businesses and nonprofits struggling to survive may have gained a new lease on life through a new community COVID-19 relief fund. San Jose Planning Commissioner Rolando Bonilla said the East San Jose business community, which has experienced difficulty accessing government aid, was left out of conversations about solutions to help them weather...
Study: Silicon Valley is mostly working from home — and service industry is paying the price
In non-pandemic times, Voyager Cafe in downtown San Jose would be teeming with customers, often workers lined up looking to get their morning coffee or something to go with their lunch. Not anymore. Revenue is down 40% to 50%, according to co-owner Sameer Shah. Voyager’s location inside the San Pedro Square Market means it’s walking...
Minimum wage goes up in South Bay — with mixed reaction
In 2017, Kirk Vartan turned his award-winning A Slice of New York pizza into a co-op, cutting his workers into equal partnership. Part of the deal includes being paid at least $21 an hour to start, attributed in part to the San Jose business’s unique structure. The pay rate is much higher than city’s minimum...
Look back: Google’s San Jose project endured rocky road in 2020
This past year has been stressful for everyone, even Google. As the tech giant’s real estate development team tried to push forward plans for its 80-acre megacampus near downtown San Jose, it was hit with bureaucratic snags and opposition from many quarters, including the Bay Area’s beloved hockey team. Still, the project passed some significant...
San José Spotlight’s top 10 stories of the year: COVID-19, homeless, hate crimes
To many people, 2020 felt like one of the longest years ever. South Bay residents contended with a deadly pandemic that got worse as the year wore on, the economic and social fallout of measures to contain the disease, civil unrest in the streets and wildfire smoke in the sky. There was no shortage of news....
South Bay nonprofits say they were victims of SiliconSage Builders
A Sunnyvale-based building and construction company that is at the center of a federal fraud investigation is also the focus of two San Jose nonprofits that say they, too, were victims. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against SiliconSage Builders and its principal executive, Sanjeev Acharya, on Dec. 21. According to its website,...
San Jose business owners hit hard by COVID-19 now have another worry — the end of an eviction moratorium
Businesses that barely survived 2020 have another tough blow ahead — the end of the county’s moratorium on evictions. The measure bars landlords from evicting commercial tenants who haven’t been paying their rent. It expires on March 31 and, when it does, businesses that haven’t paid rent are on the hook for paying all of...
San Jose restaurants still waiting for DoorDash grants — one month later
San Jose restaurant owner Jennifer Echeverri was promised a $5,000 grant to help her survive the winter amid tightening COVID-19 restrictions. One month passed. The money never came. As of Dec. 22, none of the 30 San Jose restaurants that were notified of a grant had received one. They also were not told when the...