Do you want to visit Disneyland’s Tomorrowland without the expense and trouble of an airplane flight? Then visit Sunnyvale’s new City Hall. I was privileged to be invited to the initial pre-opening ceremony. The expansive entrance patio is composed of interlocking tiles of multiple colors. A raised garden area is fenced in with a granite...

Consistent with his campaign of common sense, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s recent budget message implements his goals of ending the era of homeless encampments, cleaning up trash and blight throughout the city and improving public safety. It’s a back to basics budget built through consensus and listening to good ideas, wherever they come from....

Cities across the country are deep into reinventing their downtowns in light of changed work-from-home and business travel realities. Sadly, San Jose’s downtown continues to rank near the bottom of numerous proxy metrics of “vibrancy” such as return-to-office rates, sales taxes receipts, retail leasing rates and cell phone usage. Our City Council needs to stop...

Dr. Sara Cody, I’m 32 years old. I have myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as “chronic fatigue syndrome.” It causes profound exhaustion which is triggered by normal, everyday activities. My quality of life has rapidly and deeply diminished over the last five years. If I were to contract COVID-19, my chronic fatigue would be much worse...

In his first budget message, Mayor Matt Mahan claims he is approaching the city’s financial map in a new way. That’s true—but not in the way Mayor Mahan suggests. Confronting a weak tax base, Mahan states he will be an agent of change—concentrating on the basics and being disciplined in focusing resources on top priorities....

I was a freshman at UCLA in 1962. I was removing my hopefully warmed meal from an old oven and suddenly flames erupted, causing me to jump away. The ancient, gas-filled oven had a non-working pilot light and combusted in my face when I opened the door. My eyebrows and arm hair would grow back,...

In the past two years, the Silicon Valley Community has lost two incredible community leaders, Thang Do and Raul Lozano, most recently with the passing of Raul. Coincidentally, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) was connected to both of them through a program, written about here in Streetsblog, that ultimately inspired SVBC’s commitment to the farm...

In an effort to avoid any potential distraction to the appointment process for filling the vacant seat left by my resignation, I have avoided responding to questions or providing a response to any assumptions that have been made. In short, as my resignation letter stated, my decision is unequivocally, 100% due to personal reasons. There...

I spent my summer and fall quarters interning for the Cindy Chavez mayoral campaign to support a local Latina in her journey to leadership. For many, this local election was seen as a fight between two candidates with different perspectives targeting the same issues, and ultimately one candidate lost. For minority groups, however, this battle...

In its last meeting of 2022, the San Jose City Council cemented its record as a body that has failed our city when it comes to policing and community safety. Receiving a long-overdue consultant report on whether the city has the authority to create more independent oversight and investigations of police misconduct, the council collectively...