In 2007, I helped found Santa Clara Plays Fair, the grassroots group that organized against a public subsidy for a 49ers stadium, a fight that became Measure J in 2010. We were outspent roughly 160 to 1: more than $4 million from the team against our roughly $25,000. We lost. I have no illusions about...
Gonzalez: Why I can’t vote for Kathy Watanabe
I have known Kathy Watanabe for more than 16 years. She hosted a campaign event at her home during my second run for the Santa Clara Unified School District Board in 2012 and was among the first people I told when I decided to run for the District 1 Santa Clara City Council seat. In...
Fioretta: Prop. 4 could level playing field with public financing in Santa Clara
On Sept. 30, San José Spotlight published an op-ed by Arteaga Food Center owner Lupe Lopez. In it she complained that a political action committee (PAC) controlled by the owner of the San Francisco 49ers football team is attempting to buy a Santa Clara City Council seat by making a campaign contribution of more than $418,000 to...
Op-ed: Developers get the profits with Prop. 45 — we pay the price
When we read a development proposal, we look beyond the property line. What will neighbors hear at night? What will children breathe? Where will the water come from? What happens to the birds and wildlife already living there? One of us teaches environmental studies at San Jose State University, grew up in San Jose, raised...
MacKenzie: Save healthcare services by taxing billionaires
Workers in America have been under attack for decades, with billionaires transferring ever larger portions of the nation’s wealth from our pockets into theirs. After H.R.1 or the “Big Beautiful Bill” slashed healthcare funding last year to give tax cuts to the wealthy, voters in Santa Clara County stepped up with Measure A to save our local hospitals. The working class...
Bramson: We can’t fix homelessness without sharing power
With less than a month until the midterm elections, Americans are being offered competing visions for the country’s future. Questions about government spending, public safety, economic security and the role of federal institutions are dominating the political conversation. And homelessness, as it so often does, has become another battleground in a much larger ideological fight....
Waite: We don’t need another tax increase for public transit
Santa Clara County voters have been generous to VTA. Today’s sales tax rate includes four ballot measures — from 1976, 2000, 2008 and 2016 — totaling 1.625%, providing VTA nearly $900 million per year. Now, supporters of Connect Bay Area, a 14-year regional transit measure for the Bay Area, propose adding another 0.5%, giving VTA...
Naughton: San Jose Unified School District needs new voices on its board
San Jose Unified School District families have spent the past year watching the district make consequential decisions regarding school closures and consolidations that reshaped entire neighborhoods with limited input from the people most affected. For many parents, teachers and community members, that experience has made one thing clear — this Board of Education needs new...
Urbanowski: What California’s final budget means for arts and culture in San Jose
On Sept. 18, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 113, the 2026 Budget Bill Jr., which includes significant new investments in California’s arts, culture and creative sector. This final 2026-27 state budget includes more than $80 million in new cross-agency investment in the arts — the largest single-year expansion of state arts funding since 2021....
Genzel: When it comes to misusing Flock cameras, concern is not enough
“I am concerned.” “A breach of trust.” This is what we heard from San Jose councilmembers at the recent Rules Committee hearing on the misuse of the city’s Flock license plate reader system. These are appropriate words. But concern is not enough. A San Jose police officer used the department’s Flock system to share a...