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This school year was tough on everyone: parents, students, teachers and school leaders. But it was disproportionately hard on communities of color. High rates of COVID-19, poor access to healthcare, food insecurity, lost wages, threats of eviction, racial violence… the list goes on. The traumatic events families have endured over the last year are among...
Staedler: Climate Smart San Jose misses the mark on the value of trees
At the San Jose City Council meeting on May 18, the Climate Smart San Jose Plan semi-annual update took place. I turned on the council meeting while working at my desk that afternoon and I heard Kerrie Romanow, director of Environmental Services, make a definitive statement that made me stop what I was doing and watch...
Andrew: What would you give up for a reliable internet connection?
What would you give up for a reliable internet connection? A heated room? An ergonomically correct chair? A perfectly positioned monitor? It’s a tough decision and one that 2.1 million Californians have to make each day. Yes, even here in Silicon Valley, where the internet is said to be invented, thousands of students do not...
Philbrick: Paying for transportation infrastructure
Miles of bumpers and brake lights. Impassable traffic jams. These daily sights on urban highways may feel inescapable, but many of these issues would improve or resolve with some serious transportation infrastructure repair. California road conditions rank among the worst in the nation, and the Bay Area and Southern California are the second and third...
Op-ed: Open letter to Sheriff Smith regarding Santa Clara County evictions
For many Santa Clara County residents, the pain of the housing crisis is deeply felt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The loss of stable income only accelerated the unfolding of a crisis and although the state acted to put in place an eviction moratorium, evictions in Santa Clara County continued to take place. Sheriff Laurie...
Breland: Creating a better normal
When San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo convened the Silicon Valley Recovery Roundtable during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was honored to have been invited to participate. While the challenge was daunting, the work that the roundtable was charged with was vital to our region’s ability to weather the worst impacts of the...
Gvatua: Protect Us
Courtrooms are overcrowded. The increasing demand for public services is skyrocketing at an astronomical rate. The situation is dire: Countless vacancies, longer processing times and avalanching workloads are being thrust onto staff, the demand for more people to physically be present at their assignments continues to rise. Enforcement for social distancing and mask wearing depends...
Collins: An unprecedented opportunity to address the housing crisis
This month’s column is very personal to me because it really represents an intersection of two of my professional career paths—retail and housing. Before my role as CEO of the Santa Clara Association of Realtors, I spent nearly a decade working at the San Jose retail icon, Mel Cotton’s Sporting Goods. In 2005, I left...
Op-ed: Safety for all means finding alternatives to incarceration
On March 17, the Silicon Valley Law Foundation submitted a demand letter to the County of Santa Clara chronicling inhumane treatment of those incarcerated in the jails. The letter laid out survey results, personal testimonies and observations from inside which told a horrific story of the jails “failing to provide even minimally adequate procedures to...
Op-ed: Downtown West sets new standard for addressing displacement and community voice
Google’s San José Downtown West mixed-use plan will transform our city. With the City Council set to vote today on the development, much of the conversation has been around shiny renderings of taller buildings and new plazas. But the lasting legacy of this project will be more about our people than our skyline: will San...