The atmospheric river storm is reaching its end, but more rain is on the way. This means the threat of flooding is real for hundreds of homes in San Jose. San Jose saw one of the highest rainfalls in the recent storm from Sunday to Monday, with close to an inch of rain falling overnight,...
Santa Clara County sees surge in new citizens
Santa Clara County welcomed more than 20,000 new citizens last year, making communities politically and economically stronger, advocates said. Data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals a total of 20,397 citizens were naturalized at the San Jose field office in the 2022 fiscal year, from October 2021 through September 2022. This is a...
Sunnyvale gets sleek new City Hall
Sunnyvale’s environmentally conscious and modern City Hall building is nearing completion. The four-story, 120,000-square-foot building is expected to produce enough clean energy to power itself, and could be ready for move-in by March. The new building is going up next to the old city hall on the 26-acre civic center property along South Mathilda Avenue...
Blind and homeless: 93-year-old Sunnyvale man faces uncertainty
A transistor radio, a portable analog device with an antenna, is Mir Sayed’s connection to the world. The 93-year-old lives in a motel room in Sunnyvale and spends his days listening to his radio. He’s visually impaired, suffering from glaucoma and cataracts, and is hearing-impaired. Sayed’s housing situation is unstable and part of the longstanding issue...
San Jose recycling service disrupted by brief strike
Local workers reached an agreement Friday afternoon with San Jose’s largest recycling hauler after a brief strike that threatened service for more than 175,000 homes. The strike came after Teamsters Local 350 and California Waste Solutions (CWS) deadlocked over a contract for 10 clerical workers who provide customer service. Union members claimed the company was taking away...
UPDATE: San Jose mayor selects newcomer as vice mayor
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has announced his choice for vice mayor is first-term Councilmember Rosemary Kamei, in hopes of bringing together a divided governing body. “San Jose residents don’t care about labels, they care about results,” Mahan said Friday. “Rosemary Kamei is collaborative, thoughtful, independent, has a ton of common sense and is a...
San Jose struggles to reduce homeless count
San Jose’s unhoused population is not as big as initially reported, but the number of chronically homeless people continues to grow, new county data shows. A report released last month shows San Jose with 6,650 homeless people in 2022—a drop of roughly 100 people from when preliminary data was released in May. Despite the drop, the current homeless...
San Jose lobbyists skirt transparency
In the heart of Silicon Valley, lobbyists of powerful organizations meet frequently with city officials, but not everyone discloses what they discuss. A San José Spotlight review of 2022 lobbying disclosure reports show how some lobbyists failed to divulge details of their meetings. While some provide a blanket statement about who they work for, others...
Storm displaces San Jose homeless living along creeks
Geraldo Garcia had 10 minutes to pack his belongings, scramble into a car and leave his makeshift shelter near Coyote Creek. The threat of flooding from an unprecedented atmospheric river storm gave him barely enough time to grab his essentials. “I’m sad. I’m desperate. I really don’t know where to go,” Garcia said, who’s been living...
Disgraced eBay exec wielded power at San Jose City Hall
A disgraced ex-eBay employee helped make high-level decisions for former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo three months after he lost his job at the tech giant for his alleged part in a stalking campaign. Boys and Girls Club Silicon Valley CEO Steve Wymer, who was fired by eBay in September 2019 for his alleged involvement...