The first step in overhauling the struggling San Jose Police Activities League begins tonight, seven months after a scathing city audit revealed serious mismanagement, financial problems and no checks and balances over money. The PAL program, which began in 1968, offers youth athletic programs and mentorship from police officers for hundreds of kids. But an...

A judge recently handed flood victims some wins and some losses in the ongoing Coyote Creek flood litigation. More than 150 families of flood victims in 2017 sued San Jose, Santa Clara County, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and California’s Division of Safety of Dams in Santa Clara County Superior Court, citing claims of negligence...

Mayor Sam Liccardo isn’t rattled by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s threat to withhold money from cities that fail to build enough housing — despite San Jose falling short of its housing production goals. Liccardo said he was “all in” to support the governor’s ambitious housing development goals. “We’ve been begging for these kinds of carrots and...

Coyote Valley – the 7,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land in south San Jose – has been a topic of contention for city planners for decades. And it was no different at Tuesday’s San Jose City Council study session. City Manager David Sykes called the issue a “balancing act” as councilmembers looked toward experts to...

Ousted San Jose City Councilman Tam Nguyen isn’t planning to disappear now that his one term on the council is over. In a recent interview with San José Spotlight, Nguyen said he plans to continue working on finding solutions to issues like affordable housing and homelessness as a community member. Nguyen, 62, lost his bid...

From City Hall to Arena Green, thousands took to the streets of San Jose over the weekend to shout their support for women — in their communities, in America and around the world.  They brought signs, drums, water, food and demands. The third-annual Women’s March San Jose, organized by nonprofit Women’s March Bay Area, began...

A New Year’s Day traffic collision that injured San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo marks an ongoing trend of pedestrian injuries and fatalities throughout San Jose — and has given a high-profile face to a public safety campaign that some say needed a publicity boost. Liccardo collided with a 2002 Toyota Highlander on Jan. 1 while...

Sam Liccardo easily won four more years as San Jose mayor in November, but the high-profile former attorney faces a Gordian Knot of intersecting issues entering his second term — especially the intractable housing crisis. Upon his swearing in four years ago, Liccardo contended with a bitter pension battle that ended in a mass exodus...

The chaos inside a recent San Jose City Council meeting was like nothing seen before: Eight people chained themselves to chairs to protest the city selling public land to Google for a massive tech campus. SWAT officers paced the room. Authorities blanketed the hallways all night, tense and ready for an uprising after monitoring social...

They say politics is a blood sport. Silicon Valley’s 2018 midterm election, featuring a handful of competitive city and county legislative races, was no exception. A slew of opposition ads and smear tactics shadowed several Bay Area candidates running for public office this year — including ads bankrolled by a new committee helmed by the...