Thousands of nurses across Santa Clara County’s strained and overburdened public hospital system may go on strike again — just weeks after taking to the picket line. Contract negotiations between county management and leaders with the Registered Nurses Professional Association have stalled, with a Thursday bargaining session lasting just 17 minutes. A looming $250 million...
Silicon Valley realtors brace for commission revamp
Nationwide changes in the way real estate agents are compensated might not make a difference in Silicon Valley. A pending settlement from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) could be an industry game changer that upends the commissions homebuyers pay real estate agents. The key changes could come as soon as July. This includes real estate...
Santa Clara County to eradicate aggressive mosquito species
Santa Clara County officials are prepping to remove a foreign, invasive and aggressive yellow fever mosquito species that’s returned to the region just in time for peak mosquito season. It was easy to eradicate the species after it first arrived in the county in 2022, when vector officials trapped and removed two mosquitoes in a...
Santa Clara County gives few contracts to minority-owned businesses
A study of Santa Clara County’s public contracts shows only a fraction goes to small, local businesses. The county launched a vendor disparity study in 2022 to examine the number of minority-owned businesses that won public contracts between July 2016 and June 2021. The study’s final draft was released last week, finding that local, minority-owned...
Santa Clara County looks for missing Medi-Cal members
Low-income residents in Santa Clara County are losing their state-sponsored health care at a time when the public hospital system is experiencing unprecedented demand for services. Medi-Cal members dropped from 458,000 to 425,000 in the county between June 2023 to January, according to a report released last month. Yet the Social Security Administration said these...
Silicon Valley agency freezes hiring amid deficit
Silicon Valley’s main water supplier is tightening its wallet in the face of a structural deficit and in an effort to keep water rates from rising. Santa Clara Valley Water District officials have frozen hiring for 72 job vacancies amid a $222 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year ending in June. The skyrocketing...
Silicon Valley water district sues one of its directors
The region’s largest taxpayer-funded water supplier is suing one of its own board directors weeks after they censured her. Santa Clara Valley Water District officials said they plan to file a lawsuit against Director Rebecca Eisenberg at the March 26 board meeting, but did not provide further details. Eisenberg’s colleagues censured her last month for...
Santa Clara County cities are failing to hit housing goals
Nearly all the cities in Santa Clara County — including San Jose — are moving so slow in meeting state housing goals that hitting the numbers looks like a pipe dream, a data analysis by San José Spotlight shows. Every eight years, the state decides how many homes need to be built in order to...
Thousands of upset Santa Clara County nurses strike
Dozens of nurses filled the street in front of O’Connor Hospital in San Jose for a three-day walkout over higher wages and working conditions. The Registered Nurses Professional Association (RNPA) went on strike yesterday and will stay out until Thursday at Santa Clara County’s three public hospitals — Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (VMC), O’Connor...
Silicon Valley voter turnout in primary election inches up
Santa Clara County is almost done counting primary election ballots, with advocates hoping a neck-and-neck congressional race and historic county contest will get voters to the polls in November. Voter turnout as of Wednesday sits at 37.38% according to the county’s Registrar of Voters, with 382,958 ballots counted out of just more than 1 million registered...