Elections in Silicon Valley might be a year away, but special interest groups are already lining up to spend big bucks on their favored candidates. In 2022, many major offices are at stake. San Jose will have a new mayor, and two San Jose City Council colleagues are already jockeying for it. San Jose will...
How San Jose schools fared during COVID-19
New report cards on Santa Clara County’s public schools during COVID -19 show most high school seniors graduated, suspensions disproportionately hurt students of color and some teachers are being priced out of the region. These are the findings of San José Spotlight’s analysis of the latest school accountability report cards, despite those reports omitting data about student test scores and absenteeism...
Masks recommended indoors again in Santa Clara County
Bay Area health officials are now urging all residents to mask up when indoors out of rising concerns of the highly-infectious Delta variant. Santa Clara County, joined by a coalition of six other Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley, recommends all residents resume wearing masks inside—regardless of vaccination status. “Out of an abundance...
From fields to the frontlines: Chava Bustamante inspires next generation
Salvador “Chava” Bustamante was first arrested for civil disobedience in 1979 at the age of 28. The labor organizer, who recently stepped down as executive director of Latinos United for a New America (LUNA), was striking with the United Farm Workers in Salinas. He was sentenced to three months in Monterey County Jail for the strike, and...
This Silicon Valley town is doubling its housing; residents are crying foul
In a town that has barely grown for the last two decades, Los Gatos is looking to add more housing—almost twice as many units as it needs by 2040. Officials are recommending 3,783 new housing units in the next 20 years. That’s a significant 90% increase over the town’s state-mandated housing production goal of 1,993....
No Delta variant spike in Santa Clara County—yet
One month ago, millions of Californians celebrated the end of COVID-19 restrictions and mask mandates. But a new variant of the virus poses an outbreak threat that some experts say is only a matter of time. While people took their masks off for the first time in a year, COVID-19 spread and mutated, mainly among unvaccinated people. Now,...
One man’s fight against recidivism in Santa Clara County
For Johnny Lee Clarke, preventing former inmates from returning to jail is personal. Clarke, 59, spent six years in federal prison for hacking into bank accounts and writing $22,000 in bad checks when he was 24. He turned his life around and endeavors to do the same for others. Through his company CityLab Professional, Clarke teaches technical training...
Santa Clara County sees increase in value of taxable properties
The value of taxable properties in Santa Clara County rose by 4.6% since last year—showing that the pandemic’s economic impact had a limited reach. “This was not a normal business cycle,” Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone told San José Spotlight. “This was a self-imposed recession, based upon the health crisis.” The total value of...
VTA to discuss remodeling site of San Jose mass shooting
A mass shooting in May left San Jose without light rail service for weeks. Now that VTA has a roadmap to resume service, the transit agency will discuss a budget that, among other things, seeks to rebuild parts of the rail yard damaged in the shooting. VTA’s Board of Directors will discuss funding Tuesday to rehabilitate and rebuild...
Some Santa Clara County workers return to the office
Roughly 15 months after offices across the South Bay shuttered due to the pandemic, some county employees are slowly returning to the workplace. “With our responsibilities, we need people in the office,” Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone told San José Spotlight. “There were always people in the office during the pandemic, but now we’re...