San Jose police are going to have to wait until next year to potentially get back in the saddle. The City Council on Tuesday voted 6-4-1 to again hold off on reinstating the San Jose Police Department’s Horse Mounted Unit, which operated for more than 100 years until its 2018 disbanding due to financial and...
Fines to skyrocket for San Jose blighted property owners
San Jose leaders are raising the maximum daily fines for absentee landowners whose properties attract blight and crime — an aggressive signal that one official says makes the city’s penalties some of the highest in the state. The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved raising daily penalties from $2,500 to a maximum of $20,000 for...
San Jose cuts fees for its two card rooms
San Jose leaders are reducing card room fees and slashing police staff that monitor gambling, marking a turn in the city’s long — at times tense — relationship with casinos. The City Council on Tuesday unanimously agreed to lower regulatory fees for the city’s two licensed card rooms — Bay 101 and Casino M8trix —...
San Jose mayor leads search for city attorney replacement
San Jose’s city attorney plans to retire later this year — and Mayor Matt Mahan is quietly leading the search for the next top lawyer to help advise and defend new city policies. City Hall sources, who asked for anonymity to speak freely, told San José Spotlight Mahan’s office is narrowing down a field of...
Silicon Valley transit agency joins regional sales tax effort
After months of deliberation, VTA is joining five major Bay Area transit agencies in supporting a regional funding measure planned for the 2026 ballot. The VTA board of directors on Thursday voted unanimously to opt into Senate Bill 63, which would allow transit agencies or voter initiatives to put a regional half-cent sales tax on...
Santa Clara County assessor candidates raise more than $600K
A growing field of candidates has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the four-month sprint to the November special election for Santa Clara County assessor. The official list of candidates to become the county’s chief property taxer — affecting everything from housing development to public school funding — won’t be finalized until the nomination...
San Jose to add more multifamily affordable housing
The construction of nearly 200 affordable apartments will break ground next month in South San Jose. San Jose City Council unanimously approved a $73.7 million multifamily housing revenue bond on June 10 to close the remaining gap needed to finance the $160-million affordable housing development with developer Affirmed Housing. The 191-apartment complex will be 100% affordable...
Op-ed: Veteran family welcomes new neighbors to Bristol Hotel
We’ve lived in the neighborhood near the Bristol Hotel for nearly a decade, raising our children and investing in our community. Like many, we watched in sadness the recent meeting where community members shared their opposition to the planned conversion of the hotel into transitional housing for women and children. What stood out most was...
San Jose advocates demand release of alleged racist texts
A growing coalition of social justice leaders is demanding San Jose City Hall release text messages between councilmembers that allegedly include racist and derogatory remarks, two weeks after San José Spotlight broke a story about the inflammatory conversation. The Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet of Silicon Valley and AFRO-Upris joined the NAACP of San Jose/Silicon Valley...
San Jose bans homeless people renting RVs
A new San Jose policy intended to target individuals who rent RVs to homeless residents is being extended to penalize people sleeping in their vehicles. The San Jose City Council voted 9-1 on Tuesday to approve the “vanlording” policy, as it was written last week, to ban the advertising and renting out of RVs to...