The rallying chants broke through the quiet morning: “Up up with public housing, down down with Google.” Vas Kumar, a supporter of the #Google8, the eight people arrested for chaining themselves to chairs to protest Google’s planned development in San Jose, called out the tech titan through a megaphone in front of the Santa Clara County building early...
Magdalena Carrasco jumps into crowded supervisorial race
Magdalena Carrasco, the dynamic lawmaker who broke the mold as San Jose’s vice mayor, is running for county supervisor in what’s shaping up to be a crowded field of high-profile candidates. “This feels like a very natural step for me,” Carrasco said in an interview Monday. “It really feels like the next step in the...
San Jose City Council agenda packed with housing proposals
At the beginning of the year, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo called housing one of the most “daunting” challenges facing the city. On Tuesday, Liccardo and his council colleagues will tackle the crisis once again as they review a host of affordable housing projects. If the lengthy list is approved, San Jose could add hundreds of new...
Dozens hit the streets for San Jose homeless count
The usually quiet San Jose roads were taken over at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning by 115 people scouring the city, looking for homeless residents to count as part of the two-day Santa Clara County Point-In-Time homeless census. At this hour roadways are generally steady moving without congestion, and most homeless people sleeping on the streets have...
Staedler: Newsom’s proposal is bold. Let’s get even bolder.
As we look for movement in alleviating the housing crisis, Gov. Newsom delivered a solid and thoughtful proposal with a serious amount of cash to back up his resolve. It’s getting a fair amount of press, but in case you missed it, here is a summary of his proposal from Newsom’s website. An unprecedented and historic effort...
Liccardo not worried about Newsom’s threat to withhold funding
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...
Watch out, Silicon Valley: Nevada is luring tech businesses away
During the fight for a future headquarters for Seattle-based e-commerce giant Amazon, the city of San Jose submitted a proposal that made no mention of its neighbor Nevada or any major cities across the state line. But the proposal sent by Southern Nevada had a lot to say about San Jose and California. Charts from...
San Jose homeless crisis: This is where they sleep
Underneath your highways. On your sidewalks. In their cars. San Jose is home to more than 4,300 homeless residents. And when the lights go out in Silicon Valley, this is where the unsheltered homeless population sleeps. Rosalie Carrillo sleeps on the dirt beside a sidewalk near Story Road. She got hit by a car and...
Pedestrian deaths spiked in San Jose last year
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...
San Jose defends its cardrooms from Blackjack ban
San Jose’s longstanding war with its cardrooms has turned into… love? As state gaming regulators mulled a controversial proposal to ban Blackjack in California cardrooms, San Jose officials loudly stood up for Casino M8trix and Bay 101 by opposing the change and sending a top city leader to Antioch to speak out against the plan....