San Jose officials have squeezed funding out of the 2025-26 budget to support education and legal services in defense of the city’s immigrant community. The San Jose City Council on June 10 unanimously approved $1 million going to immigrant defense organizations like Amigos de Guadalupe and the Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) —...
San Jose residents win fight to stop housing project
City officials have sided with homeowners opposed to a proposed 17-story apartment complex that would have added hundreds of homes in West San Jose. The San Jose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to deny plans to construct 135 homes and 15,000 square feet of commercial retail space at 826 N. Winchester Blvd. Neighborhood residents who...
San Jose loans housing developer $5M after political donations
City leaders are committing millions of dollars in loans to an affordable housing provider after the company’s officers donated thousands to San Jose elected officials. The San Jose City Council on June 3 unanimously approved up to $5 million in loans for the “Gateway Tower” project, a 15-story 220-apartment development between 493 S. First St....
San Jose’s $5.5B budget tackles controversial plans
San Jose officials have agreed to green light Mayor Matt Mahan’s latest budget plans — but stopped short of tying portions of councilmembers’ pay to their perceived performance. The City Council voted Tuesday to approve a $5.5 billion proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2025-26. Several of the mayor’s proposals moved forward, including reallocating Measure...
Sources: San Jose officials used racial slurs in group chat
A group of San Jose politicians allegedly participated in an inflammatory text thread with a disgraced colleague that included racial slurs and derogatory remarks, according to law enforcement sources. Sources say the participants in the text thread, which included councilmembers and community leaders, made the remarks while discussing city meetings and public business. Mayor Matt Mahan,...
San Jose councilmembers push back on pay tied to performance
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan wants to withhold up to 5% of his colleagues’ salaries if they fail to meet citywide goals — a policy numerous councilmembers said would come at the expense of already underserved residents. The “Pay for Performance” policy was introduced as part of Mahan’s March budget message after he said City...
Sharks Way celebrates San Jose hockey team
San Jose is showing love to the Sharks by permanently naming part of a downtown neighborhood after the national hockey league team. City leaders earlier this month renamed the corner of West St. John Street and North Almaden Boulevard to “Sharks Way” in an effort to connect the team’s hundreds of thousands of fans with...
San Jose domestic violence report comes up short
Despite San Jose spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to explore ways to assist domestic violence survivors without involving law enforcement, the group who conducted the study came back empty-handed with no solutions. The city released its “Community-Led Solutions to Domestic Violence” study May 20, conducted by Minnesota-based Battered Women’s Justice Project. The nonprofit directed...
San Jose streamlines social media policy for politicians
San Jose leaders are updating the city’s social media policy to ensure elected officials relinquish their online communication channels once their term ends. City officials began drafting the “Transition of Elected Officials” policy after San José Spotlight reported in 2023 that former Councilmember Maya Esparza refused to turn over social media pages affiliated with District...
San Jose officials push for South Vietnam flag emoji
As emojis become a widespread form of global messaging, San Jose leaders are calling on the world’s leading text encoders to add a symbol for the Flag of South Vietnam. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to urge the Unicode Consortium — the Mountain View-based organization overseeing the digitized use of text in all of the...