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Top Stories: Jan. 26, 2010

Fremont Still in the Game; Carr v. Bryan; Prop 8 Trial Continues; City Defends Trees

by Danny Wool on Jan 26, 2010
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Liccardo Wants to Revitalize Downtown
The recession has taken a toll on downtown San Jose. City Councilmember Sam Liccardo, whose district includes downtown, is hoping to do something about that. "We need to take some risks," he says, and proposes waiving some of the fees that may keep people from coming downtown.

His first proposal is to waive licensing fees on small businesses with eight employees or less that open up shop downtown over the next year. Then he wants to waive fees on city-owned parking lots for businesses that sign or renew a lease downtown, with a limit of 50 spaces per company and 1,000 spaces overall.

Liccardo has asked City Manager Debra Figone and RDA head Harry Mavrogenes to assess the cost of his proposals by Feb. 8, and to come up with a strategy to implement this by Feb. 23. Though he realizes that the city could stand to lose immediate revenue from his proposal, he points out that under current circumstances, the city will get "the same percentage share of zero."
Read More at the Business Journal.


Fremont Still Fighting for the A's
It's nice to be wanted. That's the message that the Oakland A's are getting these days, as Fremont rejoins the fight to be the team's new home. They tried to compete with San Jose last year, but couldn’t decide where to put a new stadium. And so San Jose became the obvious choice, or as Mayor Chuck Reed would have it: "They had their chance at bat. They struck out. Now it's our turn."

Not so fast, says Fremont mayor Bob Wasserman, who countered with another baseball bromide: "It ain't over till it's over," pointing out that San Jose has some problems of its own, most notably the San Francisco Giants. They don't want another team in their territory, and are trying to exclude San Jose from the running.

Meanwhile Fremont has taken a hit with the impending closure of the NUMMI plant because of the recession. Local officials led by the Chamber of Commerce seem to think that building a new stadium in Fremont will take some of the bite out of the closure, and provide jobs for many of the soon-to-be unemployed workers. It also frees up a plot of land adjacent to the NUMMI plants for a new stadium. Spurred on by these new developments, Fremont's Chamber of Commerce organized a rally on Monday night in support of the new stadium, with 400 people showing up.

Major League Baseball has already expressed its preference for an East Bay location for the A's. On the other hand, team owner Lew Wolff has expressed his preference for San Jose. This means it could still be a close call, with an MLB committee playing ump. And as legendary umpire Bill Klem once said, "It ain't nuthin' until I call it."
Read More at the ABC 7.


DA Takes on Justice Andrea Bryan
Alan Dershowitz once said that "Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice, and they are also the most protected." Perhaps he never met Santa Clara County DA Dolores Carr. She recently instructed her staff to boycott Bryan by issuing issue a peremptory challenge, requesting that the case be assigned to someone else.

Bryan got on Carr's bad side earlier this month, when she ordered the release of Augustin Urribe, who was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to 38 years to life. She claimed that Deputy District Attorney Troy Benson, who prosecuted the case, engaged in "numerous acts of misconduct, after an appellate court found that the DA's office withheld videotape evidence. Carr claims that this was only the most recent instance of Bryan issuing a questionable ruling.

Bryan has plenty of defenders. One public defender even suggested that Carr's directives to her staff threaten the independence of the courts by punishing justices who do not rule her way. Carr herself served as a Superior Court judge from 2000 to 2006.
Read More at KCBS.


Plaintiffs Rest Their Case in Prop 8 Trial
Attorneys Theodore Olson and David Boies rested their case against Prop 8 yesterday, and supporters of a ban on same-sex marriage began presenting their arguments. Their first witness was Kenneth Miller, a professor at Claremont McKenna College who studies ballot initiatives. Miller challenged the assertion by Stanford University professor Gary Segura that gays and lesbians lack significant political power. He claimed that this was evidenced by the fact that no prominent California politician, including Governor Schwarzenegger, endorsed Proposition 8, and that its opponents ended up raising more money to defeat the measure than its backers raised.

Only one more witness, David Blackenhorn, is expected to testify today on behalf of Proposition 8 and the measure's backers will wrap up their case. Justice Vaughn Walker has yet to schedule when he will hear closing arguments before making his decision.
Read More at CBS 5.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.


City Denies Responsibility for Toddler's Death
Over the next decade, city officials plan to plant 100,000 new trees in San Jose. The problem is that once they're in the ground, there's no one in the city to take care of them. Since 2008, the city has stopped maintaining trees in public rights of way, leaving that to adjacent homeowners. The recent storms showed how problematic this can be.

On Monday, a 10-ton silver maple crashed on a pickup truck, where 2-year-old Mateo Ortiz was sitting with his parents. Mateo was killed; his parents both suffered broken arms. Though the tree was located on city-owned land between the street and the sidewalk, city officials argue that it was the responsibility of the homeowners—in this case, relatives of Mateo—to identify the troubled tree and have it removed at their expense.

"In the past, when we had more resources, we were able to assist property owners with maintenance and caring for trees," says Kevin O'Connor, Deputy Director of the city's Transportation Department. But faced with a deficit approaching $100 million, the city simply can't afford it anymore. On the other hand, the city requires residents to obtain a (free) permit before pruning these trees.

In other words, the actual status of these trees is in limbo. Yesterday, the city saw the first casualty of that indecision.
Read More at The Mercury News.



by Danny Wool on Jan 26, 2010
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