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Top Stories: May 11, 2010State Raids City’s Coffers; NASA Ames is Hiring; San Jose Eliminates Blightby Danny Wool on May 11, 2010RDA Pays State $62 Million In times like these, every penny counts. That's why a check signed by Harry Mavrogenes, Executive Director of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, and sent to the state on Friday was especially painful. After a ruling by a Sacramento judge, the RDA and RDAs across the state were forced to surrender $1.7 billion to the state to help cover some of its budget deficit. San Jose's share came to $62,247,530. Mayor Chuck Reed said that it was a "sad day in California," and noted how it would affect the city's neighborhoods. At least part of the money would have been used for the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, but now, says the Mayor, it is "impossible for us to continue to move forward." Redevelopment creates jobs, he noted. With San Jose's unemployment rate hovering over 10 percent, those are jobs that the city really needs. The state's problems trickled down to the cities, Reed noted, but he quickly corrected himself: "It's much more than a trickle. It's a flood." Read More at KCBS. Read More at KLIV. Jobs … The Final Frontier A manned trip back to the moon may be off the table for the next few decades, but plenty of men and women will be heading to NASA. According to a new report the Space Agency's Ames Research Center in Santa Clara has generated 5,300 jobs in the Bay Area last year, among them about 1,700 construction jobs because of ongoing construction there. Even better news is the construction—and the jobs it brings with it—is expected to last 15 years. Ames also partners extensively with some of Silicon Valley's main players, including Google and HP, as well as academic institutions including UC Santa Cruz and Carnegie Mellon. Read More at KLIV. Weed-Whacking in San Jose It just takes one untended lawn to decrease property values, and that's increasingly become a problem in this era of foreclosures and evictions. Residents of San Jose's Henderson Drive say that they have been complaining to the city for years about one such house, but with fewer staff (eight more will be laid off by July 1) and more foreclosures, Code Inspectors are having a hard time keeping up with all the properties they must inspect. In the case of Henderson Drive, the city finally stepped in and cleaned up the blight on the neighborhood. There was a price tag though—$1,200—which the city plans on charging to the bank that owns the home. The bank, in turn, plans to recoup its losses when it finally sells the house. That should be easier now that it doesn't look like the set of some horror film. Read More at NBC Bay Area. by Danny Wool on May 11, 2010 |
 NASA Ames Research Center is generating jobs in the Bay Area. |
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