I Miss Governor Willie.

Rumor has it that Attorney General Jerry Brown may decide to run for Governor. After all of his years of service, he deserves a shot at the top prize.

After all, if the front page of the Merc's West Valley section today is to be believed, he's never been Governor before. Unless he's African-American and named Willie.



On the plus side, Willie will probably subscribe now.

An Intensely Serious, Important Post

Here are anagrams of the names of local elected officials. Be warned: some of these may be a bit ribald.

(Hard to believe you don't have to pay for such a great website, isn't it?)

Chuck Reed
Check Rude (an indictment of his reimbursement policy?)
Cheek Crud
Creed Heck or Crude Heck

If you make it "Charles Reed":
Scare Her Led
...which might be the best of the bunch.

Pete Constant
Content Paste (how he drafts memos based on VAC press releases)
Ascent Potent (look out, Sam!)
Ascent Ten Top (pretty accurate)
Aspect Ten Ton (no comment)
Cannot Pet Set

Forrest Williams
Software Mill Sir (the former IBM engineer!)
Florist Slime War
Fossil Let Rim War
Itself Swarm Roil
Waitress From Ill (actually, he's from Alabama. And not a waitress)

Sam Liccardo
Cordial Scam (ahem)
Acid Oral Scm (ahem)
Card Scam Oil
Coda Liar Scm
Maid Scar Col (ahem)
Clam Raid COS (AHEM)

Kansen Chu
Chunk Sane
This was the only result for Kansen, but is a great option for his burgeoning hip-hop career.

Nora Campos
Soprano Cam (probably Labor-related)
Rasa Con Mop
Soap Con Mar (bathing in the ocean?)
Soon Arm CPA (since Chuck won't put more cops on the street)

Pierluigi Oliverio
(Actually, I used Pierre Oliverio, since Pierluigi didn't have anything good.)
Error Lie Poi Vie
Polio Err Ire Vie
River Oil Ore Pie
Live Poor Ire Ire (as in, if you live poor, you'll face his ire. Twice)

Madison Nguyen
Dungeon May Sin
Someday Gin Nun (if she's recalled)
Anyone Sign Mud (about the recall petition?)
Genius Many Nod
Gunman Said Yon
Maiden Snug Yon
Amend Noisy Gun
Amigo Sunny End (oddly intimidating)
Nudge Sonny I Am (outside a toll booth)

Dave Cortese
Corset Evade (be proud of your body, Dave!)
Screed Ovate (indeed)
Sedate Cover
Cover Sad Tee (wear your smiley face tee, instead)
Decor Eve Sat
Serve Ate Cod (I'll pass on dinner at the Corteses)
See Card Veto
Code Rave Set
Coed Star Eve (in a previous life)

Judy Chirco
Chord Juicy
Again, not many options here. But a good back-up singer to Chunk Sane.

Nancy Pyle
Penny Clay (...is in my ears and in my eyes)
Canny Yelp (there's a joke in here somewhere)

And, of course, we couldn't leave these two out.

Tom McEnery
Comment Rye (he learn his true inspiration - and I ain't talking about bread)
Memento Cry
Come Men Try (...to be relevant)
Omen Cry Met

Dan Pulcrano
Anal Porn Cud

I'll just see myself out.

Quick Notes

• Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are debating tonight, and the mention of that might trick people into coming and reading about less-interesting (to them!) information about San Jose politics. So I will just casually mention that I know who will win tonight and that secret Katie Couric interview footage was leaked and read here all about the strategy for Sarah Palin. That should get some Google traffic. Most of those statements, loyal readers, are untrue.
• I have always wondered why the Merc (and other news organizations) have been so slow to incorporate maps into their articles.
  
  This morning, for example, I noticed an article on the Merc website about a three-alarm blaze at a strip mall. It was in "West San Jose", at some high-numbered Moorpark address. Well, guess what, people-in-Colorado-who-run-the-Merc - San Jose is a big city, and I can't just picture where everything is instantly.
  
  So here it is:
  
  
  Did that add much to your day? No. But isn't it slightly more interesting?
• Do you know what constitutes a "massive letter writing campaign" in a city of a million people? 351 letters. Or so Josh Molina would have us believe.
  
  When it comes to anything having to do with Little Saigon, Josh is like the kid in elementary school who says his uncle is David Hasselhoff and David Hasselhoff is coming to his birthday party and then, when the party rolls around, he "wasn't able to make it".
  
  Really? Something fascinating is happening with Little Saigon? Surrrre, Josh. Well, you go ahead and write about it then.
• Confidential to C. G.: Time to take Blanca off the Christmas card list.
• The Metro this week tries to offset the negative karma of supporting prostitution by devoting a multiple-page spread to Larry Pegram and the Values Advocacy Council. (In that name, the word "values" is defined pretty narrowly.)
  
  Let me be blunt. Pegram is attention-starved and closed-minded, and deserves a feature article as much as Tom McEnery deserves respect as a community leader. Why not profile Andy Diaz? He's crazy, but at least he's up-front about it.
• In case you were keeping track, at the end of the day, eighty hours of Councilmember and Mayoral time will have been spent, at our expense, being lobbied by the Chamber in Chicago. Just so you have some perspective.

Where The Hell Is Everybody?

If you happen to sneak onto the 18th floor of City Hall today (or anytime through Friday), you may notice that some of your favorite Councilmembers are missing.

Here's a quiz to see if you can guess where they went:
a. They are at a retreat to discuss the impact of the national economy on the City's budget and residents.
b. They have all committed to spending the next few days in their Districts, listening to the concerns of neighborhood leaders and assuring that infrastructure and code enforcement issues are quickly addressed.
c. They're on a junket to Chicago, paid for with tax dollars through a specific loophole in the City's travel policy, in the company of any number of registered lobbyists.

Do you have a guess?

Yes, that's right, it's time for the annual Chamber of Commerce three-day lobby-a-thon, called, cleverly, City-to-City. Last year, the Councilmembers and some City staff were treated to a trip to Austin, Texas, where they brought back all sorts of fascinating ideas and made our city better. Ha ha. Just kidding.

This year's lucky five are the Mayor and Vice Mayor and Councilmembers Nguyen, Constant, and King Pickles. (Only five get to go, you see, because six is a majority of the Council. And since they're being lobbied the whole time, there would be the appearance of a Brown Act violation.)

Don't really believe that these leaders would take such a trip? Well, take a look at this excerpt from a recent Rules Committee meeting agenda:


Oops! Wrong excerpt! That's Oliverio's request that travel for City employees be shifted to web-based teleconferencing. I meant to show you this one:


So, let's follow Pierluigi's logic here -
Travel on City business paid for by the City: bad.
Travel to spend three days schmoozing with registered lobbyists, paid for by the City: a-okay.
Got it? Makes sense to me!

The King's hypocrisy (and entitlement issues) aside - this trip is archaic and should be offensive to San Jose residents. There is value in seeing how other cities do things. But that we should pay for them to be shown around by a group that's got three lobbyists on the payroll, and invites any number more to tag along (as they did last year) is ridiculous.

On an unrelated note - I am announcing San Jose Revealed's City-to-French Riviera excursion, for two weeks in December. Thanks in advance for funding it, taxpayers. I'm still trying to decide which five Councilmembers get to come, but I know one thing - Pierluigi can watch from his office. Videoconferencing rules!

King Pickles

From his summer newsletter, which goes to households in his District. This was on the cover, of course.

Chuck And KLIV Play Softball

Following up on last week's discussion of Armando Gomez' work on J and K, Bob Kieve's KLIV brought Chuck Reed out to the softball park, and gave him two floaters.



For those who can't listen, the questions posed to our beloved Mayor, Mr. Openness himself, were, "Did Armando Gomez break any law?" and "Is this common practice?" Chuck replied, "Yes, he broke law. And this has never been done before."

No, not really. But, come on. Obviously KLIV wants to keep this weekly check-in going, so they aren't going to push Reed too far. But the question is: does having a key Mayoral staffer making calls for money violate the spirit of Chuck's "reform" efforts?

This is the guy who railed against officeholder accounts and wanted disclosure when Councilmembers raised money for non-profit groups - presumably because he believes (or believed while politically beneficial) that such fundraising implies a future quid pro quo.

Measures J and K need to pass, for the sake of the City. But Chuck, likely following the advice of Vic Ajlouny, is playing his hand badly. Luckily for him, the local media isn't that interested in forcing him to do better.

Mea Culpa

Yesterday, I posted an item that indicated Pat Waite was being disingenuous in response to questions he received on Friday's post.

I read his response too quickly. While not providing a direct "I'm voting Yes on Prop 8", his response was consistent with what he told the Values Advocacy Council.

I was wrong, corrected my mistake, and apologize to Mr. Waite.