Gomez, Gomez, Gone.

The Merc yesterday revealed that Reed's Budget Director and Milpitas Councilmember Armando Gomez is leaving the Mayor's office, effective in August. Good for him, getting that paid July recess.

The two questions that emerge: why, and who's in line to take over? This position has, historically, been the most important for Mayors in recent history - Gonzales' was Joe Guerra, who faced the DA gauntlet by Ron's side, and Hammer's was Bob Brownstein, now a professional policy wonk, so the next move bears some scrutiny.

First, the why. There are two reasons people leave jobs like this mid-tenure. It was their choice, or it was their boss's. Gomez, one should note, spent years on Reed's staff before he became Mayor, diminishing the likelihood that he became unhappy. But rumblings on the 18th floor indicate the most likely option is this: Reed was shutting Gomez out.

In his brief stint, Gomez presided over the Mayor's most embarrassing debacle to date - the flawed process by which he tried to make the case that worker salaries needed to be gutted to save the budget. But it's unlikely Gomez is simply the fall guy for Reed's mounting bad press - it seems far more likely that in Reed's crony cabal of Munro, Ajlouny and McEnery there was less and less room for a more moderate Gomez. Did Gomez give up on trying to make a dent? Or were Reed's outside influences frustrated that didn't? Either way, this is the front-runner for why.

Then, there's the who. Their lame jokes (and a complete lack of analysis) aside, the Merc offered no theories on who will step up. So, once again, we'll fill the vacuum and name the likely contenders.

Dean Munro. McEnery's former Chief of Staff is a natural to step in to this position. Moving from the Sports Authority to the RDA was a simple step to reinject himself into the civic debate. Moving in as Reed's Cheney (side-stepping Reed's lackluster Chief of Staff Pete Furman) would be a natural fit.

Vic Ajlouny. Why not make it official? Reed doesn't make a move without checking in with Vic and McEnery. Granted, he lives in Nebraska, but Reed certainly couldn't be less effective in moving new policy.

Someone you've never heard of. This was his move with Ru Weerakoon, appointing the unknown RDA expert to lead on economic development. Same with Furman, who, until early 2007, was best known as Reed's campaign driver.

Other thoughts? Let us know. Expect an announcement after the fiscal year wraps up in June.

Quick Notes

• The Mercury News on Sunday told us that Chuck is far too busy to listen to his constituents, sometimes even having "multiple appearances on some days"! They summarize the best ways to get things done in the City without relying on him, but the online version of this list skips the second recommendation. Presumably because it's in bad taste to suggest campaign contributions two years before the Mayoral election.
• Josh Molina wrote about Little Saigon again. Rumor on the street is that, when the Council finally voted on this, Josh cried all night.
• Obnoxious Blowhards redesigned their site, and now have huge ads prominently featured on the main page. Not a shock, given lobbyist Tom McEnery's deep respect for the American dollar. But they too are having some contextual ad problems, as evidenced below:
  
  

Quick Notes

• Well, the "Virtual Valley Network" (meaning it's not a network? Not a valley? Almost a valley network?) certainly has a capable partner in Channel 11. After all, who else could break this critical story about UFOs in Capitola? If there were lady aliens, I guess maybe Pulcrano.
• A tipster notes that reporter Josh Molina, he who scribes the increasingly dull Internal Affairs column on Sundays, has some difficulty identifying between China and Japan. As evidenced by his reporting Forrest Williams' absence from the Little Saigon Council meeting.
  
  A helpful guide:
  
  
  Another fun fact for you, Josh: China has the largest population in the world!
  
• An interesting comparison via Google Trends of the popularity of certain search topics over time - in this case, Little Saigon vs. Chuck Reed. Chuck had a spike in news volume during the high-water mark of his tenure, the Green Vision proposal, but Little Saigon wins handily of late. In the ever more important Googlefight, however, Chuck gets trounced.

Ow.

Ladies and gents, please allow us to present, hot off the fax from a tipster, an editorial from the August 17, 2001, edition of the San Jose Mercury News. My favorite parts are highlighted in yellow.



Please note that, while McEnery's obituary may have been premature, it's still his family that does all the heavy lifting.

(And for those who don't follow the headline, please allow a humor expert to explain.)

Council's Main Investment In Little Saigon: Time

OK. Seriously this time. Little Saigon is done. Over. No more protests, rumbling stomachs or unending public comment. No more swamping of Council schedules and no more live feeds from CBS. It's done. There's a sign. Great.

And not a moment too soon. We went back and took a look at exactly how much of the Council's time this issue has taken since it was first brought up at the November 20th meeting. And though we deal in snark and, to a lesser extent, cynicism - the answer was still surprising.

Council Meeting Time Allocation since November 20, 2007

Quick key: the red areas are time that was spent during Council meetings hearing testimony or discussing the issue. The blue area is everything else.

And, yes, that's correct. A full 20% - one-fifth - of the Council's meeting time has been occupied by this issue since November. Of 61 hours of meetings, over 12 hours were spent on this one issue.

On a meeting-by-meeting basis, it looks like this:


All of the Saigon time came in three meetings, on 11/20, 3/4 and yesterday, 3/25.

So good riddance, issue. Glad it is resolved, and glad the Council finally led where the Mayor balked. But just imagine if that 20% of their time had been spent on the budget, or on addressing the City's homicide problem.

Final thought: how on earth was the February 5th meeting only 23 minutes long? It takes Pierluigi longer than that to shave!

Blast From The Past: Pat Dando Sells Herself

Rest assured - this is not related to the preceding article.

In 1995, Dando ran in a special election in District 10. To more ably get the word out about her fireball of a candidacy, her campaign created and distributed the following video on VHS tape.



If you aren't interested in watching, or are afraid you'll be hypnotized by that hairstyle, let us summarize for you.

• Pat Dando is against taxes.
• The City was wrong to remove the nativity scene from Christmas in the Park (hear that, Christians?), particularly when it proceeded to add that "serpent sculpture" permanently (hear that, white folks?).
• We need more cops.
• We should protect open space but, and this is a quote, "find appropriate locations for golf courses."
• Random clips of unnamed individuals reading cue cards in support of Dando's strong track record.
• Dando owns a kitchen table.
• Also, she's against taxes.

The best part, though, comes at the end, when Pat Dando pledges to run "a positive campaign." She says, and this is a quote:

I think we're all tired of negative campaigning.

But don't worry, San Joseans of 1995, we'll embrace it again in ten years.

Metro Removed From Blockbuster Due To Prostitution Ads

Well, it's shaping up to be a rough year for Dan Pulcrano.

The free well-written and interesting weekly magazine The Wave has an article titled, "Prostitutes in Cyberspace," which looks at a crack-down on prostitution by local law enforcement.

In the article, law enforcement officials draw a clear line between prostitution and the Metro, to a remarkable extent. As the article notes:

An internet search draws up a host of sites with lurid names that advertise “escort services” specific to the Bay Area, including one (dubbed “Sexy San Jose”) whose phone number directs callers to the classifieds department of Metro.

This is true! Visiting the site Sexy San Jose.com (which should not be visited from conservative workplaces) points to the phone number 200-1362, which is a Metro advertising number. The site is explicit in its purpose - promoting and selling any and all sex-related items - including companionship, so to speak.

In a separate article, The Wave relays the following anecdote:

Indeed, the content of these ads may already be taking their toll on the Metro. Blockbuster Video outlets had recently begun distributing the alt-weekly, but The Wave learned that the video giant had recently developed second thoughts.

“We were not aware that this publication was in our store and we’ve made the decision to pull it out,” said Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for the Dallas-based Blockbuster.

Emphasis in the original and no pun intended, we're sure.

As we demonstrated last week, the Metro would be in a difficult financial position if it followed the lead of other weeklies in dropping adult ads. The moment has come for Dan Pulcrano to decide: which is more important, the community, or his wallet? I think we can guess which he chooses.

The Merc's Contextual Ads Strike Again

Only a week or two after this unfortunate ad placement, the Merc's automated system strikes again, perhaps in an attempt to push the tackiness meter even further. In an article on the discovery of the body of an unfortunate woman named Chiquita Ford, you guessed it:

Hello. Mrs. Robinson?

A young Dan Pulcrano places an imaginary phone call to his future life-partner-in-deviousness, Patricia Dando, via photo composite. Based on what the two look like now, I'd assume these photos were taken shortly after World War I.

The Metro: A Boon To The Community

We have consistently made mention of the fact that the Metro has a lot of adult ads. Not that we're prudes or anything, but a business which makes as much money from prostitution as does Dan Pulcrano's is certainly an odd candidate for lionization as a productive contributor to society. Prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution.

Perhaps an explanation for that last sentence is in order. According to a calculation, based on this week's Metro, the ratio of real estate devoted to actual content compared to ads for prostitutes is about 7.5 to 1. As in, for every 7.5 square inches of content, there's a square inch of ads for hookers (and a few other adult products).

Applying the ratio to the words that comprise the first two sentences in the first paragraph (the content, if you will) means we need to have prostitution mentioned eight times in order to meet Pulcrano's high standards. And if we were going to represent the advertising in an appropriate ratio, it would have to be mentioned 121 times.

But don't take our word for it. See for yourself below. The whole spread, at left, is categorized at right: light yellow is "content", gray is advertising, pink, adult and prostitution ads.

Pulcrano got lucky this week: porn is only 7% of all advertising, because there's a massive food section, which is just an excuse to sell more food ads. That section is in dark gray. Taking that section out, porn ads are 14% of the printed space, but a far higher percentage in terms of numbers of ads.



Long story short: Dan Pulcrano has made a substantial amount of money offering the community dross and cheap sex, and little else. To use that as a basis for assuming some "responsible citizen" mantle is ludicrous. (Prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution prostitution. Ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads ads.)

San Jose: Wallet To The World

Cleanliness may be next to Godliness, but somehow I don't think our religious fervor is why Presidential candidates always stop by for fundraisers.

A tool on the Huffington Post - Fundrace - reveals where, and how much, our neighbors are giving to Presidential candidates.

Let's say your neighbor is Paul Krutko. He gave $450 (of taxpayer money!!! (a.k.a. his salary)) to Hillary Clinton. Or maybe your neighbor is Janet Gray Hayes, who ponied up $375 to Bill Richardson. If you see Henry Manayan out washing his car, ask him why he gave the curious amount of $501 to Hillary.

Want to see where your neighbbors are giving? Sure you do. You can use this handy form to search for a zip code. It will display results in a new window.

Check zip code:

Best Ofs For March 18, 2008

Best quote:

"It is too small for a hospital."

HCA flack Gary Schoennauer in an article about what do with with the site of the former San Jose Medical Center which, according to experts, was a hospital.

Best ad seen on the Mercury News website:

Not sure if it's the fact that San Antonio is swooping in to poach our companies, or the idea that Steve Jobs, perusing the Merc's website, might rethink this whole Cupertino thing, or the fact that Microsoft is so prominently featured despite their fairly well-known Washington address or the lame Spurs reference, but this ad just sounds the right note. Gotta see if SanAntonioRevealed.com is available...

Best photo of Chuck Reed's true nature on Flickr:

Photo taken by jeffrey95112.

Aw, Shucks. What Did We Do?

Today we received legal notice from our domain host that the good folks at the Metro wanted us to remove some content from this site. No, it's not that Pulcrano is being sued for fraud, or that he has suspect journalistic integrity, or that nearly a quarter of his rag is occupied by sex ads.

No, instead the Metro takes issue with two photos which have been up since October. Specifically, photos of young people out on the town. The young people being Sam Liccardo, Pierluigi and Sam's significant other. There is also a photo of Dan Pulcrano who is trying to look young. The original posts can be seen here and here, with the photos replaced with verbal descriptions of the pictures that may or may not be more flattering than the photos themselves.

My feeling is this: if Dan Pulcrano can win only one legal action this year, I hope it's this one. Why's he so mad at us, anyway?

Attention: Imminent Press Conference

David Pandori and Tom McEnery really, really hate casinos. So much so that they, during the 2006 Mayoral race, held a press conference condemning the imaginary influence of casinos on the Democratic Party and, by extension, Cindy Chavez. A very long, dubious extension.

During this press conference, in which they sprayed City Hall's new sandstone facade with angry man spittle, each touted his strong line against casinos while Mayor/Councilmember, and railed against the hidden effort to bring casinos to our City. (A video clip is available via the link above.)

So they'll doubtless become apoplectic when they see this photo sent by a tipster:


Prepare to be chilled to the bone. The name of that casino, emblem of evil and corruption of our children, appears on a list of new members of the Chamber of Commerce.

I'm not sure what time the press conference in which Tom and David (oh, and Chuck, who plays some role in their cabal) will be - once we find out, we'll let you know. Or maybe, recognizing the complete ineffectiveness of the Chamber at actually bringing jobs to the City, they'll give them a pass.

Or maybe that first press conference during the Mayor's race was complete grand-standing by men desperate to hold on to the old system of power and privilege they established.

Only the Shadow knows.

Stay Classy, Mercury News

We are not making this up.

This is how the Merc presented their story about the end of Ly Tong's hunger strike. Very sophisticated matching of ad with content.

And, hey, fact checkers - he's not Chinese. He's Vietnamese. You should have at least been able to figure that out from context.

BREAKING: Council Settles Little Saigon

According to multiple tipsters, after months and months (and months) of failure by the Mayor to resolve the Little Saigon issue, Councilmembers are bringing the issue back to Council to approve the Little Saigon designation.

An email sent out by Little Saigon activists indicates that Councilmembers will introduce a memo asking for Little Saigon signage in the district as originally designated. And, apparently, Henry Le is strongly supportive - no doubt because of the bogus petition passed around at the last Council meeting.

So, in other words, thanks for the complete lack of leadership, Chuck Reed! Let's all hope that, with the Council coming together to get the job done this issue can be off everyone's plates from here on out. And also hope that no other arises for the next four years that requires strong leadership.

And if you want to have Ly Tong over for dinner, give him a call.

District Two Race Loses A Candidate. Poor Chamber.

Council District 2 candidate Jackie Adams left the race today, citing a family emergency. Adams was one of the top candidates in the race, and her leaving would seem to put Ash Kalra firmly in the front-runner position. The loser here: the Chamber, who may now have to settle for progressive, labor-friendly Kalra. A tipster who claimed inside knowledge of the Chamber's thinking alerted us to their Adams strategy last month - hey tipster! Keep us updated!

Seems unlikely that she would endorse, particularly over the short term, but we'll see, won't we? A (now somewhat old) look at who's running where is here.

Quick Notes

• Josh "Little Saigon" Molina continues to demonstrate why he got to keep his job with yet another article on Little Saigon. Far easier, particularly in light of their smaller staff, would be for the Merc to simply run a banner above the masthead every day reading, "Little Saigon issue still a mess," until it finally gets resolved, one way or the other.
• Since there are arguably more important issues. Case in point: from the beginning of the year, the Merc has been mapping the city's homicides as they occur.
  
  
  Unsurprisingly, the East Side is well-represented. Glad that Councilmember Campos got kicked off the gang task force.
  
  Incidentally, the map is missing yesterday's homicide: a man found dead in a cul-de-sac in District 8.
• A new contest: which is the more suspicious fire, IBM Building 25 or 2002's massive Santana Row fire? The voting hotline is open now!
• Finally, as much as we mock the Merc (note to self: possible new name, Mockery News?) at least, in their lame attempts to tie Eric Hernandez to some huge mega conspiracy, they actually bothered to ask Hernandez and his lawyers about it. Unlike Fraudulent Business Practices Weekly (formerly the Metro), which is happy to sling garbage without actually doing any legwork. The Metro's phones are probably always tied up by Pulcrano calling the numbers in the back of each issue. He could have been Client #10, if only it weren't outside his price range.

The Axe Is Lowered UPDATED

The Mercury News slashed more staff today. The biggest name, according to a tipster: Barry Witt.

UPDATE: A blog has a full list of the firees. Beware the Jabberwock, my son.

More as we get more info.

Everyone In The World Has Announced Whether Or Not They Will Run For Supervisor

Here's the up-to-date list. Feel free to suggest others, or add yourselves in the comments.

Seat 2
David Pandori: no.
Michael Mulcahy: no.
Cindy Chavez: no.
George Shirakawa: yes.
Richard Hobbs: eventually, yes.
Teresa Alvarado: yes. But, according to a tipster, only until she realized she didn't live in the district. Oops. Bear in mind, that has never stopped...
Abe Diaz: of course!

Seat 4
Dave Cortese: yes.
Otto Lee: yes.
Jose Esteves: yes.
Daisy Chu: no, yes, no.
Abe Diaz: if possible.

Please also note: expected turn-out will likely not exceed this list of names, so it should be a barn-burner.

Napa, Vic Ajlouny. Vic, Napa.

When you see the following quote in a newspaper article:

The local proponents of the informally named Responsible Growth Initiative, who so far have declined to identify the backers the effort, are paying hired guns to gather signatures to place the initiative on the June ballot — hired guns strongly linked to conservative causes.

...one name comes to mind. And, sure enough, it appears later on in the story. Vic Ajlouny.

A tipster sent us this tale of Vic's current demonstration of his commitment to openness in decision-making, and his eagerness to go to the ballot. An anonymous group in Napa has hired a local attorney and Vic to try to stop an effort to build housing by lauding the mantra of "responsible growth".

The tipster included the filing report for the group (warning: big PDF file) which makes clear that the attorney is the primary sponsor. The news article's primary question: who is actually behind the "movement"?

Tangential to San Jose, to be sure, but certainly representative of Vic Ajlouny, unpaid advisor and confidante to our Mayor.

It Takes A "Virtual Valley Network" To Hold Us Back

Well, we've created some not-unexpected bedfellows.

Today, the entitled old guard representatives at San Jose Inside (aka Obnoxious Blowhards, aka The Lying Lobbyist) have announced a collaboration with the Metro and Boulevards (who, you may have heard, are being sued for fraud), the always-influential Los Gatos Observer and NBC 11. Coincidental that it happens now that we've managed to reveal some robust hypocrisies on the parts of the two major actors.

None of this is unexpected and, frankly, means little. Low-traffic websites pointing at each other does not a juggernaut make. But the inclusion of NBC 11 makes one wonder. Do they know exactly what position they're staking out with this partnership? Are they expecting the kind of biased content they'll receive? And what does their involvement look like? We'll try to get some answers.*

In the meantime, welcome to the new, impotent coalition of angry men. We look forward to writing about the various lawsuits, lies and hypocrisies of you collectively, instead of individually. Should save some time.

* Via an emailed query to them. Body of the email is in the comments.

Caution: Artists At Work

There's some kind of symbolism here, but damned if I can figure it out.


Is it that the Little Saigon issue will come back again? That Madison's career is still alive? And why is Hillary laughing at Madison? Did Hillary speak last night?

Help us, Mercury News! Your visual metaphors are lost on us!

Could Today Be The Last Day Of This Nonsense?

Come 8pm, we may finally have resolution in this increasingly contentious conflict. Who will win? The older, dogmatic politician? Or the cause and the minority communities that champion it?

The Mercury News, as you know, has championed the cause on its editorial pages, after weeks and weeks of coverage. (Some would say too much coverage.) But it seems quite possible that the winner tonight will go on to another fight later this year.

Alright. That's it. Can't stretch that analogy out any further.

It must be said, thought, that there is certainly an odd precedent being set by the Mercury News. Say what you will about San Jose politics, but we've been fairly good about resolving deeply contentious issues through conversation, negotiation and compromise. This issue has seen little of that. Various parties have tried to step in and broker a solution, the Mercury News included, but to no avail. Advocates on both sides have refused to see any shade of gray. Ending the fight by rolling over doesn't seem like a good way to prevent fights like this in the future - much less fights fought like this.

But we'll be glad to see the issue disappear. A quick Google search reveals that the perception of the Mercury News as over-emphasizing this fight may be accurate. Searching the Merc site for the term Little Saigon yields 8,000 results, whereas searching for Barack Obama yields only 4,300. Mrs. Clinton warrants only 2,500 or so.

Maybe March 5, 2008, can be the day we move forward on resolving real issues in the city. Assuming of course that the Council meeting, which begins discussing this at 7pm, finishes hearing testimony before tomorrow ends.

Pulcrano Lawsuit Documents

More information has come from the tipster who alerted us to the Pulcrano lawsuit story, which is a lot of fun to type. Dan Pulcrano: sued! Try it! It's fun!

We've been sent the full original complaint by Finley, and the response by Pulcrano. In his response he, not surprisingly, denies that he defrauded his one-time business partner.

For those wondering - yes, this is the same Dan Pulcrano who sits on the Sunshine Task Force, who railed against City ethics as the Mercury News made it fashionable, and who is rumored to have run cindychavez.net - a smear website against Cindy Chavez which no longer exists - during the Mayoral election. A hypocrite of the highest order.

As the case progresses, we'll keep you up to date on happenings. With enthusiasm.