What's $500,000 Among Friends?

If you're like me, you're still incredibly mad that the City didn't name that stretch of Story Road "Little Saigon", at least at first. You're probably also of Vietnamese ethnicity and probably not actually from San Jose.

So, since we're all still so mad about that, we're probably thrilled that the price tag on a recall election will be $30,000 at a minimum, or as much as half a million dollars if it can't get on the November ballot - this according to a report from NBC 11.

The City being flush with cash and all, this is a wise investment. I mean, come on! She was found to have not violated the Brown Act!

(Sarcasm rules!)

Quote Of The Day

"The way you make change is generally in a collaborative manner."

- Patricia "Pat" Dando, the city's number one purveyor of disingenuousness and vituperation, in the article about Nora Campos.

Seriously? I mean, seriously? Of course, she did say that it's the way you make change - not the way she makes change. Since she doesn't.

Anyway, on the plus side - it seems Madison Nguyen isn't the only person on Molina's hit list.

Note To The Onion

We don't have a St. Vincent's, smart asses.

Why Does Josh Molina Hate Madison Nguyen?

At some point, Mercury News reporter Josh Molina decided that the most important issue in San Jose was the renaming of a relatively unpopulated stretch of Story Road. Since the "Little Saigon" issue bubbled to the surface, he's written any number of articles, both in the main paper and in the Sunday Internal Affairs column, parsing even the smallest minutiae of the decision. (Was Ly Tong's "after" photo doctored? Enquiring minds want to know!)

What cannot be denied, however, is that he has identified his bad guy: Councilmember Nguyen.

Two examples from the last week.

In his article "'Saigon' recall effort starts", Molina leads his description of Nguyen's attendance at a conference of young elected officials this way:

Madison Nguyen was 2,000 miles from Silicon Valley, hobnobbing with other young elected officials in Little Rock, Ark., when the controversy over "Little Saigon" returned to haunt her.

The word "hobnobbing", with its implication of elitism, is carefully chosen to contrast with Molina's depiction of an angry cabal of Vietnamese activists as a grassroots movement. He goes on:

Even though thousands of people descended on City Hall for two separate votes on the issue, and the group held regular Tuesday rallies in front of the building, with many people calling Nguyen a "traitor," the councilwoman said her opponents are a small group of people and "not an entire Vietnamese community."

As Molina well knows, the thousands included many from outside the community. Relative to the nearly 100,000 people in District 7, this is, in actuality, a small group. Yet Molina seeks to disparage Nguyen's attitude to the situation by contrasting it with inflated, inaccurate information.

Then, Sunday's Internal Affairs, to which Molina is a primary contributor. The title of her item alone, "Recall target Nguyen junks her junket request," attempts to depict Nguyen unflatteringly, using the term "junket" to describe a trip similar to those taken by every Councilmember with regularity. In fact, "junket" typically refers to a trip taken at taxpayer expense (the old "I gotta research the Hawaiian suntan lotion shortage" stereotype), which this trip was not. The entire existence of the piece, of course, is intended simply to cast aspersions at Nguyen's professionalism and work ethic - something that, at least in some communities, Molina's other "reporting" has already accomplished.

I'd like to think that Molina sees himself on a classic crusade against injustice and flawed governance. But it seems to this observer (and many others, if you review the comments on his articles), that his motivation is, instead, filling column inches with inflammatory depictions that reinforce the worst views of those who seek elected office. I have a strong hunch that articles like that are easier to write.

Quick Notes

• The Merc covers a debate between Shirakawa and Hobbs. One of the other candidates showed up too, which is cute.
  
  The lack of love between them was made apparent. Hobbs criticized Shirakawa's Council votes, which is no surprise given that he made the same attacks in his campaign launch letter. Kinda jumped in with both feet.
• The vote Hobbs hit, incidentally, as mentioned in the article, was on the living wage in the City.
  
  It seems Councilmembers Williams and Cortese are giving a new generation of politicians something to be attacked on, by proposing applying living wage for more airport workers like skycaps and baggage handlers.
  
  So our airport, in trying to staff key positions in highly secured areas has been competing for workers with McDonald's? Good to know.
  
  The airport's spokesperson in the article is David Vossbrink, whose former job was trying to get Ron Gonzales to look like a good guy. Say what you will - Vossbrink likes a challenge.
• A Google Ad for Obnoxious Blowhards was spotted in the wild, according to a tipster. The title? 'Tom McEnery's Blog'. Who, upon reading that while searching for related items (like, say, "viagra". Or "The Inferno".) wouldn't click through?
• Shouldn't a professional football player be able to run more than "a short distance" before falling down? Oh, he was a 49er.

Recall Campaign Underway. Sort Of.

Josh Molina, in his continuing crusade to make news out of the Little Saigon affair, breaks the story that the group seeking recall of Madison Nguyen have enough signatures to move the process forward. The required number of signatures? 50. Not exactly a robust demonstration of support.

The process gives Nguyen a window to respond to the community's complaints, at which point they can begin amassing a far more substantial number of signatures in order to get the issue on the ballot. A guess - a lot of those signatures will be from members of the Vietnamese community.

Which brings me to my point. The percentage of registered voters in District 7 that are Vietnamese hovers just shy of one-quarter - a lot, to be sure, but less than 50%. In other words, the recall coalition needs to either a) count on low turnout, almost necessitating a special, one-item-only election or b) make the case to those unmoved on the Little Saigon issue.

Perhaps the group's website will help convince non-Vietnamese residents. To quote from the main page:

Để có được kết quả như ngày hôm nay cộng đồng chúng ta đã phải đánh đổi bằng mồi hôi, nước mắt và tài chánh trong những đêm-ngày giá buốt lạnh lẻo đến cắt xương và sự hy sinh đói khát của người hùng Lý Tống. Chúng ta đã cùng nhau cất lên tiếng hát “ Một cánh tay đưa lên, hàng vạn cánh tay đưa lên quyết đấu tranh cho một nền hòa bình công chính….”

Touché! Game, set and match.

In fact, the site is heavily focused on the Vietnamese community. Nearly the only page that has English is the Purpose of Recall page, which focuses primarily on, you guessed it, Little Saigon. Also in English - the found-on-every-website Org Chart page which reads simply, "here is content." Which, for those with an eye for such things, is a paradox.

In summary: Madison Nguyen is sleeping soundly at night. For now.

MediaNews To Face Discrimination Suit?

A tipster reports to us that MediaNews, the current owner of the beloved Mercury News, may face a discrimination lawsuit surrounding the firing of former music writer Brad Kava.

According to the tipster, Kava, who was recently laid off although his column archive and photo remain online, plans to sue MediaNews for seven figures for firing him based on age discrimination.

Apparently, the Merc has a process by which each story is graded by the supervising editor for a section. Kava's stories (again, according to the tipster) consistently scored higher than two other critics, Marian Liu and Shay Quillen, but Liu and Quillen kept their jobs.

Kava, since leaving the Merc, has launched a music blog. Injecting a million dollars or so into that enterprise surely couldn't hurt.

UPDATE: A tipster notes that Liu also lost her job. And that I'd spelled "stories" wrong, which is Metroesque.

UPDATED, AGAIN: Kava, in the comments below and on KLIV, denies the story.

We Have A Winner!

A short eight days after we broke the story, this weekend's Internal Affairs column in the Merc touched on Rose Herrera's bankruptcy. This, for those playing along at home, marks the first time one of our Ignore-o-Meter™ posts, as measured at right, has actually made it into the news.

(And, for some reason, for the second week in a row, Internal Affairs isn't up on the Merc's website, so you'll have to dig around in your recycling to read the article.) (The joke there, of course, is assuming that you get the Merc, which a recent study shows is only delivered to 13 houses in San Jose.)

But, of course, the Merc missed the key point, in their eagerness to, once again, portray this blog as being bought and paid for by Labor - which, once again, it is not. (Tired of being scooped, Josh?)

The key point here is that the Chamber of Commerce consistently endorses candidates who have failed in the business world to run for office. Hon Lien, Rose Herrera. It's a far bigger statement to the quality of the Chamber's leadership than to the quality of the candidate who, it must be admitted, is no Hon Lien. Which is a good thing.

The Chamber just better hope that Rose's campaign is stronger than Hon's. And Mulcahy's. And Tedesco's. And de la Rosa's. Anyone we're forgetting?

A Look At The Local Economy

I spend a lot of time on this blog complaining about how much time the City's premier lobbyist, Tom McEnery, spends swelling his own wallet. But there's a real flip side to snarky critiques of his (and his cronies') obsession with the dollar - the growing group of San Joseans whose lot is getting much, much worse, as Tom McEnery and Chuck Reed focus on upper middle-class issues like spending more time walking and installing solar panels.

What about this, Mr. Mayor, and Mr. Ex-Mayor?


Several months ago, I linked to the blog for Working Partnerships, a think-tank affiliated with the Labor Council. A email tip pointed me to their series this week, addressing such issues as the shrinking middle class, inflation and housing (from which the graph above comes).

I know that the public perception out there is that I'm a labor apologist - something I've addressed before. But there is bias, and there are facts. From the blog:

• Foreclosures increased 64% over last year.
• Healthcare costs are up 110%, food, 31%, since 2000.
• Income for the bottom 20% of Californians went up 1.4% since 1998. For the top 5%, it was up over 20%

The leadership of our City needs to address the problems our economy poses, and to do so over the short-term. And that leadership includes the self-appointed pundits whose incomes have skyrocketed as they convert pageviews into policy and anger into income.

Quick Notes

• Chamber sycophant RObert EMami has decided, by way of a survey that he paid for and no, you can't see, that some of your property, Rosegarden residents, is actually his. Look, just trust him. Why wouldn't you trust a developer?
  
  The amusing thing to this is how completely idiotic a PR move it is. It's not like he's deciding whether or not to buy the land - it's already his. So why not make the best of what he's got? It's not like he's going to squeeze another unit into that extra two feet of land.
  
• In discussing plans to lengthen the terms of VTA members, reporter Denis Theriault (quel bon nom!) reveals more about MediaNews then he perhaps intends:

  When most organizations brainstorm about solving problems, the words "new blood" usually come spilling out before the marker can hit the white board.

  This would certainly explain the Merc's recent upper management instabilities.
• The Metro's increasingly lame "insider" column seems to have morphed into a compendium of articles Pulcrano was too bored to flesh out entirely.
• The Merc editorializes in favor of limits on "robo-calls", including a proposal to state, up-front, who the call is from. I imagine that many, many people will be so intrigued by that disclaimer that they then listen to the full call.
  

McEnery Dislikes Taste

Let me be the first to admit that the term "ultra lounge" doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm too old - or maybe it's a made up term that's totally meaningless and simply attempts to impart some circa 1996 cachet on a fairly run-of-the-mill establishment designed for college kids to get loaded with "class".

You know, one of those places where they don't let you wear the sneakers you spent $150 on because you need to wear tacky dress shoes you spent $150 on, just to subsequently step in a pool of vomit as you stumble back to your car.

Point is: doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, that doesn't detract from my interest in a story a tipster sent about Taste Ultra Lounge, a two-year resident of San Pedro Square.

The tipster pointed me to the club's MySpace page (yes, really) where a long screed takes a strong stand against Tom McEnery and the concept of the paragraph. To excerpt:

Why is Taste San Jose closing? First and foremost I have always been against the phrase “it’s political”, until now! I can honestly tell you Carlos and I and Taste Ultra Lounge are victims of political power. Without boring you with all the details it came down to a San Jose judge ruling against us that we are illegally leasing the building. The worst part of it all is that the lawsuit was filed against us by our landlord Mr. John Snell who has been collecting our rent and cashing our rent checks for the last 2 years. So you ask why he would want you out of your lease? This is when things get interesting. John Snell sold our building to a company owned by Tom and John McEnery (yes the old mayor of San Jose). McEnery put in the escrow paperwork that one of the conditions for sale would be that John Snell had to cancel our lease and put us on a month to month rental agreement. We did have 2 more years on our current agreement and 2 more 5 year options (it is rumored that McEnery told Snell that he would do anything within his power to help get us out).

Emphasis added for purposes of sanity maintenance.

The Proustian rant continues by articulating McEnery's actions, which can be summarized, according to the folks at Taste Ultra Lounge™ (now in Scottsdale, Arizona!), thusly:

• McEnery buys Taste's building.
• Lawyers tell Taste they're illegally leasing the building, despite having had no incident there for the past 24 months.
• Taste gets a "vacate in 72 hours" notice.
• A jury trial is scheduled.
• Jury trial is cancelled.
• Taste told to leave.
• They look at another location.
• McEnery owns that one too, and the deal gets keiboshed.

Now, it's well known that Tom has beef with nightclubs (see multiple complaints at whiny weblog passim). But why this one that draws traffic to his golden goose, San Pedro Square?

The Taste boys (as they indicate they don't like to be called) have a theory:

We were told by another man that was at Taste taking measurements and pictures that he heard we attract to many Latinos and that’s why they wanted us to get out. I asked if the building was being leased and was told they would rather keep the building empty than to have my people here.

(Please add [sic]s as required.)

We all know, of course, that the local hero who tried to bestow upon us the gift of a statue of Thomas Fallon would never be so biased.

We'll leave with some disheartening words from the good folks at Taste Uber Lounge:

I am shocked at how the same people that say they love San Jose and love the people of San Jose can go around and use their power to bully around the small business owners of San Jose.

Apparently you're new here, boys. Welcome to our fair city.

Is "Smallesse" A Word?

Back in the old days - the Daley, Tweed and probably McEnery days - there was one way to get anything done in politics: pony up.

Times, as they say, have changed. I'm not sure how any of our local elected officials or candidates plan to get anything done, but very few of them have come across for our beloved Presidential candidates.

So, in the interest of your knowing exactly how much clout you can expect your electeds to have in Washington, here's the run-down of Council, Supes, and a few State folks. All information is from FundRace.

San Jose

• Reed: $0. You know if he could get reimbursed he would have given something.
• Constant: Nothing this year, but gave $240 to the Republican Party in 2004. Thanks for helping Bush get re-elected, Pete!
• Williams: Gave Kerry $250 in 2004.
• Liccardo: Nothing comes up for Sam, but his dad is pretty generous - giving over $3,000 to Hillary and Edwards.
• Chu: $0.
• Campos: $500 to Hillary, $250 to Richardson. Back in 2004, she gave the Democratic Party $250.
• Olives: Nothing in '08, but gave $110 to the Democrats in 2004. ($110?)
• Nguyen: $0. Ly Tong is considering a protest.
• Cortese: Nothing in '08, but $250 to Dean in 2004.
• Chirco: $0.
• Pyle: $500 to Hillary.

Council Candidates
In District 8, only Mann has contributed - $350 to Obama. Herrera would probably give but, well, you know...

In District 2, a little more diversity. A Ram Singh (may not be the candidate) has given a whopping $4,600 to Hillary. Ash Kalra has done alright, too, giving $1,075 to Hillary, $500 to Obama and $250 to Edwards. Back in 2004, he gave $500 to the Democrats.

County Folks
At the Board of Supervisors, only Kniss contributed, and that was back in 2004 - $1,000 to John Kerry. Kerry ended up losing a closely contested race.

State

• Beall: $2,000 to Hillary and $2,000 to Kerry back in 2004. Like Kerry, Hillary ended up losing a closely contested race, but she doesn't seem to know it yet.
• Alquist: $1,150 to Obama (!) and $1,000 to Kerry in 2004. Barack will be happy to know that at least one older white woman supports him in the Bay Area.

There you have it. Summary: we better hope McCain doesn't win.

Ethics, Candidates, And The Mercury News

One of the joys of living in the Silicon Valley is that every candidate is expected to have a campaign website, which will often reveal more about the candidate than is intended.

Take, for example, the website of Minh Duong, candidate for Council District 8. From the odd animation in the upper right corner ("Responsiveness"?) to the stark contrast of a sophisticated contributions page with a completely blank Issues page, to the odd banner in the background of this photo:

(A man who cares, indeed.)

All in all, some odd choices. But what is particularly striking is this quote from the Newsroom page:

"Minh Duong... Leading a pack of eight candidates to succeed Dave Cortese on the San Jose City Council."
San Jose Mercury News, March 29, 2008

Now, that sounds like an endorsement, which, unless we're mistaken, hasn't happened yet. The real article paints a fuller picture:

Fundraising reports this week show businessman Minh Duong and county education board member Craig Mann leading a pack of eight candidates to succeed Dave Cortese on the San Jose City Council....

In the race for the termed-out Cortese's District 8 seat, Duong raised nearly $26,000 this year and Mann almost $25,000. Both also lent their campaigns $20,000. Duong still has more than $41,000 and Mann more than $48,000 to spend.

In other words, the paper was referring to leading on only one metric: fundraising. And, as we pointed out a few weeks ago, Duong isn't even leading that.

A few months back, we were faxed a document the Mercury News sent out to candidates for office that articulated how and where quotes from them could be used. It indicated that cherry-picking like this was a no-no. Of course, as is our luck, we lost the document. But somehow we'd guess that those rules didn't have an expiration date.

The Chamber Endorses Rose Herrera. Naturally.

Yesterday, word leaked out from a few tipsters that the Chamber had taken a bold stance in the crowded District 8 field - endorsing Rose Herrera. And sure enough, last night, there it was in black-and-white on her webpage:


Well, I guess it makes sense, given the following quote from Herrera's webpage:

We need real leadership to solve San Jose’s budget problems and make sure that local government is transparent and efficient....

I am running for City Council because I have the passion and skills to tackle these challenges head-on.

After serving in the U.S. Air Force, I built and ran a software manufacturing company with 150 employees.

Sounds like the kind of business leader the Chamber can get behind, doesn't it?

Now, those of you who've been paying attention may remember, from one short year ago, the last business leader that the Chamber got behind. Her name was Hon Lien and, as unfolded over the course of a few days here on this humble website, it turned out she wasn't all that she and her Chamber backers claimed to be. In fact, Lien had driven her company into the ground, eventually filing bankruptcy and owing various creditors thousands of dollars.

Well, guess what.




Her consultant might want to ask for the money up front.

But, of course, it gets worse. The bankruptcy sits alongside two personal small claims filings from 1992 and 1999 indicating that Herrera paid almost $2,000 to people who took her to court. On one of these, the name appears to have a typo ("Rosei") so, giving her the benefit of the doubt, I poked around a little more.

In searching for these small claims on the County website, I discovered that, pre-bankruptcy, Herrera was sued as the head of Cinnamon Software. Indeed, on her police endorsement announcement she states:

As founder and CEO of Cinnamon Software, Rose Herrera oversaw the growth and development of this Silicon Valley software manufacturing company for 10 years.

Being the nosy person that I am, I then plug 'Cinnamon Software' into the small claims search tool.

Cinnamon Software has been sued nearly 30 times.



And the list goes on. In fact, feel free to peruse it yourself. Sued by Caltron Publications. Anacomp. National Mailing. San Jose Forklift. Sued by any number of businesses, big and small, some of whom are undoubtedly members in good standing of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce.

OK. So, unless I'm mistaken, filing bankruptcy and having your business sued by dozens of others for failure to pay your bills is not a strong testament to a) your being a good manager of money or b) your ability to solve fiscal problems. An unfortunate circumstance for Rose personally, to be sure - but a circumstance that will make it all but impossible for her to win in June, in a crowded primary race.

But the real question here is this:
What the hell is the Chamber of Commerce thinking?

After getting soundly smacked only twelve months ago, they endorse another candidate with the exact same problems? Are they not aware that you can do background checks on people? It costs twenty dollars. Twenty. Pat "Helmet Hair" Dando can't spare twenty bucks?

But more than that, these are candidates being chosen by the business community. The cops endorsed Herrera, too, but they're not supposed to be the organization that is advocating for strong business leaders. I mean, this is Silicon Valley. Our county has a higher average wage than anywhere else in the country, meaning there must be some effective businesses out there - but the genius leaders at the Chamber of Commerce consistently pick bankrupt debtors as their voices on the Council.

Ridiculous and embarrassing. But, you know what? I'm kinda feeling better.

Under The Weather

I seem to have the flu, if I'm reading my body's signals correctly. Will try to post tomorrow.

Feel free to think of your own insults on McEnery, et al, until I return.

Very Quick Notes

Short update today due to business trip.

But two quick notes:

• A tipster notes that Krutko and the RDA aren't the only ones who don't know downtown. The Metro, in their food issue flag five modern Vietnamese restaurants to love. Or, more specifically, three, since two, Onyx and - the RDA's favorite - Saigon 75, are closed.
  
  Or maybe not, since the Metro also gets the name of the restaurant wrong, labeling it Saigon 77.
• Anyone else find it incongruous that McEnery's blog would share content with Silicon Valley De-Bug? I realize the connection is Dan Pulcrano, but I think Jayadev's latest screed about the goings-on of the kiddies falls flat for the Obnoxious Blowhards crowd.
  
  It does fit in, though, in being very poorly written. Maybe that's the link.

You're Doing A Heck Of A Job, Krutkie!

Paul Krutko, he of Eraserhead hair and the head of the City's Economic Development hit squad, might not be a big fan of the folks over at the Redevelopment Agency these days.

It seems the RDA sent out a beautiful, glossy brochure touting the East Santa Clara Street Business District. The piece entices with tales of the area's established businesses, proximity to City Hall, and the growing demographics in this "thriving neighborhood".

In fact the piece, which a tipster faxed to us, has these two inspirational quotes from local business owners:


Of course, you knew there was a hook. Specifically, that these two businesses, Saigon 75 and 10th Street Pharmacy are both out of business. And, not only that, they're the only two businesses quoted in the brochure.

Granted, Mr. Krutko (whose job it is to assist business in coming to - and staying in - the City) is very busy writing his regular column for the Chamber's newsletter - an organization to which he proudly gives over a hundred grand a year. But maybe a little more time spent actually developing the economy might be worthwhile.

Just Like In The Old Country

A tipster has provided us a bounty of interesting bits of info that twist and turn like the back alleys of old Dublin-town.

For those unaware, Tom McEnery is an Irish-American. Also, the ocean is vast and two plus two is four.

While he was Mayor, back when the crime rate was near an all-time high and before San Jose was the economic juggernaut it became under Mayor Hammer, Mayor Tom instantiated the Dublin-San Jose sister city relationship. But unlike other such partnerships, this one resulted in a real sharing of knowledge.

Two examples:
Using power as a capitalist enterprise. McEnery's partner in establishing the sister cities was one Bertie Ahern, then mayor of Dublin, now Ireland's Prime Minister (or taoiseach, pronounced "prym MIN-ih-stur"). Unfortunately, Mr. Ahern (who, during a 2006 visit to our city made a special effort to thank Tommy for keeping in touch) will not be taoiseach much longer, given an investigation around his receiving cash payments from businessmen during the 1990s. According to investigators, he received hundreds of thousands of Irish pounds for which he offered no explanation - at one point, earning two-and-a-half times his official salary. Ahern should have stayed in San Jose, where the definition of a bribe is a lot murkier.

McEnery, of course, worked the other side of the street when it came to making money during his tenure - most notably moving an arena in next door to his restaurant row. Since leaving office, this happy coincidence, criticized by the DA, has resulted in enormous financial benefit to the entire McEnery clan. But there are other ways to cash in.

Making money with rezoning and development. A quote from the BBC's article:

Dublin has been the scene of a huge property boom over the past decade, but also haphazard planning, in part fuelled by corrupt land deals rubberstamped by some local council politicians affiliated to the three main political parties, Ahern's Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour.

Re-zoning of land from agricultural to building land made multi-millionaires from the landowners, developers and builders who profited.

Now why does something about that sound familiar?

It was these builders who first caused trouble for Ahern, with one indicating that a rival had provided him 80,000 Irish pounds - over $150,000 - to facilitate a development deal.

In fact, our very own friend Tom McEnery got into the development game over there, launching a planned 25 million Euro hotel in Ballybunion, County Kerry. (25 million Euros, incidentally, is about $40 million. Not bad for a humble public servant.) Preservationist groups are opposing McEnery's hotel, concerned about the environmental impact and aesthetic fit. Apparently only Coyote Valley, where McEnery doesn't own land or restaurants, is worth preserving as open space.

-

You are known, as they say, by the company you keep. I think Bernie Ahern kept the wrong company.

No Wonder Romney Lost.

He was jinxed.

And You Thought The Merc Was In Trouble

Did you know that there's a house auction in Gilroy this weekend? No? Well, then you must not have seen the front page of the Merc today.

Tucked discreetly away in the lower right-hand corner is a subtle ad for said auction. According to our calculations, it occupies 11.26% of the entire front page. Yes, really. More than a tenth. If you still haven't spotted it, we called it out in the image at right.

This ties neatly into the Merc's buoyancy strategy which also seems to include blizzards of spam. Next time, though, let's go above the fold!

On the plus side, though - what a deal on a house in Gilroy! The garlic aroma alone is worth 200k.

Daughter Of Elected Official Makes Views Heard. Finally!

Apparently, daughters are the "in" accessory for politicos these days: from Obnoxious Blowhard's Single Gal to fighter pilot Kim Reed to Miss Chelsea Clinton.

And, of course, add another to the mix:

The tipster who faxed this in to us asks whether or not a fake ID would get you in to the event. Also, she's engaged and seems to have kicked the heavy drinking habit, so you might as well stay home, Pulcrano.

Quick Notes

• Folks, be warned: Dave Cortese is a cook. I certainly hope people don't make their voting decisions based on the Mercury News comment boards.
• Or, for that matter, the Merc's letters to the editor. In today's, there's a note from a Mr. Lillpop, which revels in San Jose's new status as the epicenter of the Bay Area. This same blurb appears online, verbatim, on two of the apparently millions of blogs Mr. Lillpop runs. (Go ahead, Google him.) These include blogs attacking illegal immigrants, referring to liberalism as "insanity", and telling Cardinal Mahoney to "shut up." He's probably unlikely to be offered that job with the Convention and Visitor's Bureau after all. But it's hard to believe he hasn't found a position on any local blogs for angry, entitled, verbose men. Which is by no means a segue into...
  
• On Obnoxious Blowhards, Tom McEnery breathes a sigh of relief that Clinton didn't take him to task for supporting Obama. I wonder if Bill submits comments to McEnery's blog while he's staying up-to-date on McEnery's endorsements.
  
• The fine purveyors of adult entertainment over at the Metro continue to try and link Eric Hernandez to a vast conspiracy neatly encompassing everyone they hate, including this blog. As evidence of our part in this imaginary conspiracy: that, once we learned of his arrest, we expressed concern for a kid who made a dumb mistake.
  Not much needs to be said here but this. When we take the Metro to task for their ties to prostitution, or their publisher's being sued for fraud, we have evidence to back it up. (Read it all!) San Jose Revealed has never claimed to be a journalistic institution, but we believe that's how journalism and, in fact, basic common decency should work. But then common decency has never been a hallmark of Dan Pulcrano or the Metro. Who, we hear, are tied to an international ring of heroin dealing child pornographers!*

* No, no, no. Not really. But if you have evidence to that end, feel free to pass it along.

Follow-up On Gomez

Yesterday we enjoyed some speculation about the whys and what nexts of Armando Gomez' imminent departure from Mayor Reed's staff. We got an interesting follow-up from an anonymous tipster that bears repeating:

You can rest assured that Gomez's replacement will be a yes man...There is no room for independent thinking with Reed and Ajlouny...I submit Furman's name as proof. Who ever heard of hiring your driver as Chief of Staff?? Ajlouny did not want Gomez as chief because he could not control him. The crowd assembled by Reed is inexperienced, naive and totally in over their heads.... And by the way, Ajlouny's home address? Try San Jose, as of last week. And your conjecture on the reason for Gomez's departure is right on.

So Vic's a local boy now, eh? Interesting.

The Money Race

St. Patrick's Day festivities were ruined for our local Council candidates, as it fell right around the second reporting deadline for their campaign fundraising.

We've gone ahead and graphed it out for you all to enjoy*. The red bars indicate cash-on-hand (how much candidates have to spend), yellow is how much they've raised, and green is how much they've loaned themselves.



The figures for money raised and loaned is cumulative - meaning it is a value for the entire year so far. Cash-on-hand, therefore, may not be a combination of those two things - it will be higher or lower depending on how much cash the candidate had from previous reports or how much they've spent so far.

In District 2, Ash Kalra, with Jackie Adams' withdrawal from the race, is dominating. With over $40,000 available to spend, he will have a huge leg up on his competition. Not surprisingly, he's getting contributions from a lot of political heavyweights. Worth noting - Ram Singh has already blown through a $10,000 contribution to himself - not a good sign for his candidacy.

In Districts 4 and 6, the lack of competition has allowed Chu and Oliverio to rest, though Pierluigi spent $90 buying himself some stationery.

District 8, the other hot race, shows Craig Mann bursting from the back of the pack to take the on-hand lead, with challenger Minh Duong not far behind, largely thanks to heavy contributions (some of which raised an eyebrow or two during the last reporting period). Duong continues to heavily tap the Vietnamese community, as does Van Le, further back in the pack. Lan Nguyen, the third Vietnamese candidate in the race, appears to be primarily self-financing - one can't help but wonder if he is taking a hit for not adamantly supporting the Little Saigon issue.

In District 10, Nancy Pyle isn't taking her challenger for granted, already raising nearly $15,000 in what should be an easy race.

The next report is due in late May. We'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: A tipster notes some errors in the candidate filings which were translated onto the graph. In their words:

I would double check Duong's filing. Column B "calendar YTD" incorrectly includes his fund raising pre-Jan 1. And $20K of the $25K+ raised between 1/1 and 3/17 was a personal contribution, on top of the $20K loan from last year....For Mann, $11,584 of the contributions reported was a personal contribution....For Alvarez, $1,000 of the $1,675 was a personal contribution.

I double-checked, and it indeed seems several candidates listed loans to themselves as contributions. This doesn't change the most important metric: cash on hand. But thanks for the correction, tipster.

* Can one enjoy an Excel graph? You be the judge.