When Police Chief Rob Davis retired from the force, his compensation package included almost $300,000 in unused sick leave. Earlier, when Fire Chief Darryl Von Raesfeld retired, he received $269,000 for the days he called in healthy. Now the city’s 20-year-old sick leave policy is raising questions about retirement pay in San Jose.
Articles by Silicon Valley Newsroom
It will be at least a year before the new Prius goes on sale, but you may end up seeing them in San Jose before that. Toyota has decided to let city employees here and in Berkeley test drive the new model for several months before putting the cars on market. The decision to use the Bay Area as a testing ground is based on the way the car is designed for short, urban commutes.
BART riders may be able to take the train all the way to Berryessa by as early as 2018, thanks to a Federal Transit Administration recommendation that the project receive $130 million in federal funds. Celebrations may be premature, however, with Republicans in Congress are already targeting the President’s plans to expand public transportation throughout the country.
Without concessions from the city’s unions, San Jose may be forced to lay off 20 percent of its employees to cover a $110 budget deficit. The layoffs could include over 300 police officers, a first for the city, which is already struggling with a spike in violent crime. Mayor Chuck Reed sees retirement benefits as a key part of the problem. They will cost the city $61 million this year.
Apple’s market cap is now $100 billion more than Microsoft’s, and Google and IBM are catching up too. Could the days of Microsoft’s dominance of the tech world be coming to an end? The race to the top could leave Microsoft in the dust, or rather, in the not so coveted fourth place of U.S. tech companies..
Once, Rome had the reputation of being a City of Hills. With the the Amgen Tour de California coming to San Jose, we may have that reputation too. Stage four of the famous bicycle race will take cyclists to the top of Mount Hamilton, an almost 2,000-foot pedal uphill over just four and a half miles. It’s quite a pedal, but what a view!
Elementary and high school kids alike had their first introduction to opera this week. Hundreds of them crammed the California Theater for a Wednesday morning matinee performance of Rossini’s opera buffa “Barber of Seville” by Opera San José. The program, sponsored by Arts Express, has brought over 150,000 students to the opera since 1978.
Local residents got a chance to chime in on the best ways for the city to increase its revenues, as City Council struggles with an anticipated $110 million deficit for the coming fiscal year. While many citizens are open to small tax increases, city employees could bear the brunt of the anticipated cuts, if City Council follows the residents’ lead.
The Finns are coming! Finnish company Nokia, the world’s largest manufacturer of cell phones, is said to be considering a move to Silicon Valley for its executive team. The process is said to be part of a larger “de-Finnistration” project underway under CEO Stephen Elop, which may include replacing over half the company’s board—the Finnish half, that is.
City Budget Director Jennifer Maguire will have some bad news for City Council today. When voters approved Measure K earlier this year, they had hoped that expanding gambling activity in San Jose would increase revenue to the city by at least $5 million. Now the first figures are in, and the city was off by about $4 million.
