Starting in January, San Jose will begin its redistricting process with the appointment of an 11-member commission. Ten of the members will be selected by City Council members, while the chair of the commission will be picked by Mayor Chuck Reed.
Mineta’s bomb-sniffing Lab Crazy Jack is retiring after nine years at the airport. His role will be taken over by the three German shepherds who currently work with him. Retiring alongside Jack will be his trainer, San Jose Police Officer Randy Changco.
Google has purchased a building in New York City for the sky-high price of $1.8 billion. The 18-story building, with the address 111 8th Avenue, occupies an entire city block and has 3 million square feet of space, making it bigger, in square footage, than the Empire State Building.
Santa Clara County got a brand new tactical armored vehicle, or BearCat. The new, multipurpose vehicle, with a price tag of $285,000, was paid for with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. It will be available for a variety of intense police actions across Santa Clara County.
While big box stores are weathering the storm, many small businesses are still struggling to survive the recession, with many eventually giving up, and others reinventing themselves to meet the needs of a different category of customers. They are facing a domino effect. When one business fails, neighboring businesses are directly impacted.
People who ride CalTrain can expect to see a rate increase with the start of the New Year. As of January 1, the cost of a one-way ticket from San Jose to San Francisco will go up to $8.50, 75 cents higher than the current cost of $7.75. The fare hikes are intended to help cover a projected budget gap of $2.3 million for the coming fiscal year.
San Jose’s water is safe to drink. That’s the response of the city’s three water companies, after the release of the Environmental Working Group’s report earlier this week about the presence of hexavelent chromium in the tap water. The EWG agrees, though they suggest that people purchase a reverse osmosis filter.
On Tuesday, Santa Clara County prosecutors filed charges against Ralph Baldenegro for the murder of Julie Bucalo in 1991. The suspect is currently in San Quentin, where he faces a 94 year sentence for 12 felonies and a misdemeanor committed during the abduction of his son in 2009.
On Monday, Apple removed the new Wikileak app from its iTunes store, just three days after the app was released. According to Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller, the app violated its guidelines and failed to comply with local laws.