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Top Stories: Aug. 3, 2010

AT&T Could Foil Stadium Plans; Communications Hill Residents Nervous about Closed Fire Station

by Danny Wool on Aug 03, 2010
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New Downtown Festival to Celebrate Italian Settlement
San Jose has its Japantown, its Little Saigon, and its Little Portugal. Soon it will have Little Italy too, 130 years after the first Italian immigrants settled in the city. The area will surround the downtown intersection of North Almaden Boulevard and Julian Street.

To mark the new neighborhood, the Italian American Heritage Foundation will be holding its thirtieth annual Family Festa in nearby Guadalupe River Park. The event is expected to draw about 25,000 people, somewhat less than the 35,000 that attended last year’s event in Willow Glen. Nevertheless, Italian American City Council member Sam Liccardo called it, “an opportunity to create momentum around the concept of reviving Little Italy downtown.” The event will take place August 28-29.
Read More at the Business Journal.


AT&T Could Foil Stadium Plans
AT&T is playing hardball in its efforts to thwart San Jose’s new stadium. The problem is that the phone company has a field operations center right in the middle of the proposed site. The company’s spokesman, Ryan Rauzon, put it bluntly: “The land is obvious not for sale.”

Rauzon argues that the location is “vital” to servicing the company’s customers and that employs 100 people. City officials are less convinced. They fire back that it is essentially a parking lot and service station for the company’s fleet, which could be located anywhere. More likely, they suggest, is that AT&T is taking a jab at City Council for denying it the right to develop a housing project on another piece of land that it owns.

The question is whether the city wants to take on a company ranked as the 7th largest in the US and the 13th largest in the world (the largest if you exclude banking and oil). Councilmember Sam Liccardo says he is surprised by what he sees as the vindictiveness of a company that “depends so heavily on public good will.”
Read More at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.

Communications Hill Residents Nervous about Closed Fire Station
For the past two days, the station that houses Engine 33 has been closed due to budget cuts. While people downtown hardly bat an eyelash, the residents of Communications Hill are getting increasingly worried.

Until last week, the local fire station could respond to an alarm in as little as two minutes. Now, however, it could take anywhere from eight to ten minutes before the first responders arrive. Under dry summer conditions, that could spell disaster for homes along the hillside.

The problem is that negotiations between the city and the SJFD have yet to be resolved. Though the Fire Department did submit an offer over the weekend, Mayor Chuck Reed and negotiator Alex Gurza say that it was not enough to prevent layoffs and the closure of fire stations throughout the city. “What they've offered is about $4 million in concessions,” says Reed. The city needs to cut $10 million.

There are some steps that the city can take, even with the $4 million in concessions. It can rehire at least some of the 49 firefighters who were laid off over the weekend, or it can reopen stations and shuffle the crews around. The latter option is a problem though. On Monday, firefighters across the city spent four hours dealing with two grass fires. During that time, six stations were left vacant, while personnel from other stations were shuffled around to cover another seven stations. The problem is that this was a relatively minor fire, and fire season is only beginning.

“We’re quite worried,” says one Communications Hill resident. He will not be sleeping well tonight. Negotiations between the city and the SJFD are only scheduled to resume tomorrow.
Read More at ABC 7.


Mehserle’s Father Attends City Hall Demonstration
Only two dozen people showed up at a rally yesterday outside City Hall, calling for the release of Johannes Mehserle. The demonstration got considerable attention, however, because one of the speakers was Mehserle’s father Todd.

“I'm here today just to support my son and to support all law enforcement,” he said. “It's a very, very slippery slope when we start to send people to work with guns and not only civilly convict them, but criminally.”

His son, a former BART police officer, was convicted for involuntary manslaughter in the killing of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009. He was filmed shooting Grant in the back while he was lying on the station platform. Mehserle argued that he had meant to shoot him with his taser, and pulled out his gun by mistake. He is scheduled to be sentenced in three months.

This was the first time that Todd Mehserle has spoken up publicly since the incident occurred. Over the coming weeks he is scheduled to make several more appearances on behalf of his son.
Read More at KTVU.



by Danny Wool on Aug 03, 2010
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