Could it be that these are the good old days?

Published: March 21, 2005
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
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It should have been a good week over at San Jose City Hall.

City Council approved a deal with Nortel Networks that should close the
book on the Cisco scandal. Nortel says it can meet all deadlines so the
new building is moving along roughly on schedule and on budget. There
also was agreement on limiting council fundraising, an effort to avoid
further ethical questions.

This is all good government, right? So why does it seem as though city
government is reactive, always on the defensive and the decisions are
all being made for the wrong reasons?

Ever since problems surfaced with the Cisco bidding, the talk on the
street has been that the city handled the whole thing badly. Sure, that
was no way to bid a contract. Nobody blinked when heads rolled, although
the cost of that decision is still to be determined.

But in the end, the local company that is the industry leader lost the
job. How can that be the desired result?

Hindsight is always 20-20. But what would have happened if the city had
taken the offensive and said 'hey, we built a bidding system that awards
bonus points to local vendors and in the final analysis we're damn glad
Cisco won.'

It would have taken a bold bit of leadership. But then, isn't that what
we have a right to expect from the people we elect to lead the
community?

It won't be long until voters get a chance to elect new leadership for
San Jose. The candidates have started announcing their intentions and
more will enter the race.

We'll keep our eyes open for one who displays enough backbone to
exercise leadership and withstand the harsh winds of transitory public
opinion. Having the smile -- and connections -- to win friends shouldn't
be enough. And it's not too much to ask that the next mayor have both.

Commuters be damned

The Environmental Impact Report on plans to increase density along San
Jose's North First Street contains some sobering information. If the
Redevelopment Agency pushes through the plan, we'll be breathing dirtier
air and sitting in traffic much longer on the way to and from work.

And apparently there is no cure, only expensive steps to mitigate the
damage.

If this is progress, we're not convinced it's worthwhile.

The city certainly needs a plan for serving the businesses that will
create the next big thing, providing better mass transit and improving
the housing situation. But can't we do one thing well rather than many
poorly?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it'll take an act of real
leadership for some official to pull the brake on the Redevelopment
Agency's freight train to the future. But it's starting to feel like
some of this progress comes at too high a cost.

This article can be found at http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/03/21/editorial1.html