The Santa Clara Players will celebrate its 50th season with an open house on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011, from 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. at the Jamison-Brown house 1511 Warburton St. (rear of the Triton Museum grounds). The festivities include a short play incorporating elements of the company’s past shows. The company’s 2011-12 season opens … Read more
Santa Clara’s city-owned electric utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP), is preparing to begin rollout of its smart meter program – MeterConnect – early next year, Electric Utility Director John Roukema told the City Council on Oct. 11. Part of the city’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project, the project is one of several that will implement a … Read more
Ladies, the next time you vote take a moment to thank the Santa Clara Woman’s Club. Tireless grassroots campaigning on the part of local Woman’s Clubs was one reason that California women got the vote almost 10 years before the 19th Amendment passed in 1920. In fact, Santa Clara County was the only Bay Area … Read more
The Santa Clara Charter Review Committee won’t complete its recommendation about the city’s election system on Oct. 11, 2011 as initially planned. At its Sept. 22 meeting, the committee scheduled three additional two-hour meetings – Sept. 29, Oct. 13, and Oct. 27 – and hasn’t set a date for its report to the Santa Clara … Read more
In what alternative universe did the Santa Clara city government think an open lawsuit against a prospective City Attorney would not draw attention? The Mercury had the story online Monday evening – 24 hours before the City Council meeting to make an official offer. When was the last time the Mercury took such prompt note … Read more
Don’t say the 2002 California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) hasn’t had results. It’s just that results aren’t necessarily those civil rights activists are looking for. One clear winner is the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR), which has collected over $4 million in legal fees from settlements under the law, according to a 2009 AP … Read more
Nearly ten years after the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) was passed into law, CVRA lawsuits and threats of lawsuits have cost California taxpayers over $8 million. When the 2002 law was enacted, municipalities didn’t recognize its implications, Fresno County schools superintendent Larry Powell told the Fresno Bee in 2009. Things changed in 2003, when … Read more
On Tuesday morning September, 11, 2001 founding director of American Muslim Voice (amuslimvoice.org) Samina Sundas was shopping in Costco, when she first saw the TV news about the World Trade Center Attack. Shocked by the carnage and destruction of that day, she began to cry. Another Costco shopper accosted her. “What are you crying about,” … Read more
We can all recite this litany: Fire engulfing that panoptic view. Closely spaced columns losing resistance. A final spasm into dust. Yet we can never know just where the failure began. Like the woman standing ankle-deep in white dust, reading yesterday’s newspaper, tries to reconcile “Newborn Abandoned in Central Park,” “Slump Is Here, But Rebound … Read more
In the August 31 piece, “Tale of Three City Budgets: Where the Income Comes From.” we incorrectly said that city of Sunnyvale is using reserve funds to balance the city budget. The story should have said that Sunnyvale has a balanced budget thanks to the city’s budget stabilization fund. “To assist us in balancing our … Read more