Mercury News: Herhold: Time to pay attention to San Jose’s casinos
By Scott Herhold
It's hard to imagine it now, but there was once a time, in the late 1980s, when card clubs looked finished in San Jose.
The indictment and conviction of the Garden City's officers and directors, captured in a famous photo taken through a courtroom window, seemed to mark the coda of their reign.
Then, in the 1990s, the clubs agreed to pay a substantial tax to the city, a way of assuring they would stay in business. That tax produces around $16 million a year for the hard-pressed city (see chart below).
And now a gleaming M8trix building and a ...
Almaden Times: San Jose Chinese School Celebrates Year of the Horse
On Feb. 1, the second day of the Chinese New Year, Councilmembers Johnny Khamis and Sam Liccardo joined San Jose Chinese School's students and parents to celebrate the Year of the Horse at the Leland High campus.
The event started with the school's long-standing tradition of a dragon parade after which students were invited to greet the crowd with lucky sayings on stage. Student performances were the highlight of the day, with musical instrument performances, dancing, and singing that captivated the audience.
This is the 40th year of San Jose Chinese School (SJCS) ...
NBC Bay Area: Surveillance Video Program Proposed in San Jose
By Kris Sanchez
A San Jose councilman is proposing the city create a database where citizens who have surveillance systems can help police.
It's a system that has been used unofficially.
When officers were tracking down a serial arsonist, people readily offered up their surveillance video to help.
Councilman Sam Liccardo wants to formalize the process through a database he said would be simple to set up and maintain.
"This doesn't expand police access to video," he said. "It just identifies for the police where the systems are should people want to come ...
ABC Local: Proposal to give SJPD access to home security cams
By David Louie
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Officials in San Jose are trying to harness the power of an increasingly common piece of technology to fight crime. They believe the growth of video cameras is a new opportunity to stop the bad guys.
Security camera video has become a valuable tool for police. Cameras caught the suspect who was setting fires in an east San Jose neighborhood earlier this month. Video also helped police in Alameda to identify a thief stealing a package from the front porch of a home.
No one knows how many cameras have been installed in San ...
Newsmaker Interview: Should SJ Police Have Access to Private Security Systems?
San Jose city councilman Sam Liccardo tells Phil Matier about his plan to allow police easy access to residents' private surveillance systems. Watch the interview here.
ABC Local: SJ councilman wants to collect info of residents who have cameras
By Ama Daetz
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Call it crowdsourcing for public safety. There is a new proposal by a San Jose councilmember that would give police quick access to private surveillance cameras. The owner of the camera would have to authorize it, but it could save police a lot of time.
Erik Kupferer would gladly volunteer to have his home security cameras registered in a San Jose Police Department database.
"I think it's a great idea. There have been a couple of incidents where I've had to provide film to the police," said Kupferer.
City Councilman Sam ...
Mercury News: San Jose police could tap into volunteer residents’ private security cameras under new proposal
By Mike Rosenberg
SAN JOSE -- Police would be able to tap into private video camera recordings from San Jose residents who agree to provide access to authorities under a new proposal that would expand investigators' watchful eye over the city but already is raising big brother-type privacy concerns.
Councilman Sam Liccardo's proposal, unveiled Thursday and set to be discussed by a City Council committee next week, would allow property owners voluntarily to register their security cameras for a new San Jose Police Department database. Officers then would be able to ...
Suspect arrested in downtown San Jose arson fires
By Lee Romney
SAN FRANCISCO -- San Jose police announced Thursday that a man suspected of setting more than a dozen fires in the downtown core during a recent six-night period has been taken into custody.
Patrick William Brennan, 48, lives in the downtown San Jose neighborhood where the fires began Jan. 7, police said. Brennan reportedly has been arrested before in connection with arson cases dating to the 1990s.
Brennan was booked into Santa Clara County jail Thursday on two counts of felony arson. The jail website lists his bail amount as $1 million.
Brennan ...
CNN: Police on the hunt for suspected arsonist in California
By: Joe Sutton and Dana Ford, CNN
Updated 8:12 AM EST, Mon January 13, 2014
(CNN) -- Police and fire officials in San Jose, California, are asking for the public's help to find the person responsible for setting roughly a dozen fires in the downtown area.
Multiple fires were lit over several nights last week between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., according to San Jose police, which released a statement and sketch of the suspect. No one was reported injured.
"These fires were very serious in nature and had the potential to cause serious injury or loss of life to both reside...
Mercury News: Mystery deepens about identity of San Jose arsonist
By: Lisa M. Krieger
SAN JOSE -- Parishioners of San Jose's Greater St. John The Baptist Church surveyed the unfathomable destruction of their storage trailer on Sunday morning, the second strike against their tidy church and the latest in a wave of arson plaguing a modest downtown neighborhood.
"We'll get through this. We'll survive," said one church official, who would not give his name. Congregants of the African-American church at the corner of South 26th and East San Antonio streets, dressed in their Sunday best, gazed at the structure's damage -- repaired by ...