The 234 Apartment

Cities are neighborhoods writ large . They ebb up and down, depending on who is moving in and out. They proclaim their attractions, hide their warts, burnish their numbers. After all, real estate values ride on the telling. In the chest-thumping of the Bay Area, San Jose has always sought to distance itself from Oakland. San Jose was bigger, richer, safer. With one horrible event last week, however, a piece of that myth vanished. And we’re left pondering the irony. I’m talking about the killing of off- duty Oakland firefighter Jake P. Walter, 30, who was shot to death last Thursday night outside a night market on the edge of San Jose’s Japantown. Police called it a random and unprovoked attack. In San Jose, we suppose things unfold very differently.  A random attack like this might occur elsewhere in the Bay Area, but not in a vibrant San Jose neighborhood filled with upscale apartments. And it would never take a firefighter, one of the good guys. Under former Mayor Ron Gonzales , ...

A new report could give insight into why San Jose failed to notify more than 14,000 residents that their neighborhoods were under a flood threat in February. The report, commissioned by San Jose and conducted by emergency management consultant Witt O’Brien’s, gave the city an “A” for how it responded after the Feb. 21 flood but an “F” for foresight. It was also critical of the way the city handled notifying residents , such as Juanita Wilson, who was living in the Rock Springs neighborhood when the flood occurred. That area is near Coyote Creek, which floods whenever Anderson Dam overflows . South of San Jose, the dam was built in 1950. “We had no warning from the city, none from the county, nothing at all,” Wilson said. A night photo of the pole Jeffrey Hare uses to measure Coyote Creek water levels . This photo was taken on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, two days before the neighborhood was flooded. (Courtesy of Jeffrey Hare) As the floodwaters were reaching her neighborhood, she was pre...