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September 10, 2007
Weekend roundup
It was a disappointing weekend for American soccer fans, especially with the U.S. 4-2 loss to Brazil yesterday afternoon in Chicago. (Ah, referee, why must you torment us so? When Josh Wolff was taken down in the box, that should've been a PK, and the foul that led to Ronaldinho's free kick goal wasn't a foul at all.) So, imagine our surprise in saying that two stories in the Mercury News were among the high points of our soccer weekend.
On Friday, Ann Killion wrote a column bemoaning the lack of attention paid to the U.S. Women's National Team and the Women's World Cup, which started today in China. We agree that the tournament deserves more coverage than it's likely to get, especially with the games starting at such odd hours for us West Coast fans. The U.S. group stage matches begin at 2:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., and 5:00 a.m., with the first of those being played tomorrow morning against North Korea. U.S. Soccer's web site is the best source for news on the team, and they're even providing some behind-the-scenes video and a team blog.
What really surprised us, though, was the Merc's story on the balance of residential and commercial property in San Jose. This topic has been mentioned a lot in the paper, usually without much regard for the nuanced decision making that goes into city planning. In fact, many of the paper's previous stories on the proposed soccer stadium have attempted to frame the issue by using Lew Wolff's proposal as a catalyst for the discussion, usually by soliciting knee jerk reactions to the words "soccer stadium," and ignoring the benefits that Wolff is offering the city.
On Sunday, we finally saw that error redressed, as reporter Joshua Molina submitted a thoroughly researched story which looked at both past and present city policies and actions. In that context, Wolff's stadium proposal was finally recognized as a progressive, ground-breaking deal.
One of the major changes that has developers worried is a proposal to require builders who want to rezone industrial land to replace the loss of job capacity - either on site or elsewhere in the city. That way, there is no net loss of employment potential.For example, developer Lew Wolff has told the city that if it rezones a parcel of industrial land he owns in Edenvale, he'll increase space for retail and commercial uses in another parcel he owns near San Jose's airport where Wolff proposes to build a soccer stadium.
Part of a newspaper's role in the community is to provide unbiased information about issues affecting their readership so that we can all participate in the decision-making process. Molina's story give us hope that when negotiations are concluded between Wolff and the City of San Jose, the details of the proposal will be presented with the same appreciation for facts that we see in this story.
Posted by Jay at September 10, 2007 08:07 AM