Blog entry #1[Catch UP]

 This Week I began my mad dash back to join the class, which meant cracking through chapter one for reflection. Having a background in local politics means I am familiar with many of the concepts found in the first chapter. However the one I thought was the most thought provoking to focus on was the Interjurisdictional conflict and collaboration that has to occur everyday.  A very good example of the conflict that can occur is between The City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara over Sanctuary laws. Here is the link to the San Jose Inside story about the specific case, the city was using as justification for their stance.

 The Mayor of San Jose Sam Liccardo and the city's former Police Chief Eddie Garcia were demanding Santa Clara County change its sanctuary city policy for the second a little just over a year after it was uncovered that a suspect involved with a fatal stabbing at Grace Baptist Church was in fact undocumented. The current county policy bars law enforcement from contacting federal immigration authorities about the release of a certain undocumented immigrant. “Garcia said in a news conference. 'I received the question, What could have prevented this tragedy?’ I won’t point to a single thing, but rather a multitude of tools and opportunities that were not utilized or failed.”  

This is very much in conflict with what people at the county level were saying about the tragic event, including county executive Jeff Smith. The County Executive functions similar to a city Manager- they are each an unelected person who functions similar to a business CEO for their jurisdiction. Therefore while the executive does not hold any official legislative power, they do hold a distinctly powerful position both politically-and in the execution of legislation. Smith lamented that “I think it’s extremely unprofessional... with a murder like this, there are many factors that contributed to it. It’s not just the immigrant status. It’s not just methamphetamine use. It’s not just homelessness.”

Smiths feelings were echoed in the piece by many NGO- Non Profits involved in the similar areas of need. Housing advocates worried that the incident and the political fallout could cause "people to use this" as justification to not build more affordable or low income housing in an area desperate for it.

Thus why I chose this story to connect with the theme of Interjurisdictional collaboration and conflict. Because just in this small article from a local news group we can see friction between multiple levels of government as well as friction between government and community stakeholders. Not to mention all of the nuance between which stakeholders, NGO's support the county's stance and which are more aligned with the City of San Jose.