Volume 6
March 1990-February 1991

Slow Motions

On the rural lands that straddle Highway 101 from South San Jose to the San Benito County line, a bumper crop of subdivisions awaits its planting season.

In 1975, when South County was in the heat of its most rapid growth ever, just 30,000 people lived in the small communities south of San Jose that sit along Highway 101. Today, 60,000 people live in the Morgan Hill-Gilroy area. ...

Many new residents were drawn to South County by its lower housing prices and higher quality of life. Now, the prospect of being reabsorbed by the urban morass they fled compels a new generation of South County residents to raise their voices for controlled growth.

--Bob Johnson, "The South Will Rise," July 12, 1990

Since 1990, growth-control advocates have won major gains. In 1992, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors set a precedent by declining to even consider a proposal for a planned community in the southernmost tip of the county. Sergeant Ranch sought to plop thousands of homes, an airport, an equestrian center and industrial and commercial development down on county land south of Gilroy, a violation of the county's general plan. Morgan Hill and Gilroy are working to establish an urban growth boundary and to protect agricultural areas. San Jose let the wind out of developers' sails when the council adopted a new general plan last year stating the city's commitment to wait until more jobs and public transportation links are available in Coyote Valley before the area can be developed.


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It Must Have Been a Typo

Carrillo's résumé indicates that he earned his degree from the private Jesuit college in 1988. But when we called [the University of San Francisco] to verify the information, we learned that Carrillo never graduated. In other words, a pair of wool socks from the campus store is probably the closest thing Carrillo has to a USF sheepskin. ... The candidate phoned [back] with explanatory damage control. He said he had "believed" he had graduated. "I was under the impression it was a done deal," he said.

--Public Eye, Oct. 4, 1990

The 1990 District 3 council contest certainly wasn't boring. This report on Pete Carrillo's resume contretemps helped opponent David Pandori win the race. Anti-Pandori forces retaliated, whispering to Eye that Pandori might have violated FPPC rules with a sweetheart rent deal from developer Kimball Small on his campaign headquarters. Pandori claimed he was paying 59 cents a square foot for 425 square feet on a short-term lease, a rate not unheard of in downtown at the time, especially for an unheated storefront across an alley from the Pavilion. Carrillo was paying $1 a square foot for an outpost on North First.


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Gee, Thanks

David Pandori may be a smug, overeducated weenie. He possesses every bit of his patron's arrogance--without any of Tom McEnery's redeeming personality traits, like charm or a good sense of humor. ... Still, in this year's District 3 council race, we can say unequivocally that David Pandori is the right weenie for the job.

--Endorsements, Oct. 25, 1990

With friends like this, who needs enemies like Pete Carrillo? Despite Metro's backhanded compliments, Pandori triumphed in the District 3 race and is now serving his second term on the San Jose City Council.


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Invisible Danger

A worried Captain Richard O'Harren gripped the controls inside the smiling PSA nose cone. For much of the Oakland-San Diego run, he'd been feeling uneasy. His copilot, William Mulcaha, complained of acute headaches. Neither of them knew that the cause of their mysterious illness was right under their noses.

O'Harren banked the craft to the southwest, into the bright Southern California sunshine. Suddenly the invisible agent made its presence known. A transparent stream of odorless vapor, illuminated by the sun's backlighting, spewed straight at O'Harren, misting the cockpit. ...

The plane's windshield cleaner had failed. On the ground, O'Harren soon developed chronic nosebleeds and hypertension, although PSA assured him that the rain repellent chemicals that had filled the cockpit were "nontoxic and harmless," based on information from the chemical's suppliers. The main ingredient in the cleaner is a chlorofluorocarbon known as CFC-113, better known by the brand name "Freon," manufactured by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.

O'Harren filed suit against Du Pont, among others. Revelations from the trial, and from hidden Du Pont documents obtained by Metro, suggest that thousands of Silicon Valley workers required to labor amid open vats of evaporating CFC-113 may be at risk of developing cancer, lung infections and brain dysfunctions, including vertigo. Electronics industry leaders, however, describe the chemical as "nontoxic."

--R. Dennis Hayes, "Breathing Uneasy," Jan. 17, 1991

In the years since Hayes' award-winning story was published, Silicon Valley electronics companies have gradually abandoned CFC-113 as a cleaning agent, spurred by federal legislation aimed to reduce commercial use of the ozone-depleting chemical. In its place, electronics companies are employing environmentally benign solutions, such as lemon juice, and soap and water. Although the danger posed by CFCs has diminished, the battle for clean air isn't over. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which took the lead in the fight against CFCs, is concerned about the industry's use of chlorinated organic chemicals, solvents that can cause cancer as well as damage immune and reproductive systems.


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Working Grrrl

I was baptized in the chill waters of sexual harassment as an amazingly naive 21-year-old, hired as the receptionist for a downtown law firm. That was years ago; today, the same antics I attempted to endure with a laugh and a double scotch would land the firm's principals in court so fast their inflated heads would swim. ...

I watched lives being ruined by men ... whose preoccupation with sex was such that I often wondered why they didn't have their zippers replaced with Velcro tabs. I saw bright young women quit promising careers to escape the relentless pursuit of prominent (and prominently married) attorneys. ... I had started working at the firm thinking of lawyers as demigods, and left thinking of them on a level with schoolyard snipers and cemetery vandals.

--Julia Smith, "Dangerous Liaisons: Sexual Harassment and the Law," Jan. 31, 1991


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On to March 1991-February 1992

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