1986
Burning Man begins on San Francisco’s Baker Beach – Chief Justice Rose Bird voted off the California Supreme Court – Shoreline Amphitheatre opens, methane leak discovered – Oasis club opens in downtown San Jose
Skyway to Tomorrowland
A futuristic metropolis linked by subways, trolleys and monorails is the Santa Clara County of the 1990s envisioned in a $3 billion mass-transit plan proposed by Supervisor Rod Diridon. Bringing BART downtown is just one element of Diridon’s ambitious plan. Doug Millison, Feb. 6, 1986
Toxic Shock
Late last week, officials announced that chemical contaminants had reached an underground water aquifer 500 feet deep in Mountain View, one from which public drinking water is drawn. Preliminary readings indicate up to 55 parts per billion of trichloroethylene are in the aquifer. Right now in Santa Clara County, officials know of at least 500 sites where industrial solvents, fuels and other contaminants have leaked into the soil. Clean-up has not been completed on any—and hasn’t even begun on more than two-thirds of the sites. New cases are reported each month.Eric Jansen, May 8, 1986
Ground Zero
One brave group of South Bay musicians refuses to subscribe to the theory that you must play the pop music game by a certain set of rules to achieve success. The group calls itself First Strike Musician’s Collective and is comprised of about 85 individuals who have dedicated themselves to advancing the state of music in an ostensibly barren metropolitan area. “The intention is to turn San Jose into the same kind of respected musical community Boston and Austin have become,” explains Scot Long, lead singer and guitarist with the local band Frontier Wives. Gary Marker, May 15, 1986
Splashless in San Jose
Here’s an inconvenient factoid to consider when tooling around in a global warming-inducing Escalade while the mercury is cracking the 100 degree mark: San Jose has fewer public pools per capita than any of America’s 20 largest cities. City Hall can’t keep two-thirds of its public swimming pools operating, even though it has a ridiculously small number to begin with. According to the website of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department, the city only has two operating: the Camden Pool and the Fair Swim Center. The Mayfair, Ryland, Alviso and Biebrach swimming facilities are all closed.Silicon Valley industry analysts gnashing their teeth about the loss of jobs and knowledge workers to Austin, Texas, for quality-of-life reasons need only surf a handful of websites and plug the data into a spreadsheet to come up with a simple conclusion: it’s the pools. The city of Austin has 48 public swimming facilities. Maybe next time Santa Clara County voters will pass a Measure A-type half-cent sales tax increase if it includes a few dozen neighborhood swim centers. Dan Pulcrano, Aug. 2, 1986
Refugee Stress
Boun Nock Nhoutitham, under the auspices of Asian Americans for Community Involvement, counsels some of the thousands of local Indochinese refugees who suffer from the same post-traumatic stress syndrome diagnosed in Vietnam veterans. For reasons that include governmental shortsightedness and a shortage of qualified mental health personnel, experts say that the afflicted refugees suffer the syndrome’s ravages more harshly than do Vietnam combat veterans, yet don’t get the assistance they need and aren’t likely to get it in the near future.Craig Carter, Sept. 25, 1986
