Brandon Pho

1 week ago | sanjosespotlight.com | Brandon Pho

A massive structural budget deficit is forcing Santa Clara County leaders to get creative in finding ways to avoid hits to critical social safety net services. A San José Spotlight review of County Executive James Williams’ budget recommendations for fiscal year 2025-26 shows four main takeaways about what services could be eliminated, reduced, saved and added — and what it all means for residents in light of a $70 million federal funding loss. Cuts equal layoffs?

2 weeks ago | sanjosespotlight.com | Brandon Pho

As emojis become a widespread form of global messaging, San Jose leaders are calling on the world’s leading text encoders to add a symbol for the Flag of South Vietnam. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to urge the Unicode Consortium — the Mountain View-based organization overseeing the digitized use of text in all of the world’s writing systems — to adopt the flag of a fallen government with historical and political significance to refugees from the Vietnam War who live in San Jose.

2 weeks ago | sanjosespotlight.com | Brandon Pho

A top PG&E executive helped run San Jose City Council candidate Gabby Chavez-Lopez’s campaign for this year’s District 3 special election — while a special interest group funded by the controversial utility company spent independently to support her candidacy.

3 weeks ago | bdtonline.com | Brandon Pho |San Jose Spotlight

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3 weeks ago | sanjosespotlight.com | Brandon Pho

A growing number of Silicon Valley residents – joined by state and federal lawmakers – are questioning the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s motives for decimating scores of programs and hundreds of teaching jobs serving the region’s most vulnerable children. Teachers, labor leaders and county officials gathered outside the Office of Education Tuesday calling for the reversal of more than 250 educator layoffs affecting low-income preschoolers, migrants and special education students.