Data mining

Jim West’s attorneys probably weren’t expecting us to find anything on the two data disks from the mayor’s city hard drive that were released to us yesterday. Indeed, we had nearly given up until one of our more tech-savvy reporters took a crack at the data and uncovered a possible contact the mayor made while traveling in Fresno. We’re still looking.

In retrospect, though, editors felt it probably wasn’t as big a story as Ryan Oelrich releasing the file of his sexual harrassment complaint to the human rights commission, which ran inside the Region section instead of on the cover.

The end of suburbia?

The new development proposed for Hayden isn’t the usual subdivision - developers are touting its “New Urbanism” characteristics, eschewing big lots and three-car garages for tighter quarters and vast tracts of public green space. Simultaneously, a panel at SFCC discussing sustainability in the face of dwindling oil supplies. One editor suggested these stories could have been better connected, perhaps asking panel members what they thought of the Hayden project (assuming that was possible - timing may have been an issue). At the very least, this may be a good trend to keep an eye on.