The big news today comes from San Jose City Hall where #pensiongate may or may not have influenced the City Manager’s (and the Mayor’s) decision to back down a little bit from a very strong pension reform measure on the June ballot to something less than that…

To something less combustible… Mardi Gras, once the worst night in the entire year to be a downtown business owner (that wasn’t a bar) was “mostly quiet” according to Mike Rosenberg..

There’s a property available in downtown Palo Alto… the former Post Office. And guess who is interested in buying. The City of Palo Alto…

San Jose Inside’s newest blogger, Pete Allen, chimes in again with a view into “Democratic Primary Wars“… Circular firing squad?

It was a long weekend… so as we get out of our ski boots and into the work week, we start with this…

The San Jose A’s made a big (?) signing over the weekend. Manny Ramirez… He’ll sit out 50 games for a PED violation, but he’ll be there in June when the A’s are officially out of it…

From baseball to inside baseball politics…

The race to replace incumbent Joe Judge on the Santa Clara Valley Water District got more crowded. Joe Judge versus David Ginsborg and Barbara Keegan and now Scott Knies of Downtown Association fame.

The race to replace Nancy Pyle on the San Jose City Council is also hotly contested and overcrowded… and the South Bay Labor Council likes likes one candidate (Brian O’Neill) but just likes another, Edessa Bitbadal…

The County Board of Education will have new districts… that don’t look much like the old districts by coincidentally (?) protect all incumbents in 2012.  It’s like San Jose’s redistricting plan…

Until Wednesday…

Lin-Sanity is still in high gear… a day in the life of Jeremy Lin.

(So-called) #pensiongate is still in high gear too… but this time from Rich Robinson, who uses his space on San Jose Inside to provide unsolicited advice to the Mayor. In fact, Unsolicited Advice might be a good name for Robinson’s column…

We don’t mean to be too picky, but it’s Los Altos, not Las Altos. Just a little tip for the headline/online editors at the Merc.

The historic Kelley House, located in Kelley Park in San Jose, burned yesterday. Sad stuff. The fire is under investigation, but foul play doesn’t seem to be part of it.

#pensiongate (as it’s called by Protect San Jose), took yet another turn yesterday. The complaint filed against Mayor Reed for using the $650 million pension cost number to the San Jose ethics commission has been referred to the City Council, which seems to have pleased the labor-led complainants. This should be pretty good political theater… Stay tuned for more “Ethics Complaint Action Alerts“…
Everyday, the Santa Clara 49ers are becoming more and more of a reality. This week, the Santa Clara City Council approved a $878 billion construction contract…

On a less positive note, Scott Herhold at the Merc looks at the stomping of the poor dog over the weekend (in the midst of a sidewalk beat-down)… but the truth is that the story is less about the dog than about gang violence.

The post office in downtown Palo Alto is going up for sale in May… it is a pretty great location, so it will probably be the most expensive post office ever anywhere…

There was Twitter buzz last night about the San Jose Ethics Commission not being able to hear the ethics complaint filed against the Mayor in the aftermath of last week’s NBC Bay Area pension story. (Dubbed #pensiongate by @protectsanjose…) We Tweeted this:

The San Jose City Council might place a tax measure on the ballot in June (to go hand-in-hand with the pension reform measure)… but it won’t go on the ballot yet. Perhaps in a few weeks, but not yet.

The juiciest story of the day (and the strangest) comes from Morgan Hill, where a woman is accusing a police officer of posting her photo on Facebook… Didn’t Pete Constant have a similar complaint?

Happy Valentines Day to Lew Wolff and the Oakland/San Jose A’s… They actually signed a coveted player and the news coverage of this signing appeared in the first 15 minutes of Sports Center. For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about… and why it’s also a big f-you to Castro…

Gary Richards at the Merc tells us about a $250 million federal allocation of funds for the BART to San Jose project. Perhaps that is the $250 million Mayor Reed was focused on… We’re kidding, but the chatter about the NBC Bay Area story continues. Protect San Jose is coming out of the woodwork and hashtagging the story#pensiongate and writing about the ethics complaint filed (orchestrated) in the story’s aftermath… We’ll see. Other folks are commenting/blogging too…

There’s a serious story this morning all over the local news: “…A prominent San Jose nightclub owner has been charged with raping a young woman in a guest bedroom at his Los Gatos home while his family lay sleeping…” You will be happy to know that the Sheriff, who has been criticized for handing out concealed weapons permits, has revoked the accused’s permit… Perhaps you’d like to go to Myth or Sabor this weekend?  Stay classy downtown San Jose nightclub owners…

Sorry for the short update…

The postmortem on the Mayor’s pre-State of the City NBC interview continues… Scott Herhold takes a look at how the Mayor should have conducted the interview, complete with stage direction…

Lew Wolff is still waiting for MLB… and it is “excruciating”…

If you live in San Jose, your taxes on some stuff are probably going to go up to deal with the budget issues… Tracy Seipel takes a look at what voters think about that.

We’ll be back with much more tomorrow…

It was more exciting outside than it was inside, but last night was San
Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s State of the City. The much-anticipated indoor
protest never transpired and the Mayor seemed hopeful that 2012 would
be a turn-around year for the City… For the most interesting observations
of the night, you should probably follow @Josh_Koehn…

The Mayor’s speech happened with a backdrop of the NBC Bay Area news “investigation” into the City of San Jose projected retirement costs… (see the piece here…) City unions filed an ethics complaint against the Mayor (and some other City-folk) for exaggerating the projected costs. NBC hasn’t gotten this much attention since David Letterman left…

And now that the speech is out of the way, time for politics where Mayor Chuck Reed will try (again) to get someone not named Kansen Chu elected in his former City Council District… (Note: Chuck Reed’s home address has been redacted.)

If you didn’t get enough of the “State of the City” you can get a sort of State
of the Valley all day today when Joint Venture Silicon Valley presents their
Index…

One really bright spot in the State of the Valley is the Santa Clara 49ers’ stadium… the “make ready” work is apparently underway, but you’ll have to get the details from Kevin Lynch at the 49ers blog at sfgate…

In case you don’t pay attention to such things, Palo Alto High School class
of 2006 produced this week’s international super star: Jeremy Lin. If you
no idea who or what we’re talking about. Please head over to the Palo
Alto Weekly for details… or follow the Lin-sanity at the Chronicle.

A few big things today…

Yesterday, NBC Bay Area had a piece about San Jose pensions and if the numbers coming out of City Hall are right or wrong… the story sent Protect San Jose and the South Bay Labor Council smiling onto the Internet…

And the NBC story ran just in time… because Mayor Chuck Reed’s State of the City is tonight. This time, though, the event is in the evening, which is a good thing… because Reed’s speeches are sort of like Ambien… (we kid Michelle, we kid…)

Yesterday, all eyes were on the Rotary meeting in San Jose where Lew Wolff took to the stage to talk baseball… but no big news was announced, unfortunately.  Can you imagine the reception Wolff would get at the Oakland Rotary?

Here’s a cool story: a dude that stole a bike in San Jose was tackled by a civilian… See, SJPD staffing levels are just fine…

To Sunnyvale, where Apple will be opening up some office space. We guess Cupertino must be all filled up…

To Cupertino, where there is non-Apple-related news. The Cupertino City Council seems to agree with Barry Chang that Lehigh Cement should be more strictly regulated…

Finally, San Jose Inside has a new blogger joining the line up… Peter Allen.  And he’s pissed that some/most/all commissions in San Jose are on the chopping block.

It was a big day for gay/civil rights yesterday as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deemed Prop 8 unconstitutional. We’ll see how it goes at the Supreme level… and what influence Chuck Reed has on things… Is it ironic that Rick Santorum had such a big night?

To less important news, Lew Wolff signed the Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane to a long-term deal… hopefully, Beane will be ending that run at Cisco Field…

If this doesn’t get Protect San Jose blogging again, we don’t know what will: the San Jose Independent Police Auditor is starting her own television program… The IPA Roadshow will start tonight at 7 p.m.