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?

Payday lenders, those upstanding folks that lend money at unbelievably high rates to folks who are desparate for cash, are about to be much more strongly regulated in San Mateo County.

This may be the strangest story we’ve seen in some time: Chinese officials visit East Palo Alto to study housing policies… Really?

While we’re in EPA… the Police Chief has been named Interim City Manager. How very Atherton of EPA…

The Burlingame Post Office is going to be sold… Please see Palo Alto for how to deal.

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…

Being a San Mateo County Supervisor must be the absolute best job in the world because there is another Menlo Park City Councilmember entering the race: Andy Cohen. He joins everyone else in the race to replace Rose Jacobs Gibson. Everyone else includes: Kirsten Keith, Shelly Masur, Memo Morantes, Carlos Romero, David Woods, and Ernie Schmidt… Let the games begin.

Speaking of the June ballot (and Shelly Masur) the Redwood City school district is considering looking for a parcel tax… again, again, again…

As if rates for garbage weren’t high enough, over the weekend Bonnie Eslinger let us know that “Recology overcharged San Carlos customers for waste pickup“… Garbage Saga, Chapter 2?

Bonnie Eslinger gets the first sentence this story absolutely correct… “When Menlo Park officials sit down with Facebook representatives in the coming weeks to negotiate an agreement that would allow the social networking company to expand, they’ll likely try hard to avoid making their requests for community benefits sound like a Mafia shakedown…” Menlo Park will try, but it will seem like a shakedown nonetheless… not to mention EPA’s request too…

It turns out there was no mumps outbreak at the jail… that’s really good news. Joshua Melvin is probably excited that he doesn’t have to go visit the jail to cover this story anymore…

Speaking of jail… the two former employees of the Vector Control District were in court this week…

To politics: Kevin Mullin is running for Assembly. How familial…

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.

On the night of Valentine’s Day a 52 year old woman in Menlo Park was out for a stroll and was robbed by a dude with a gun. Same MO in Palo Alto a few minutes before. Be careful out there folks… Oh, and a note to robbers: most people walking their dogs at night are carrying one of two things – plastic bags or plastic bags with dog shit…

It is Civil Grand Jury time… and target number one is the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors for not moving forward with a fire fighting deal with San Carlos.

To San Bruno: There seems to have been a disagreement between San Bruno and PG&E about some ongoing negotiations. But the negotiations are back on, according to the Daily Journal…

There is/was a potential mumps outbreak in the County Jail. Yet another reason not to commit crime…

#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?

They paved paradise and put up a 4-story apartment building. Mel’s Bowl goes residential…

Perhaps some Facebookers will live at Mel’s… because Facebook is struggling trying to figure out where to house all the new (rich) folks…

As soon as the Controller decided he was retiring, the Board of Supervisors put 3 tax (increase) measures on the June 2012 ballot. There is nothing the Sups love more than finding things to tax… beware the blog tax…

Of course, those new taxes won’t help the residents of the Burlingame Long Term Care Facility… the County is closing that.