On the morning of July 8, County Assessor Larry Stone met District 1 Supervisor candidate Mike Wasserman at Bill’s Café on the Alameda. By the end of breakfast, Stone, a lifelong Democrat, offered Republican Wasserman his endorsement in the upcoming November election.

“I knew going into the meeting that if in fact our values were comparable that I was prepared to endorse him,” Stone says. “I called Forrest [Williams]. I guess I wanted him to hear my decision, not find out from the press. It was a very short but cordial conversation.”

As has been the case with several local elections, the final results of the June 22 Senate District 15 special election are on hold while registrar workers sift through the remaining ballots, estimated Wednesday to be at about 17,000. At the moment, it appears that Republican Assembly member Sam Blakeslee and Democratic former-Assembly member John Laird will be heading to an August run-off. However, should the provisional and mail-in ballots fall heavily into the Blakeslee column, he could bump up to over 50 percent and avoid the hassle altogether. As of Thursday morning, Blakeslee held 49.7 percent of the vote and Laird had 41.34 percent in an election that, in Santa Clara County, brought out a measly 25 percent turnout. Updated

Although a worker at the Santa Clara County Registrar’s Office said this afternoon that there are still a few ballots straggling in, Teresa Alvarado has thrown in the towel in her bid for the District 1 Supervisor’s seat. “I finished just 62 votes short of a second-place finish. Clearly, every vote counts,” she wrote in a statement. Although the gap between Alvarado and former City Council member Forrest Williams was just a few dozen votes, former Los Gatos mayor Mike Wasserman trounced both candidates in the primary by over 14,000 votes.

San Jose Inside’s mad dash through Santa Clara County’s primary night parties. VIDEO

In an unannounced but unsurprising appearance before the Hall of Justice in San Jose today, Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rosen stood with Lauren Chief Elk to denounce what they said was a bad decision by the DA’s office not to test evidence recovered in the 2007 De Anza rape case.

Chief Elk was one of three female soccer players who reportedly pulled an intoxicated 17-year-old “Jane Doe” from a room at a party attended by members of the De Anza College baseball team, where she was allegedly being gang raped. They were joined today by other rape victims.

With the June election right around the corner, it seems overwhelming to be thinking about November’s election. Not so for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, who just this morning approved a measure for the November ballot designed to save the county’s Healthy Kids insurance program.

“That passes unanimously, and the campaign has begun,” said President Ken Yeager after the votes came in.

The measure will require two-thirds voter approval to pass a $29 parcel tax.

In a rare move, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren announced this morning that she is throwing her support to Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rosen in his bid to defeat sitting DA Dolores Carr. “It’s true, I don’t get involved in local races very often,” she said after making a statement in front of the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice.

Former District Attorney George Kennedy says that he has mellowed out in retirement. Sitting beachside in Santa Cruz where he now lives, a strong breeze tossing his newly longish hair, he looks very much the part of the retiree, not so much the fearsome four-term district attorney.

Kennedy was the first person outside of his family that Assistant DA Jeff Rosen consulted with over his decision to run against his boss, District Attorney Dolores Carr. And though Kennedy has traded his wing-tips for flip-flops, he agreed to jump into the fray on Rosen’s behalf.

Former Assembly member John Laird and current Assembly member Sam Blakeslee may have officially announced their candidacies and are preparing for a shotgun wedding-style campaign for recently confirmed Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado’s 15th district senate seat – but hooold your horses, cowboys! A lawsuit filed this morning is trying to delay the June 22 special election and names one of the counties in the district, Monterey, as a defendant. The document says the special election ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last month would put Monterey County in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Hours after Sen. Abel Maldonado officially became California’s Lieutenant Governor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that the election to fill his now-vacant Assembly seat will be held in an August special ballot.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called the decision a “bonehead move” that will cost the counties that make up District 15—Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo—up to $2.5 million. But the real problem seems to be that the late summer timing puts a Democratic candidate at a serious disadvantage. The Dems had hoped to see the vote consolidated with the November general election.

After the ousting of Barbara Attard two years ago, a false-start with City Auditor Chris Constantin and a prolonged “interim” period with Shivaun Nurre, the city of San Jose finally has a new independent police auditor—LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County superior court judge and former Palo Alto city councilmember. UPDATED 7pm.

On the back of the surprising endorsement of Sheriff Laurie Smith’s challenger Richard Calderon, Mayor Chuck Reed made the less shocking decision to back District Attorney Dolores Carr in her bid for re-election. As he did when endorsing Calderon, he cited her work with the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force. “She’s been personally engaged in the issues. She doesn’t just send someone to the meeting who sits there and does nothing,” he says.

The City Council last night agreed to soften San Jose’s police tactics when it comes to arresting people for public intoxication, a move they hope will result in fewer arrests. After a few hours of discussion, the council voted 8-1 to sign off on recommendations put forward by the city-appointed Public Intoxication Task Force.

City leaders enthusiastically signed off on a resolution supporting the relocation of the A’s baseball team to San Jose at today’s council meeting. “Let’s play ball,” said Councilwoman Rose Herrera. Mayor Chuck Reed pointed out the chances of the A’s moving here are still pretty slim, but that the city is working hard to market itself as the right place for the major league baseball team.

Just because the majority of the Public Intoxication Task Force quit the group last night doesn’t mean they are giving up on their mission to revamp police practices in San Jose.

The controversy-plagued Santa Clara Valley Water District board has finally selected a CEO—naming Beau Goldie, a longtime district employee, to the long-vacant post.