Former councilman-turned-evangelical Larry Pegram is getting a lot of attention in the District 9 council race, while the candidacy of Robert Cortese, the second cousin of County Supervisor Dave Cortese,  has not been getting much press. Which is somewhat surprising, since the 37-year-old Cortese is a nationwide star on the U.S. karaoke circuit.

After much hemming and hawing, the California Department of Education released its list of 188 of the state’s most “persistently low-achieving schools” on Monday, a most dubious honor bestowed on seven schools in San Jose: Joseph George, Ocala, August Boeger, Herbert Hoover and Peter Burnett Middle Schools, Escuela Popular Accelerated Family Learning, and Cesar Chavez Elementary.

A sea of blue surged around the Fairmont Hotel last week as the California Police Chiefs’ Association gathered for its annual training symposium. The keynote was a talk on racially-biased policing from Dr. Phil Goff, lead researcher on the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity (CPLE), the very same expert brought in by the city council last year to see if San Jose police are, in fact, engaged in racially-biased policing).

San Jose Rep managing director Nick Nichols may have devoted his career to those who strut and fret upon the stage, but he was put off by the melodramatic tone of a Merc article last Sunday, which seemed to predict the 30-year-old theater’s imminent demise: “Last Curtain for the Rep?” the header wailed. “Well, the fact of the matter is, we’re here, we’re opening our next show, we were successful in the fundraising we needed to do—we’re in better financial shape than we’ve been in a while,” Nichols says.

Is San Jose making a play for the valley’s other large police organization? Already in control of the SJPD, San Jose’s political leadership appears to be aligned with an effort to challenge Sheriff Laurie Smith’s re-election. Mayor Chuck Reed’s campaign strategy chief, Victor Ajlouny, has been working with retired police Capt. Richard Calderon to take on the three-term incumbent. Former Deputy Sheriff’s Association president Jose Salcido, a Smith adversary, SJPOA ally and one-time candidate for sheriff is now Reed’s law enforcement adviser.

In a letter posted yesterday to ProtectSanJose.com, the often entertaining website operated by the San Jose Police Officers Association, Mayor Chuck Reed made the not-so-subtle suggestion that Assembly Members Joe Coto and Paul Fong back off.

The last time Dr. Patrick Phu Le showed up in the news, it was for being arrested after attacking a press photographer he accused of being a communist spy. Now, the longtime Vietnamese community activist and current candidate for the District 7 seat on the San Jose City Council has exactly one week to move to San Jose if he still wants to run.

The news that the Mercury News would have its fourth owner in four years came as a shock to Mercury employees, though not entirely a surprise. MediaNews’ debt service issues were well known, and a first quarter restructuring was anticipated. Unlike past announcements, however, the shoe-dropping came without warning. “This thing blindsided everyone in the newsroom,” one knowledgeable insider said.  The announcement arrived, along with an FAQ, at 4:30pm Friday, as the staff was getting ready to head out for a three-day weekend.

While councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio endeavors to get Proposition 215 implemented here in San Jose by licensing, regulating and taxing medical marijuana dispensaries, there is some serious marijuana drama going down in South County. For those who haven’t been following the sticky situation in Gilroy: it’s been two months since the city council started battling to shut down Garlic Town’s one and only medical pot club.

Over the past few years there’s been a lot of emphasis on redefining the 3Rs of education: “Reasoning, Resilience, and Responsibility,” or “Rights, Responsibility, and Respect.” Is it because the traditional 3Rs—Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic—don’t carry the same nebulous weight as those lofty goals? Or perhaps because spellcheckers and calculators make them obsolete? Or maybe—and Fly’s going out on a limb here—because only one of the 3Rs actually begins with R?

Councilman Sam Liccardo tells Fly that political consultants working for the San Francisco Giants have been “push-polling” to turn the San Jose public against the idea of the Oakland A’s franchise coming to the South Bay. A push-poll (for anyone who missed the 2000 Republican primary, in which the George Bush campaign famously used the tactic against Sen. John McCain) is an attack masquerading as a telephone poll. Liccardo says the Giants have been calling people in his district asking if they agree or disagree that city resources should be spent on police, fire fighters, parks, trails…or “land giveaways.”

Fly has heard that the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce is pushing to nail down none other then Caribou Barbie herself, Sarah Palin, as the main speaker at their 2010 Annual Legends and Leaders gala. The event is the Chamber’s premier fundraising shindig, attracting hundreds of the valley’s key leaders to the Fairmont each year.

In an interview broadcast on the Fox Business Channel’s “Mayor Monday” segment earlier this week, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called California “ungovernable,” and called for a constitutional convention to set matters right. “We fight and fight and fight and fight, and never get anything accomplished,” he said, adding that the state hasn’t really had a balanced budget for over a decade.

Didn’t know Mission Ale House was closing this week? Hey, don’t worry, neither did the people who work there. “I was out of town spreading my father’s ashes, and came home to no job,” says Johnny Van Wyk, who this year closed his club Johnny V’s and moved his live-music bookings to Mission, where he was general manager.

In this real estate market, builders are having to taking it to the streets to sell condos in downtown San Jose. Downtown workers may have noticed a troop of young, attractive, sign-wielding “protesters” marching up and down Santa Clara Street last Friday afternoon, chanting slogans like “Less Dues, Better Views” while handing out superhero-adorned pamphlets. This intrusive if creative bit of urban guerrilla marketing was paid for by Barry Swenson, whose company is trying the get the word out about its City Heights high-rise condo development at 175 W. St. James St.

A familiar name showed up out of the blue today, in a New York Times article looking back at the trial of the 85-year-old Anthony Marshall, who was found guilty this week of defrauding his mother, the late Brooke Astor. The article, which tells the story of the trial through the eyes of the jury, quotes one Philip Bump—the man Fly and many others believe was the poison-pen author of the now-defunct anonymous attack blog, San Jose Revealed.