Deputy DA Jeff Rosen (left), prosecuted murder defendant Paul Garcia, in handcuffs (right). Photo: Los Gatos Observer

Deputy DA Jeff Rosen and Assistant DA Rolanda Pierre-Dixon appear to be testing the agua to run against District Attorney Dolores Carr. And Rosen, according the the county registrar’s office, just pulled papers of intention to run and organize a committee. The Mercury News, which has been riding Carr’s derriere ever since she defeated Karen Sinunu, appears to be goading Rosen into the race. This wasn’t always the case. The Mercury included Rosen as one of its poster boys for prosecutorial misconduct in its “Tainted Trials” series. The daily cited an appellate court decision finding that Rosen ignored a judge’s orders when cross-examining a defendant.

Already reeling from from the fallout from posted YouTube videos of a dance floor rumble, downtown San Jose’s beleaguered entertainment community was thrown another curve this week with the surprise reassignment of Lt. Larry McGrady to the East Side’s Foothill Division. McGrady had promoted communication and improved relations between the San Jose Police Department and Entertainment Zone operators since being appointed to oversee the district in December 2008.

San Jose’s favorite Evangelical leader, Larry Pegram, chose the biggest political event of the season to come out last week. (No, not like that.) At the annual Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee (COMPAC) picnic, Pegram, who was a vociferous leader on the campaign to ban gay marriage in California last year, was spotted wearing a yellow ribbon, flagging him as a candidate. When asked what office he was seeking, the president of the Values Advocacy Council confirmed that he is eyeing Congress in 2010.

The Caravan Lounge has poured strong drinks on South Almaden Avenue in downtown San Jose for at least 45 years, but ever since current property owners Jan Chargin and Lynn M. Bohnen asked the Redevelopment Agency in 2007 to buy the building, rumors have run rampant about what would finally happen to the classic dive bar. The San Jose City Council was scheduled to vote today on whether the RDA should fork over $1,120,000 for the property, plus an extra $187,000 in “relocation” costs to current Caravan operator, George Rich.

However, the meeting adjourned 15 minutes ago with no mention of the Caravan.

Apparently, Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto decided to play it safe—rather than face her constituents (and whoever else showed up) head-on in a public town hall meeting yesterday, she chose to host a phone-in discussion, where participants had to register first. Her staff could then screen questions from listeners, and potentially avoid all the nasty loonies that have plagued other town hall meetings across the nation.

Pam Foley dropped out of the San Jose City Council District 9 race this morning, saying she had decided that cannot balance being a mother, a school board member and a businesswoman while running a campaign. “I’m really, really sad about it,” Foley told Fly—somehow managing to sound extremely confident in resignation: “It was tough because I know I was going to win this race,” she said. “I had everything I needed to win.”

County Assessor Larry Stone may be getting bored with waiting for the baseball commissioner to approve an A’s move, so he’s thinking up new ideas. One popped out of his lips at the mayor’s annual breakfast at the San Jose Jazz Festival, of which Stone is honorary chair. Let’s build a statue to commemorate the Doobie Brothers in San Jose, their hometown, Stone proposed. Certainly other cities have celebrated their popular musicians. Austin has a Stevie Ray Vaughn statue and Seattle honored Jimi Hendrix with the Experience Music Project.

The San Jose City Council will revote on its plan to rebid the $7 million construction contract for an Eastside library. On Friday, Councilmember Rose Herrera submitted a memo calling for reconsideration of the June 23 vote, taken on the eve of the July council recess.

A press release arrived today from California’s Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, that read like something in The Onion. It announced the approval of an initiative to require drug and alcohol tests of all members of the state legislature. Among other things, the statute would “prevent a legislator who tests positive from performing his or her official duties or from getting paid until that legislator completes a substance abuse program.”

Fly can practically hear the conversation that led to this effort: “I think they’re all high on glue.” “What are they, smoking crack?”

Another downtown club went dark last week as SJPD Chief Rob Davis used the city’s urgency ordinance for the first time, suspending the entertainment permit of the SoFA district’s Club Wet for one month. Recent club closures unrelated to the urgency ordinance include Taste, The Vault Ultralounge and Johnny V’s.  The urgency measure gives the chief broad discretion to close businesses viewed as imminent threats to public safety. The ordinance was passed by the city council two years ago following a shooting incident in the parking lot outside Club Ambassador.

San Jose State University recently announced the results of its annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The contest is named for Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, fondly remembered for a bastardization of the opening words of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Over the years, San Jose Stage Company’s annual political-theater event, Monday Night Live, has gotten less vicious in its political satire while amping up sex humor and punctuating skits with F-bombs. Last year, library porn filter champion Pete Constant achieved notoriety by donning a kinky S&M ball-gag. Constant bravely returned to the scene of the crime on Monday with another, slightly less risque, dominatrix-themed skit. But his aide, Jim Cogan, a council candidate himself, showed the lengths to which aspiring officeholders will go for public attention.

So Fly was browsing YouTube.com, looking for more videos of Keyboard Cat, when up popped an interesting little video posted by the San Jose Police Officers Association. On it, Raj Jayadev, founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug (and a regular SJI contributor), is seen addressing a San Jose City Council meeting, talking about the distrust brewing between some city residents and the police department.

San Jose’s Economic Development office has mysteriously authored a Memorandum that would permanently reverse 25 years of land use planning in the city.

Billed as an “Economic Emergency Amendment” to the North San Jose Area Development Policy, the memo calls for a massive development of one million square feet of retail space, 2,000 hotel rooms, and 8,000 residential units. The memo is signed off on by Paul Krutko, the city’s economic development point man, and is accompanied by a resolution, dated June, 2009, to be sent to the City Council.

Perhaps Councilwoman Nora Campos’s trek to the state Capitol today is an omen of what’s to come Thursday. After much speculation, the District 5 council rep says she will publicly announce her plans for public office in 2010. Her staffers stayed tight-lipped about it, only saying that she has decided to hold off on her announcement until Thursday for personal reasons.

Speculation has run thick that San Jose will one day see a political showdown between Council rivals Sam Liccardo and Pete Constant in a race for mayor. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking among people who can’t wait to watch the two pols go at it. But here’s a new twist. Fly just caught wind that Constant is entertaining the idea of running for Santa Clara County Sheriff instead.