The Little Saigon debacle seemed mostly resolved when Mayor Chuck Reed signed a peace deal with protesters in the Vietnamese community that promised that banners displaying the “Little Saigon” name could be flown to officially recognize the Vietnamese retail area. But what wasn’t spelled out was how many banners could go up.

The thought of Internet filter champion Pete Constant with a ball-gag in his mouth being whipped by a dominatrix might be a fantasy for free speech advocates. Fantasy turned to reality Monday night as actress Krista Kelly strapped on bondage gear and flagellated the conservative councilman in front of San Jose’s political elite at San Jose Stage’s Monday Night Live production. Kelly, a District 6 resident, seemed to enjoy whipping Pete a little too much. “Even Sally Leiber can’t save you now,” she screamed.

The San Jose Downtown Association (SJDA) has called for an investigation into whether the city’s police department targeted the nonprofit for an enforcement action by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), presumably in retaliation for SJDA’s advocacy of after-hours club closings, which SJPD opposed.

The San Jose Vietnamese community is a lot like the Hulk: don’t make them angry—you wouldn’t like them when they’re angry. Nobody knows this better than Madison Nguyen, who failed to take Bruce Banner’s famous advice and has now come around to realizing that their recall campaign against her (currently punctuated by the signs lining McLaughlin at the Grand Century Mall) can’t be taken lightly.

It wasn’t your average Election Day in Santa Clara County. For starters, voters elected a San Jose City Council member who wasn’t a candidate.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made an appearance Monday at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s 30th anniversary celebration, where she praised Silicon Valley for ongoing innovation that is helping to address the nation’s greatest problems, including climate change.

Is it possible that the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s campaign against Craig Mann is backfiring? The chamber, which is backing Rose Herrera for San Jose’s District 8 council seat, carpet-bombed the area with mailers that blast Mann, referencing his widely reported credit card use while a trustee on the East Side Union High School District board.

Mayor Chuck Reed’s efforts to make government more open and transparent have had an unexpected side effect—he’s also made it more boring.

Last week’s Willow Glen forum for the District 2 County Supervisor seat featured stumping from candidates Patricia Martinez-Roach, Richard Hobbs and George Shirakawa. What stumped Fly is why no one asked Shirakawa about the lien the city placed on his house last month because he didn’t pay his garbage bill on time.

Long before the Vietnam War, San Jose had its own well-known Italian enclave called Little Italy. And way before the Vietnamese were pushing to call the Vietnamese retail area Little Saigon, the Italian community had already started working on a plan to revive Little Italy and call it just that. But as you can imagine, nobody at City Hall wants to touch that one.

Exactly which May 1 march in support of immigrant rights did Merc reporters supposedly go to? The daily reported that the annual march wound “from East San Jose to City Hall,” which is downright bizarre since the biggest behind-the-scenes drama of the day came when the SJPD blocked off City Hall’s plaza.

Quietly absorbing the short end of the Little Saigon stick are the Vietnamese-American candidates who are running for a seat on the San Jose City Council in the June 3 primary. Things got even stickier for them as the Vietnamese community last week officially launched their campaign to recall Councilmember Madison Nguyen.

Maybe what San Jose needs is a feel-good theme song to help put the city on the map. That’s what San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams thinks, anyway. At last week’s council discussion, where the group was considering ways to promote the city’s best features to help draw business and visitors, Williams suggested the city write a song that will make San Jose well known across the globe, and even said he would consider taking it to the arts commission as a proposal.

Having been booted off the mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force this year isn’t keeping Councilmember Nora Campos from posturing as the city’s leading cheerleader on the issue. Campos last week held a community meeting where she called on the mayor’s task force to pull $200,000 from the emergency reserve funds to help target hot-spot areas in the city where there has been an increase in gang activity.

Watergate started as a simple burglary when a night watchman spotted a taped doorjamb at the Watergate apartment complex. The discovery led to a trail of dirty tricks that tracked to the Nixon White House. Was Eric Hernandez’s break-in of email accounts at City Hall the tape on the door, linked to a Nixonian effort to dredge dirt about the personal lives of politicians, journalists and business leaders critical of SBLC’s political initiatives and post it to the Web?

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