San Jose Inside’s Josh Koehn sat down in late October with City Manager Debra Figone, who will retire at the end of next week, to discuss her 44-year career in public service. The free-flowing discussion, which has been edited for clarity, touches on topics such as the city’s adversarial relationship with the Police Officers Association, the validity of international travel for elected officials, the possibility of another sports franchise coming to San Jose if the Oakland A’s cannot relocate here, and how Figone views the media’s coverage of local politics.

Saturday marks a year to the day since a gunman killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. To remember the lives lost, a group of community leaders and activists will hold a vigil this weekend in Sunnyvale, a city that grappled with a massacre of its own in 1988.

It’s déjà vu all over again, with apologies to Yogi Berra. The San Jose City Council once again passed an ordinance that could effectively put all medical marijuana collectives out of business. A more progressive approach would be to enforce existing law and pass an ordinance completely legalizing marijuana for general use.

A Santa Clara County employee took a browbeating for criticizing Obamacare and told to take her complaints outside—literally off public property. That’s according to Norina Mooney’s attorneys at the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), a conservative legal defense group that defends “religious, parental and other constitutional rights.”

There is a dangerous shortsightedness about constricting the role of mayor in San Jose and the campaign to only things that he/she can influence. Doing so makes San Jose seem small minded and insignificant. Are we not the Silicon Valley, the economic engine for the state, nation and world? Are we not the 10th most populous city in America? We must think bigger or we will lose out.

A private nonprofit charter school chain wants the city to act as a conduit financer for a $35 million loan to build another campus and make improvements at a couple others. Rocketship schools, owned by San Jose-based Launchpad Development Company, will ask the City Council to approve the bond issuance when it meets Tuesday. The council also considers plans to regulate pot clubs, accept an insurance settlement for a burnt-down historic home and OK a contract with the city’s police union.

Leveraging anecdotal evidence of increased crime and a poll conducted by teenage prohibitionists, the city aims to tighten restrictions on local pot clubs. Under new rules—if they garner a majority vote Tuesday from the City Council—dispensaries would operate no closer than 1,000 feet from a school, 500 feet from a substance abuse clinic and 150 feet from a home.

Despite going bankrupt in August, it looks like Rural Metro will continue providing ambulance services for Santa Clara County residents—at least through 2016. Other items on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors agenda include a request for $8 million from the department that oversees the child abuse hotline and a discussion on the Santa Jose Sate hate crime allegations.

In the wake of high-profile hate crime allegations on campus, San Jose State University has enlisted a retired judge to conduct an independent review of what happened. LaDoris Cordell, San Jose’s independent police auditor, will oversee the investigation, which will look at how the university failed to prevent four white students from racially terrorizing a black roommate.

The Levitt Pavilion received support from the San Jose City Council this week, after Sam Liccardo gathered enough interest from neighbors and urbanists to get approval for an “Exploratory Committee.” Will it be “the answer” or “part of the answer” to what ails St. James Park? We shall see.

Councilman Ash Kalra wants to deliver San Jose from the evils of gas-powered leaf blowers. Also on the Rules and Open Government Committee agenda for Wednesday is a plea from senior citizens for the city to protect older affordable homes, like mobile home parks.

Team San Jose, the city’s tourism and facilities management agency, vastly exceeded gross revenue goals last year. In 2012-13, the decade-old nonprofit generated $23.8 million—more than twice the projected target, according to an annual audit up for review at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Also on the agenda are plans to bring a music stage to St. James Park, a citywide financial audit and a discussion about changing building height requirements around the San Jose airport.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our San Jose Inside readers. We will return after the holiday weekend.—Editor

A lobbyist-funded ballot initiative will attempt to overturn San Jose’s ban on expanded polystyrene (EPS) to-go containers at local restaurants. Sponsored by the California Restaurant Association, a petition that gathered 38,952 signatures was turned in to the City Clerk’s office Nov. 18. But before the county Registrar of Voters verifies if the necessary amount of signatures were gathered, critics have already lodged complaints with City Clerk Toni Taber that the petition misled signers.

As I have written on a multiple occasions, public education is the most critical civil rights issue of our day. And since it’s that time of the season, I wish to give thanks to those who are making a measurable difference in education results, today and into the future.

Sam Liccardo says kids are never too young to get on that 9-to-5 grind. The downtown San Jose councilmember and 2014 mayoral candidate created a petition last week to pad San Jose school days an hour or few longer to match adult work schedules.