The City Clerk plans to retroactively mark Councilmember Pete Constant down as an unexcused absence for last week’s City Council meeting. Unbeknownst to almost anyone, Constant, who was out of the office almost all of August after back surgery, was attending the Repubican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

Where does a Mike Wasserman, Laurie Smith or Jim Cunneen go? These quintessential Silicon Valley moderate Republicans are out of step with their current party. They are tolerated as Republicans, but with no real enthusiasm from the declining, myopic base of their current party. Republicans are an endangered species in California and the moderates within the party have been driven out by the hard-right agenda that is an anathema to a growing multicultural state.

UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties this post and all reader comments were dropped from the site. The post has been restored in its original form as we work to resolve all outstanding issues. Thanks for your patience.—Editor

The San Jose Police Department is thinking of getting out of the fingerprint business. As a result, a battle for millions of dollars in equipment and staffing, and has been quietly waged for months between the SJPD and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office over who should process criminal prints.

As the county Board of Education looks into authorizing a zoning exemption for a new Rocketship School (#8) on Lick Ave. off of Alma, by the Tamien light rail station, we are at a new day with a more reflective conversation. This issue comes up tomorrow night on the board agenda.

Happy Labor Day, San Jose Inside readers. We’ll return tomorrow to fill you in this week with updates on some shenanigans at the county level, an in-depth interview with City Manager Debra Figone and a dispatch from the Democratic National Convention.—Editor.

Enrique Flores is the founder of Eastside Heroes, a mentoring non-profit, director of the Corozon Project in East San Jose, and a policy aide for Supervisor Dave Cortese.—Editor

In just 10 days this August, seven of our San Jose residents were killed, and five more are recovering from gun shot wounds. Some call this a “spike” in violence, I call it “The Start of the Second War.”

There is no question that Stanford is considered the elite school in the Bay Area. But if you are hiring, the San Jose State grad is a better choice. It is a lesson I learned from the 1980 Presidential campaign, and that reality remains true to this day.

If approved in November, Proposition 33 would allow auto insurers to offer discounts to new customers who have had continuous coverage for the past five years. Sound familiar? It should.

The last time we wrote about Johnny Khamis, who is running for a San Jose City Council seat against high school sportscaster Robert Braunstein, he called us racists for mentioning that he’s Palestinian and Braunstein is Jewish. For the record, Fly loves people of all races and religions, shapes and complexions. Khamis, however, thinks some Almaden voters could be Islamophobic, so he took the opportunity to announce he’s a Christian. But just how God-fearing is Khamis?

After filing papers to run for a second four-year term for my County Board of Education Trustee seat, I learned on the Aug. 10 deadline that no one filed papers to run against me. Therefore, I am automatically re-elected. This is a great and unexpected result, but one that is not so good for providing me a campaign forum to raise some of the most critical issues of our time.

What does shucking corn have to do with an understaffed police department in San Jose? It all comes down to resources and being open to accepting assistance.

On Tuesday, Santa Clara County proclaimed the week of Aug. 21-26 as “Freedom Week.” The facts are staggering. Roughly 80 percent of slaves in the world today are women and it is an increasing problem.

County Supervisor George Shirakawa waded into the fight over who’s to blame for the rise in crime in San Jose Thursday afternoon, releasing a statement voicing his displeasure with comments San Jose Councilmember Sam Liccardo made to the media. In response, Liccardo shrugged before calling out Nora Campos for her letter to San Jose’s police chief. Go ahead and click through, because this gets good.

Who should hold sway over these city streets? It’s a debate that is taking place behind closed doors and in front of the media now that San Jose is on pace to break the annual record for homicides going back 15 years. On Tuesday, State Assemblymember Nora Campos (D-San Jose) sent an “open letter” to Moore, encouraging him to ask the California Highway Patrol for assistance in combatting crime and patrolling city streets.

It saddens many tree huggers that the once heralded California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is being so abused by NIMBY groups that simple justice, common sense and economic progress demands its reform.

Hold on to your wallets, kids! Ex’pression College for Digital Arts, a for-profit college, is opening up a new campus in San Jose in September 2012. According to the San Jose Business Journal, the school is leasing 65,000 square feet of office space in Ridder Park Technology Center in North San Jose. The group plans to spend $3 million to rehabilitate the space and will serve up to 550 students. Their main bay area campus, serving 650 students, is located in Emeryville.