San Jose State University’s Tower Foundation calls itself an “auxiliary organization dedicated solely to philanthropy,” according to its website. A report by Cal Watchdog published Thursday suggests the foundation broke federal law by not reporting generous payments to university officials.

Mayor Susan Hammer is among the best leaders San Jose has ever produced, and I have tremendous empathy for her and those who are frustrated with the decisionsCity Hall has made to shortchange our libraries. But the answer is a change of personnel at City Hall, not a charter amendment which, admittedly, will be popular with voters—especially with her leadership. But the policy puts the city on a slippery slope of percentage-based spending. It may sound good, but it is this same type of policy that got us into trouble on the state level.

California, we should be embarrassed. Our disinvestment in public education is taking its toll on our state based on new data. We find ourselves in a deepening crisis that screams out for a strategic plan to support a change in course. Approximately 100,000 students fail to graduate high school in this state every year, and more than 50 percent of these people are students of color. But there are strategies we can use to boost graduation rates.

It is common practice for superintendents in counties with district budgets over $100 million dollars to receive well over $200,000 in salary. The position of superintendent is incredibly complex, especially under the current economic conditions. So, if I am at all responsible for the Santa Clara County school board’s negative grade in “Who’s Up & Down” in Sunday’s Internal Affairs column in the Mercury News, I am deeply sorry. But, my quote in reporter Sharon Noguchi’s article last Thursday, which detailed the salary for new county Superintendent Xavier De La Torre, was taken completely out of the context intended.

In a recent civil case, a San Jose police officer was found liable for using excessive force on Danny Piña, who was misidentified as a gang member. Piña was wearing a red shirt and police stopped him for riding a bike with a missing headlamp. The jury found that the officer, Allan De La Cruz, used excessive force when he broke Piña’s nose and dislocated his shoulder. I have a 16-year-old son who had a similar experience of being misidentified by police, based on what he looks like and there being a gang presence in the neighborhood.

This new falcon at City Hall has got some nerve. They call him Fernando El Cohete. We here at San Jose Inside call him a home-wrecking lout. El Cohete (“The Rocket” in Spanish) appeared over the weekend, and a Mercury News report suggests that he engaged long-time City Hall falcon stud Esteban Colbert in “aerial combat.” Señor Colbert has been missing since Sunday.

With the filing deadline for the June primary coming up on Friday, I thought we’d take a closer look at the 2011 redistricting process that created the current San José City Council districts. It was the second consecutive redistricting process that saw very few changes to the geography of San Jose’s political map. But you can’t blame them for not taking bolder steps. The City Charter left the commissioners only a few months to finish their work. Meanwhile, they were under siege from residents who’d prefer that nothing ever change. Ever.

Last month, public education in this country continued to slip into the abyss. New York City became the epicenter of school reform and the second major U.S. city—Los Angeles Times published individual teacher scores last school year—to implement a public dissemination of individual teacher value-added scores. Value-added scores are a teacher’s rating predicated on the progress each of their elementary or middle school students makes on standardized tests in one school year.

The stove runs hot in the spring, and a fresh batch of baseball rumors about the Oakland A’s potential move to San Jose came pouring in this past weekend. Bill Madden, of the New York Daily News, tipped the first domino Saturday by reporting writing that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig will uphold the San Francisco Giant’s territorial claims over the South Bay, and prevent the Oakland A’s from relocating to San Jose. Henry Schulman, of the San Francisco Chronicle, begged to differ.

The city of San Jose’s Department of Animal Care & Services is the place to seek out regarding all things animals. Actually, San Jose provides animal services for other neighboring cities too, including Cupertino, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Saratoga on a contractual basis. Despite a lack of funding from the state, San Jose’s Animal Care Services has a higher success rate of saving cats and dogs than at any other time in the city’s history.

As conservatives and religious groups battle President Obama on his healthcare plan, and Rush Limbaugh continues to call a Georgetown law student a “slut” and “prostitute” because of her advocacy for access to birth control, local leaders are speaking out against what they see as a conservative, religious-based attack on women’s health.

San Jose City Hall’s celebrity falcons Clara and Esteban Colbert celebrated the dropping of their second egg of the season around 8:30am Wednesday morning. Clara started her sixth nesting season Saturday with the dropping of her first egg. Glenn Stewart, biologist and coordinator of UC Santa Cruz’s Predatory Bird Research Group, expects each egg to drop in 56-hour intervals until Clara and Esteban have a nest of three or four. Clara has had a series of lovers since she first built her nest on the 18th level of City Hall in 2007.

A four-month manhunt ended Saturday with the arrest of Steve Ruiz, who is suspected of killing fellow Hells Angels motorcycle club member Steve Tausan at a funeral during October of last year. Ruiz will reportedly be charged with homicide Wednesday.

A 9-year-old boy in Washington, described as frightened and crying, sat in front of a judge in juvenile court waiting to see if he would be granted bail for a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. The boy found a gun at his mother’s house, put it in his backpack and took it to school. When he put his backpack down, the gun went off, critically wounding an 8-year-old girl. This comes from a brief Associated Press article in a local paper. There are questions that went through my mind about this story: How is a nine-year-old competent to stand trial? And, Washington State grants bail for kids? Thee state of California doesn’t do that–isn’t bail to make sure someone shows up for court? And why did he bring the gun to school?

The Santa Clara County Board of Education is nearing completion of its most important statutory responsibility: the hiring of a new county superintendent of schools. The new county superintendent must be willing to encourage the utmost in school district transparency relative to the dollars expended, the test results, the grades, etc. Without transparency, public education can continue to obfuscate rather than improve.

Today is President’s Day, which means no one is working at City Hall. And because the national holiday falls on a Monday, as usual, this means the City Council won’t be meeting until next week. After taking a quick look at the committee agendas, it doesn’t seem like much of anything important will happen this week. But there was one item about a newcomer to the District 6 City Council race that garnered some attention.