The following is an excerpt from a Metro investigation into Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa. Since taking office in January of 2009, Shirakawa has broken the law by not filing nine campaign disclosure forms showing how he has collected money to pay off a $110,000 debt from the 2008 campaign. In addition to this stunning lack of transparency, forms that Shirakawa did file during that campaign show a policy of nepotism in doling out more than $50,000 in campaign cash to a close friend, two of his daughters and the mother of one of his children.—Editor

Members of Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 showed up at 4pm Sunday to close the cement and asphalt plant at Graniterock’s A.R. Wilson Quarry. Aggregate Division Manager Jack Leemaster looked none too happy with the surprise when he drove up in a white pickup truck 45 minutes later. “My understanding is they had a pretty good sized order going out tonight,” said one plant worker, resting his placard’s pine stick on his shoulder. “Three hundred tons for night paving.” Twelve hours later, things would get worse for Graniterock. Before Monday crews punched in to start their weeks, picketers descended upon the company’s recycling plant at Monterey Highway and Capitol Expressway, at the sand and gravel facility in Hollister and at Graniterock operations in San Jose’s Berryessa district, Redwood City and South San Francisco.

Paperwork is the worst; unless there isn’t any. A call down to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters on Thursday turned up some interesting details in the re-election campaigns of county supervisors Dave Cortese and George Shirakawa. Both men ran unopposed to re-election to the board of supervisors in the recent primary, but both raised money. This begs a few questions: Why would a politician need to raise money for a campaign in which they are running unopposed? And why would someone give money to an unopposed candidate? Could there be some amorous backscratching going on here?

San Jose Police were called to the headquarters of the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday afternoon after an independent distribution firm discovered its news racks — along with those of other local publications — in a metal recycling dumpster behind the daily’s plant. News outlets whose news racks were found in the garbage container included Metro, the Palo Alto Daily Post, the Mountain View Voice, Good Times, La Oferta, the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

Despite the city’s stated commitment to sunshine and open government, city officials and proponents of a proposal to permanently close a block of South First Street concealed critical documents from affected parties for a year—until the eve of a council vote. Promoters of the “pavement to plaza” conversion say a $500,000 grant from ArtPlace requires the street’s full closure. San Jose will contribute $98,000 in park and economic development funds, under the plan, which goes to the City Council at today’s 1:30pm meeting.

Eric Swallow currently owns the city’s oldest card room, Garden City Casino, with partners Peter and Jeanine Lunardi, and they want nothing more than to shut down the aging facility and replace it with a 21st-century gambling establishment. Casino M8trix is a $50-million, 16-story highrise alongside Highway 101 near San Jose’s airport. The casino’s owners are in a standoff with San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore and some members of city staff.

Lupe Nunez, a vice principal for two years at one of two charter schools formerly operated by the Mexican American Community Service Agency (MACSA)  school, says she’s not sure if Xavier Campos was involved in the disappearance of funds from the teachers’ retirement accounts, “but you kind of wonder.” The question weighs on the minds of many teachers who worked for below-market wages at charter schools in Gilroy and San Jose, operated by MACSA, as executives raided $1 million from their pension accounts to pay other expenses, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.

In his outstretched palm, Atul Lall holds a molar, a wisdom tooth and four fragments of teeth that broke free when a tequila bottle encountered his jaw. Three days before last Thanksgiving, the 32-year-old San Jose native was driving away from the Lucky’s grocery store on South White Road in east San Jose. As he pulled his car out of the lot, Lall says that three men, without apparent reason, ripped him from the driver’s seat and beat him while dousing him with liquor. They called him a terrorist. Almost three months since the incident, the second-to-last of San Jose’s 32 hate crimes reported last year has sparked two separate police investigations. The first continues to search for the three men suspected of beating Lall.  The other, sources confirmed, is being conducted by Internal Affairs, the police department’s watchdog, which is looking into claims that investigators bungled the case and blamed the city’s budget problems for their inability to find the culprits.

In 2004, Miguel Baldoni was working as a substitute teacher in rural Appalachian Ohio when he heard about a new charter school opening on the East Side of San Jose. He uprooted himself, came to California and got a job teaching chemistry at the Academica Calmecac, which was run by the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA).

He says he was pleased that the position offered him a chance to change the lives of at-risk students who had been left behind by traditional public schools. But he freely admits that the exceptional retirement package promised to all MACSA teachers really cemented his decision to pack his bags and come to Silicon Valley with 10 bucks in his pocket.

“This was the biggest reason why I took this job,” Baldoni says.

“From June 17th to 23rd of 2008, the blog they say I run posted eight times. What was I doing during this period? I was on my honeymoon,” Bump wrote on July 24.