The Democratic Central Committee voted last week to speed up its endorsement process, giving the group two more months to rally behind its chosen San Jose mayoral candidate (hint: Dave Cortese). As a result, some candidates who would be up for consideration—but unlikely to win the endorsement—are now saying they didn’t want the committee’s backing in the first place.

San Jose will start looking for ways to pay for body-worn cameras on police officers, which Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell says will lessen citizen complaints and keep officers accountable for the way they conduct themselves in the field. That and more at this week’s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting.

A group of dispensary owners filed an initiative to bring a full set of marijuana regulations to San Jose voters this fall. The “Medical Marijuana Regulation for San Jose Act of 2014” aims to set a minimum of 50 pot clubs. It also asks the city to form a cannabis commission similar to the advisory boards it has for libraries and parks, land use and transportation, among other interests.

With the rental market heating up, more people are asking for the city’s help to mediate lease rate hikes. The City Council on Tuesday will decide whether to pay more for a program to mediate and arbitrate cases between landlords trying to keep up with the market and tenants getting priced out of their homes. Other items on the agenda include a code enforcement audit, a historical landmark designation for a fruit stand and a trash-reduction plan.

While San Jose considers where to build a bond measure-funded softball complex, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will discuss a plan to bring it rent-free to the fairgrounds. Also on the agenda: a discussion about contraband being smuggled in with jail laundry, Section 8 housing help and a work-study program for college students.

In a near-unanimous vote Thursday, the county’s Democratic Central Committee agreed to move its endorsement decision for the San Jose mayor’s race from April to February. Moving the schedule up a couple months gives the party more time to mobilize a campaign behind its preferred candidate, who many presume to be county Supervisor Dave Cortese.

An initiative to reverse a San Jose-wide ban on polystyrene food take-out containers failed after election officials found that more than half the signatures endorsing the measure were made-up or otherwise unusable.

Neither Mayor Chuck Reed nor his union opponents liked the way California Attorney General Kamala Harris worded the official description of a polarizing pension reform ballot measure, which on Monday was cleared for signature-gathering to place it on the November ballot.

An effort to save the outdated Century 21 dome theater on Winchester Boulevard goes before a city commission this week. Preservationists want it designated as a historic landmark.

City officials want to explore the option of giving both male and female employees a month of paid parental leave. The perk could help attract new hires and give existing workers more incentive to stay, according to a plan by Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and Councilman Don Rocha going before the Rules and Open Government Committee meeting this week. Also on the agenda: an ordinance to clarify disability benefits and a ream of letters from town crier David Wall.

Business groups worry that San Jose could scare away developers if it imposes a fee on new home construction to pay for more affordable housing, an effort to recoup a fraction of the money lost when the state closed all redevelopment agencies. The City Council, which was supposed to talk about the inclusionary housing fee in December, decided to table the discussion until the new year.

San Jose will consider skirting its living wage policy to appease a massive corporation and some developers. The City Council on Tuesday will discuss an appeal from Starbucks and other vendors to be exempt from the rule—they’re interested in leasing space at City Hall and the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

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.

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.”

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office seized documents in a Thanksgiving eve raid that implicate Xavier Campos’ campaign in funding the red-baiting political mailers that helped him win a seat on the San Jose City Council. Now, records obtained this week by Metro/San Jose Inside suggest that the District 5 councilmember engaged in a highly unconventional campaign finance practice—one used by the incarcerated former county supervisor—that would have allowed him to establish phony campaign bank accounts that could have gone undetected by agencies monitoring election spending.

Copper wire theft and other problems leave hundreds of streetlights dark, creating a public safety problem in several neighborhoods. But what if the city leases these poles to telecom companies as cell stations to expand their 4G network? Councilmembers Rose Herrera and Sam Liccardo proposed the idea, saying the lights get fixed, courtesy of Philips, and San Jose receives better cell phone service while residents aren’t left in the dark.