As the mayoral race heats up, it’s safe to assume some candidates will resort to personal attacks against their opponents. But Manuel Herrera, a trustee of the East Side Union High School District, has a plan to counteract the negativity. Will it work?

San Jose’s police union reached a tentative agreement with the city this week that would give officers a 10 percent raise over the next three years. The Police Officers Association is expected to be on board with the plan, and so is the City Council.

San Jose Councilman Ash Kalra says the city’s got some explaining to do about its police stats gaffe. In a memo to the Rules and Open Government Committee, which meets Wednesday, Kalra calls for a hearing in front of the City Council about why a change was made in calculating gang stats, and why the numbers were misrepresented to the public.

The U.S. Department of Commerce picked San Jose City Hall as the permanent site for its Silicon Valley satellite patent office. The office will open up shop by the end of 2014, the federal agency announced Tuesday.

Despite vocal opposition from some community members, Rocketship Education could receive approval to start building another charter school in the Washington/Tamien neighborhood. The City Council this week will consider selling the nonprofit educational company an $850,000 parcel of land to develop the new campus. Also on the council agenda is an underfunded gun buyback, a contract agreement with the electricians union and an urban village plan.

A Santa Clara County Grand Jury drilled into financial transactions between George Shirakawa Jr. and California Assembly leader Nora Campos that occurred shortly after voters received a fraudulent mailer posted with stamps bearing Shirakawa’s DNA. Five thousand dollars changed hands as the Speaker pro Tempore’s younger brother battled in a tight race for a San Jose City Council seat, secured thanks to illegal, anonymous dirty tricks. Metro and San Jose Inside broke the Grand Jury report this week. Read part two of our report here.

Xavier Campos refuses to cooperate with investigation into mail fraud scandal, according to grand jury transcripts exclusively obtained by Metro and San Jose Inside.

Two minutes shy of deadline to place it on the Nov. 19 City Council agenda, Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio logged a request for the city to revisit the discussion about where to place a softball complex paid for by the remaining balance of a $228 million pool of bond funds. That and more at Wednesday’s Rules and Open Government Committee.

Communities across the nation on Monday recognized the men and women who have served in the U.S. armed forces. A ceremony for San Jose’s 95th annual Veterans Day parade was held near the SAP Center, and hours earlier the Veterans Day National Ceremony commenced at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

When the San Jose Police Department boasted about a 42.9 percent drop in gang-related homicides last month, it should have placed an asterisk by that figure. Police failed to mention that the dip in homicides and other gang violence this year came mostly from a change in the way the department classifies those crimes.

Mike Honda—Silicon Valley’s globe-trotting, karaoke-singing, hard-partying congressman—has had a charmed career. Now, a well-funded challenger, Ro Khanna, asks whether being likeable is enough, or whether the public expects a lawmaker to work hard, write laws and fight to keep valley industries competitive.

Just when a debate over Santa Clara County’s civil detainer policy was getting stale, straight-laced Supervisor Joe Simitian delivered a bombshell by admitting he was arrested as a kid. The former state senator declined to share any more details except to say that he was locked up for “47-and-a-half hours” in Juvenile Hall on suspicion of some crime, cleared and then released. A details man, Simitian may be the only person to ever make the distinction between being in jail for 47-and-a-half hours and 48. “I’m going to ask you about that later,” joked fellow Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Maybe it was an attempt to relate, but Simitian’s youthful brush with the law hardly compares to the plight of undocumented immigrants who face deportation if charged with a crime.

Following a closed session meeting for the City Council on Tuesday morning, San Jose City Manager Debra Figone announced that Ed Shikada will take over her role when she retires in December.

Police Chief Larry Esquivel suggests holding off on opening the new-but-empty police substation in south San Jose until later next year. But are there enough officers on the force to staff a second field office? While the city considers the chief’s proposal, there are also a couple plans making their way to Wednesday’s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting to get cadets to foot the bill for their own training if they leave too soon after receiving their training.

An update to the city’s fire and building codes would retain the option for high-rise developers to install oxygen-refilling stations for firefighters. The City Council on Tuesday will talk about reinstating a rule that would that would allow Firefighter Air Replenishment System (FARS), as opposed to reinforced elevators, in every building 75 feet or taller. Also on the council agenda is an urgency ordinance to allow hunters in Almaden to shoot wild pigs and a brewing fight over using leftover Measure P funds to build a massive softball complex.

Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will review its policy on how local law enforcement should cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The county was one of the first in the nation to take a stand against a 2010 Obama administration enforcement policy that led to a record number of deportations in California.