Someone needs to clue in the folks in charge of the South Santa Clara Valley Memorial District about the Brown Act. And its legal obligations to veterans. And basic bookkeeping. And the Internet. This and other items go before the Rules and Open Government Committee on Wednesday.

Santa Clara County Board of Education member Darcie Green says she is resigning from the board “to avoid a long, messy legal battle to defend my seat.” Green was appointed to the board Oct. 17 of last year to fill a vacancy in Board Trustee Area 6, which was created by the resignation of Craig Mann. New district lines were drawn following Mann’s reelection in 2010. In making the appointment, the County Board relied on its legal counsel’s opinion, which turned out to be a mistake.

Rocketship schools tout the lofty goal of closing the achievement gap “within our lifetime.” With just two school years down, standardized test scores show that the charter chain is on a faster track to accomplishing its goal that than most schools serving low-income students, many of whom speak English as a second language. In addition to an annual report from Rocketship, the Santa Clara County Board of Education will hear reports on the financial impact of the sequester and a bailout given to Gilroy’s school district.

UPDATE: The Samsung item on this week’s agenda has been deferred to March 26.

An incentives package designed to convince Samsung to make San Jose home to its new North American research headquarters goes before the City Council on Tuesday for final approval. Other items on the agenda include the sale of some small properties, a proposal to extend debt payments to JP Morgan and a labor negotiations update.

Funds from two local non-profit health care foundations made their way to phone banks and mail campaigns of the South Bay Labor Council in 2012 after routing the money through a Measure A’s campaign committee. Both the VMC Foundation and the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation gave more than a quarter-million dollars each—a total of $539,000—to support an 1/8th cent county sales tax measure, Measure A. At least $90,000 of those monies were transferred to the South Bay Labor Council. An incestuous tangle of organizations, directors and consultants characterized the transactions, with common decision-makers on both the giving and receiving ends. None of the organization are willing to discuss how the funds were used and how decisions were made. Former San Jose vice mayor and South Bay Labor Council CEO Cindy Chavez currently heads up the nonprofit SBLC-linked Working Partnerships USA (WPUSA) and sits on the board for the Health Trust and Santa Clara Family Health Foundation.

Hey, you, bicyclists over the age of 12: Get off the sidewalks. Enough people complained about your scofflaw ways that the city’s about to crack down on the pedestrian-scaring practice. Well, sort of.

Is Ro Khanna the Next Big Thing in valley politics? The 36-year-old Yale-educated Wilson Sonsini lawyer now sits on one of the Bay Area’s largest political war chests. Khanna won’t say definitively whether he’ll run for Mike Honda’s congressional seat — only that he’s “considering where I can best serve and make an impact.” He doesn’t discourage speculation either and keeps a busy schedule meeting with people who could help him with a run. Khanna admits his interest in Honda’s seat is “not a secret,”

Mayor Chuck Reed’s top priorities in a cautiously optimistic 2013-14 budget proposal, released Friday, include restoring public safety salaries and city services. How does he plan to do it? Good question.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors votes Tuesday on whether to hold a special election June 4, with a possible June 30 runoff, to replace disgraced District 2 Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. Other items on the agenda include hillside development, potential fundraisers on county property and a huge new contract for the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System.

Rising crime rates and controversy surrounding San Jose’s Measure B pension reform efforts may have cut into Mayor Chuck Reed’s approval rating, which, according to a recent opinion poll, is listed at 55 percent.

Like all the portraits Carter took of friends or people who attended events he chronicled, San Jose has never looked better. “It’s a panorama of ten or so shots stitched together in Photoshop with a nice sky dropped in and a special filter applied to give it a painted quality,” Carter explained. “There’s an eight […]

After months of reading about the horrors of sequestration, most folks didn’t even blink when President Obama signed the document ordering the cuts beginning March 1, 2013. Call it “sequestration fatigue,” but the hype leading up to the date was akin to the expectation of all computers crashing on Y2K. While I have heard some pundits call the 2.3 percent reduction in Federal government spending “budget dust,” the cuts target certain departments and programs and leaves others alone.

Shaky, candid home videos and snapshots documenting the lives of two slain Santa Cruz police officers played on a loop inside HP Pavilion’s massive overhead projectors Thursday. The memorial service for Sgt. Loran “Butch” Baker, 51, and Officer Elizabeth Butler, 38, welcomed nearly 18,000 into the downtown San Jose arena, following a motorcade of fire engines, motorcycles, cop cruisers, trucks and limousines that snaked its way down Highway 17. Thousands of onlookers, from first responders to Hells Angels, stood on the roadside to express their condolences, raising signs or laying down flowers on the curb.

Influential local photographer and advertising executive Peter S. Carter died last night after a fall on the stairs of his Victorian home. A gifted strategist, he advised valley political and business leaders and operated a successful advertising agency for many years, reinventing himself as a photographer of social events as the industry changed.

A South Bay gun buyback became the third largest in the nation last weekend, when Santa Clara County traded $114,000 in cash for 1,116 firearms. Forty-seven of the guns were assault weapons, 479 handguns, 355 rifles and 235 shotguns. There’s still $36,000 leftover for a future buyback.

It’s always a shame to let facts interfere with a good story, but county Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr.‘s downfall didn’t start with a hushed voice from a trench coat in the dark corners of a parking garage. Here’s how Metro/San Jose Inside uncovered some of the disgraced politician’s illegal activity.