The company that provides Santa Clara County’s ambulance services is in need of rescue. In December 2010, the Board of Supervisors contracted with Rural Metro, which missed an important bond payment last week, leading industry insiders and county officials to worry that the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company may be headed towards bankruptcy. So what do the elected officials who supported the Rural Metro contract have to say about the current mess? Nothing.

In order to move on from partisan gridlock on education reform, we must deal with the facts of what works to increase performance for all students. Looking at two new bills coming out of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, that isn’t happening right now.

Two years ago, I approached the talented group Shady Shakespeare Theatre Company and asked staff to walk through Willow Glen’s Bramhall Park with me to see if they would consider performing at the venue. At first glance, it was viewed as less desirable, due to the fact that the grass was dead in the summer, and the amphitheater had electrical connections that no longer functioned and sub-optimal lighting. Despite these less than ideal circumstances, we agreed to keep in touch.

Mayor Chuck Reed’s pension reform plan went to trial Monday in a Santa Clara County court room. The outcome of the case is expected to influence other cities considering ways to cut down on the cost of retirement benefits. The lawsuit, brought against the city by its employee unions in response to Reed’s Measure B reforms, demonstrates the challenge of reforming pension plans despite having to cut public services to pay for them.

Downtown San Jose appears poised to add a new entertainment venue next month. The question is whether some of the workers will be topless, fully nude or neither.

George Shirakawa Jr. didn’t attend court for his procedural hearing Friday, disappointing camera crews who were hoping for a shot of the disgraced former county supervisor. And while the brief hearing in Judge Philip Pennypacker’s courtroom didn’t provide much gripping footage for the evening news, it did reveal new details about the fraudulent mailer charges against Shirakawa.

Judge Arthur Weisbrodt drew boos from a handful of San Jose Rotary Club members when he quoted an anonymous source as saying “I would tell the voters that voting for Cindy Chavez is the same as voting for George Shirakawa or Ron Gonzales. The same corruption, dishonesty and back deals.” Weisbrodt was moderating a debate last wednesday between Chavez and Teresa Alvarado in the runoff election to fill former county supervisor George Shirakawa Jr.’s seat.

The cases of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin, two African American boys who were killed while on trips to visit family, have another common link: Their deaths occurred because of a dark cultural mentality that still exists in many places in this country, especially the Deep South.

The sheriff’s office recently proposed limiting all mail sent to inmates to postcards instead of the envelope-enclosed letters currently allowed. Sorting through the 200,000 letters a year is tedious, jail officials say. Some of the letters are soaked, spliced or stamped with drugs: PCP, acid, meth and other contraband. Some contain needles. Some hide gang communications. The idea of switching to simply postcards—outside of inmates’ communications with their attorneys—would save money and time. But families and friends of inmates, as well as community activists, argue that the change would constitute a civil rights violation and endanger the rehabilitation of those incarcerated.

In the spring of 2012, I received notice of a conference in New York City called “Greater & Greener” that was to take place in July. The conference, which is wrapping up this year’s annual event today, covered a wide variety of topics all related to urban parks and trails.

Santa Clara Plays Fair has long been considered one of the South Bay’s preeminent NIMBY groups. Most sports economists consider the new 49ers football stadium in Santa Clara—set for completion in 2014—to be an excellent example of how private-public partnerships can create economic development while the city only puts some temporary skin in the game. Santa Clara Plays Fair disagrees, and the NIMBYs, ever allergic to planning and progress, appear unwilling to go gently into that good night. In what was probably intended to be a satirical cartoon posted on the group’s Facebook page, artist Eugenio Negro asks three rhetorical questions about the new stadium, each getting edgier until the third joke falls off the cliff.

Two bullets have the potential to change the world. One pierced the heart of Trayvon Martin on a rainy night in Florida early last year; the other penetrated the head of Malala Yousafzai on Oct.9, 2012. Trayvon died the night he was shot, while Yousafzai recovered from critical condition to triumphantly address the United Nations last week. It is my hope that Ms. Yousafzai’s passionate speech can help transform the conversation about equality, justice and education. Let me explain.

Silicon Valley attorney Ro Khanna raised more than $1 million in the second quarter of 2013, ending June with more than $1.7 million in the bank as he campaigns to unseat Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) from California’s 17th District House seat. That means, to date, Khanna has raised $2 million, a stunning figure for an unproven congressional candidate.

Text messages, emails, Facebook and Twitter announcements brought more than a hundred community members to San Jose’s City Hall on Sunday, as part of a protest and march in response to the not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin case.

A convicted serial rapist may get released in Santa Clara County, should a judge agree to a writ objecting to his relocation to Los Angeles County, where he was born and raised. SoCal native Christopher Evans Hubbart, 62, has admitted to raping 40 women in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties between 1971 and 1982, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Due to more lenient laws in the past, Hubbart likely avoided prison terms that would have kept him incarcerated for life.

UPDATED: Retired Judge John A. Flaherty denied pay increases for police officers in his arbitration ruling between the city of San Jose and the Police Officers Association, refusing to restore wages that were cut by 10 percent in 2011.