The 2014 mayor’s race in San Jose won’t officially start until later this year, but a new contender has emerged in what’s expected to be a massive field. Pierluigi Oliverio, a councilman for the Willow Glen/Rose Garden districts (and SJI columnist), tells Fly that he will indeed join the race to replace Mr. Burns—ahem, we mean Mayor Chuck Reed.

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, marriage equality advocates have mobilized on social media by sharing a red equality logo. In this column, local community organizer Omar Torres talks about the rights of our LGBTQ community and his own struggle to come out as a gay man to his family.

This video of a “smart mob” designed to discourage smoking tobacco, put on by nonprofit Working Partnership USA, was funded with county taxpayer dollars.

Flash mobs are so 2011. But apparently, that’s how the county decided to spend leftover money at the end of last year, which, if memory serves, was 2012. But, wait, these weren’t just any flash mobs—they were “smart mobs.” At its last meeting of 2012, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $40,000 increase in its partnership with nonprofit Working Partnerships USA. The additional funds were retroactively approved to continue an anti-smoking initiative through March 18, 2013.

Larry Esquivel inherited San Jose’s chief of police position without ever putting his name up for consideration. In fact, none of the San Jose Police Department’s deputy chiefs showed a genuine interest in the job, leaving the applicant pool to some uninterested and/or unqualified candidates outside of the area. But Esquivel is learning the ropes, and a perusal of his Twitter account shows a man who loves emoticons, classic cars and ... the Mercury News? Yes, the Mercury News.

Parts of City Hall, left a bit empty after layoffs and the Redevelopment Agency’s closure, may soon be open to anyone looking to lease a slice of the swanky 18-story downtown centerpiece. Proceeds from the market-rate rents will go right to the city’s general fund, according to a memo going before the Rules and Open Government Committee on Wednesday. Other items include the Pete Constant-Johnny Khamis memo asking the city to investigate how public funds were used to fund a county sales tax measure carried out by organized labor.

The dissolution of redevelopment agencies and state budget cuts to municipal housing funds have made it tougher for San Jose to meet its goal of building more affordable homes in recent years, according to an annual housing report going before the City Council on Tuesday. Other items on the council agenda include an incentives package for Samsung, a commendation for a police officer who never clocks off and a North San Jose cemetery that is running out of space.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider granting a fair chunk of change to a nonprofit trying to set itself up as a small business support center. This comes on the heels of greater scrutiny regarding public funds going to entities that are not required to disclose their financial dealings. Also on Tuesday’s agenda, the Board of Supervisors will consider supporting a change to the state Constitution that would lower the percentage of votes needed to raise local taxes.

Last week, I participated as the alternate for Mayor Chuck Reed on the oversight board for the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency (SARA). The primary focus of the meeting concerned the approval of a one-year extension to the existing Letter of Credit (LOC) with JP Morgan bank. This extension had already been passed by the City Council, but it was still up to the SARA Oversight Board to approve the extension as well.

While on its executive committee, prospective county supervisor candidate Cindy Chavez helped move hundreds of thousands of dollars out of a local health nonprofit, according to copies of board minutes obtained by San Jose Inside. At a pivotal meeting last June, Chavez voted to approve a budget that included a line item in which one of her employers, Working Partnerships USA, had a financial interest—and to fund a political campaign that was largely run by her other employer, the South Bay Labor Council. The two transactions totaled $400,000, more than a quarter of the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation’s budget.

When Gov. Jerry Brown ordered in 2011 the dissolution of California’s 400-plus redevelopment agencies (RDAs), San Jose was forced to halt the kind of subsidized development that built much of downtown over the past two decades. Now the city might have to work out a new deal on RDA land it has been holding for a potential baseball stadium in the hope that the Oakland A’s can relocate to San Jose. But as the legal fight between the state and municipalities continues, other ideas for tax-increment financing (TIF) districts are emerging.

Teresa Alavarado made it official Thursday, when she filed papers and paid the $1,430.31 fee to run for the vacant District 2 county supervisor seat. San Jose Inside just so happened to be checking up on Registrar of Voters records when Alvarado and her campaign manager, Peter Allen, walked into the office.

We all stand on the shoulders of others in the building of a city or a nation. Nowhere is that more true of our valley than in one strip of San Jose called San Pedro Square. A boy named Luis Peralta traveled north from Tubac, in Old Mexico, fully 1,000 miles, and he settled in this area; the DeAnza Party followed. We move from Peralta to Fallon, Masson, Giannini, Disney, Hewlett and Packard, and on to Jobs in a few short steps and some 200 years of San Jose history.

For decades, institutions of higher learning have been at the forefront of social change. San Jose State University’s CommUniverCity San Jose program is an excellent partnership between residents, the campus community and government partners like the city of San Jose and Santa Clara County.

Two members of the San Jose City Council are calling for an investigation into whether city funds were illegally used in local campaigns. Councilmembers Pete Constant and Johnny Khamis are asking the city manager and city attorney to “investigate whether any city funds that were provided to either Santa Clara Family Health Foundation or VMC Foundation were used to fund any campaign activities in any manner,” according to a memo released Thursday. The memo notes that the city has given the foundations more than $6 million in the last three years.

San Jose’s Elections Commission received complaints last year about political candidates exchanging coffee for signatures on a nomination petition, raising money after the election to pay off campaign debt and mingling primary and general election funds. In response to some of these complaints, the city wants to update its campaign and ethics provisions, Title 12. A public meeting will be held March 28 at City Hall.

It was striking that George Shirakawa Jr. pleaded guilty Monday in Superior Court with nary a friend or family member there to support him. You never know who your friends are in politics until you are down. The absence of so many spoke volumes.