Jim Unland had his leadership of San Jose’s police union questioned internally as well as in the press the last couple weeks. But when the Police Officers Association’s election—held over the course of several days—came to a close Tuesday morning, Unland easily retained his position as president of the POA, defeating officer Jon Baker by a wide margin, according to a POA source.

Supervisor George Shirakawa says he doesn’t want his board colleagues, county staff or the community to be distracted by the “political lynching” taking place in regards to media coverage of his fraudulent expense reports. At its bi-monthly county Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Shirakawa tackled the issue head on by saying he would release a formal statement sometime in the future.

A tip came in Monday afternoon that Andrea Flores Shelton, formerly a deputy chief of staff for Supervisor George Shirakawa, would get the nod as Alum Rock school district’s new trustee. In the end, that’s exactly what happened. Now the question is whether or not opponents of the process will gather signatures for a special election to challenge her appointment.

Thanksgiving holidays have always been a time for self-reflection. This year is no different. My look in the mirror this week will reflect on my role as a member of the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Board.

Parents of Alum Rock Union School District students, community members and Somos Mayfair plan to protest in advance of tonight’s school board meeting and the potential appointment of a new board member. The protest, which is scheduled to start 30 minutes before the 6pm board meeting, hopes to sway trustees Esau Herrera, Dolores Marquez and Andres Quintero from appointing a new board member before Karen Martinez joins the board in December. Martinez won a trustee seat in this month’s election and the county does not certify results until Dec. 4.

The City Council had a study session last week devoted to affordable housing. The session covered how San Jose could build more affordable housing, even though it has already publicly funded and completed roughly 21,000 such units in years past and has 1,500 additional units currently in the pipeline. As a point of comparison, other cities have done little during the same time period.

STORY OF THE WEEK: The Mercury News provided a brief statement to San Jose Inside regarding an inappropriate email the newspaper’s opinion editor sent to a political candidate. The statement not only reflects on how the paper views its mission, but the state of media in the South Bay.

Looks like Proposition 35 is already under fire after winning with a resounding 81 percent of the vote on election night. Prop. 35 increases penalties for human traffickers and requires those convicted of even a misdemeanor to report their Internet provider and user name to law enforcement. A judge blocked this part of the proposition after the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a complaint.

Will school board and council loser Patricia Martinez-Roach, shown at left with unsuccessful council candidates Brian O’Neill and Steve Klein and labor leader Cindy Chavez in June, get appointed to Alum Rock as a consolation prize?

Alum Rock Union School District trustees are making moves to fill a vacancy left by Darcie Green’s departure. School board watchers believe the existing majority has settled on one of two candidates: Patricia Martinez-Roach, who lost two elections this year; and Javier Gonzalez, who was passed over for a county education post. The apparent fast-tracking of the process has created a firestorm in the community.

California finally has the opportunity to be governable after last week’s election. For too many years the ability to set policy has been obstructed by a system that allows for minority veto.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed took a trip to Iowa this past weekend to speak with the state’s conservative governor and a taxpayer group about pensions.

Jim Unland looked exhausted on election night. But that fatigue didn’t last long after the Mercury News reported over the weekend that an upstart member of the police union named Jon Baker was questioning Unland’s leadership of the Police Officers Association.

Count Barbara Keegan among those most flabbergasted with her landslide victory last week for a seat on the Santa Clara Valley Water District board. But if it were up to the opinion editor at our local daily, Keegan would have pulled out of the race months ago. That would have allowed David Ginsborg, deputy to the county’s tax assessor, to easily claim retiring Joe Judge’s board seat. Barbara Marshman, the Mercury News’ editorial writer and decider of all things good and natural emailed Keegan in early August to try and cajole her into dropping out of the race.

An attorney with the county counsel’s office has provided San Jose Inside with a third, previously unreported audit of Supervisor George Shirakawa’s county charge card, also known as a P-Card. The audit shows that county officials were aware of Shirakawa’s free spending and disregard for county rules related to P-Cards as early as November 2009 — yet did nothing to stop the violations.

Election Day 2012 was good for public education in California and the nation. President Obama’s reelection means continued reform of public education through choice, quality early childhood education, meaningful teacher evaluation systems, pay for performance, career technical education and rethinking tenure. Proposition 30’s passage leads to a more stable publicly funded system of California schools.

The media has portrayed a polarized country by classifying states as either red or blue. If states were categorized by voting percentages rather than electoral votes, here’s how the United States of America would look. This map was created using Photoshop values based on voting percentages by New York DJ and producer Cousin Cole.