San Jose Councilmember Ash Kalra has been in Charlotte, N.C., all week as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. The following is a recap of his first three days at the Convention. President Obama will deliver his DNC speech tonight, and Kalra has agreed to write an additional column for San Jose Inside on Friday.—Editor

My journey to Charlotte began at Mineta San Jose International Airport on Sunday morning. During my tenure on the City Council I have found it difficult to leave the city for extended periods of time. In fact, this week in Charlotte will be my longest time away from San Jose during my entire time in office. Thankfully, there was no council meeting this week due to the short week following Labor Day. And since residents are rightfully concerned about how taxpayer dollars are spent, you should know that I’m personally paying for this trip—I am not using any city funds or special interest contributions.

The City Clerk plans to retroactively mark Councilmember Pete Constant down as an unexcused absence for last week’s City Council meeting. Unbeknownst to almost anyone, Constant, who was out of the office almost all of August after back surgery, was attending the Repubican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

Where does a Mike Wasserman, Laurie Smith or Jim Cunneen go? These quintessential Silicon Valley moderate Republicans are out of step with their current party. They are tolerated as Republicans, but with no real enthusiasm from the declining, myopic base of their current party. Republicans are an endangered species in California and the moderates within the party have been driven out by the hard-right agenda that is an anathema to a growing multicultural state.

UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties this post and all reader comments were dropped from the site. The post has been restored in its original form as we work to resolve all outstanding issues. Thanks for your patience.—Editor

The San Jose Police Department is thinking of getting out of the fingerprint business. As a result, a battle for millions of dollars in equipment and staffing, and has been quietly waged for months between the SJPD and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office over who should process criminal prints.

UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties this post and all reader comments were dropped from the site. The post has been restored in its original form as we work to resolve all outstanding issues. Thanks for your patience.—Editor

Living up to its reputation as the county’s favorite whipping boy, the Santa Clara Valley Water District repeatedly botched its ballot measure language to extend property taxes. A judge recently ruled that multiple mistakes on the ballot measure to extend property taxes won’t stop it from going to voters. That’s a good thing. Despite the drama, most of the money will go toward cleaning up creek beds, ensuring safe drinking water and providing flood control. We say “most” because some of it could go toward providing elder board members of the Water District board, a golden parachute. A recent board agenda item to give appointed board members health insurance for life was pulled at the last minute by Water District CEO Beau Goldie. Both Goldie and Olga Martin Steele, the district’s interim chief administrative officer, and other board members admit that the idea has been on the table for years and was recently resuscitated. The question is why? The timing is obvious.

As the county Board of Education looks into authorizing a zoning exemption for a new Rocketship School (#8) on Lick Ave. off of Alma, by the Tamien light rail station, we are at a new day with a more reflective conversation. This issue comes up tomorrow night on the board agenda.

UPDATE: It turns out San Jose Councilmember Pete Constant did attend the Republican National Convention. Check back for more details.

San Jose City Councilmember Ash Kalra is in Charlotte, North Carolina this week to attend the Democratic National Convention. He is one of almost 6,000 party-nominated delegates. While he is attending the week-long rally, Kalra will be keeping touch with San Jose Inside. At the end of the week, the councilmember will give us a recap of the events, who he interacted with and his impressions of where the party is headed into the November election.

Happy Labor Day, San Jose Inside readers. We’ll return tomorrow to fill you in this week with updates on some shenanigans at the county level, an in-depth interview with City Manager Debra Figone and a dispatch from the Democratic National Convention.—Editor.

Enrique Flores is the founder of Eastside Heroes, a mentoring non-profit, director of the Corozon Project in East San Jose, and a policy aide for Supervisor Dave Cortese.—Editor

In just 10 days this August, seven of our San Jose residents were killed, and five more are recovering from gun shot wounds. Some call this a “spike” in violence, I call it “The Start of the Second War.”

There is no question that Stanford is considered the elite school in the Bay Area. But if you are hiring, the San Jose State grad is a better choice. It is a lesson I learned from the 1980 Presidential campaign, and that reality remains true to this day.

If approved in November, Proposition 33 would allow auto insurers to offer discounts to new customers who have had continuous coverage for the past five years. Sound familiar? It should.

The last time we wrote about Johnny Khamis, who is running for a San Jose City Council seat against high school sportscaster Robert Braunstein, he called us racists for mentioning that he’s Palestinian and Braunstein is Jewish. For the record, Fly loves people of all races and religions, shapes and complexions. Khamis, however, thinks some Almaden voters could be Islamophobic, so he took the opportunity to announce he’s a Christian. But just how God-fearing is Khamis?

Governor Jerry Brown and other state lawmakers announced their plan Tuesday to curtail public employee retirement benefits. The Public Employee Pension Reform Act of 2012, which will require approval of the state legislature and could lead to a vote for additional changes, would cap pensionable salaries, require new hires to pay more into the system while getting less in return, increase retirement ages, and require final compensation to consist of a three-year average rather than the final 12 months, in an effort to prevent spiking.

After filing papers to run for a second four-year term for my County Board of Education Trustee seat, I learned on the Aug. 10 deadline that no one filed papers to run against me. Therefore, I am automatically re-elected. This is a great and unexpected result, but one that is not so good for providing me a campaign forum to raise some of the most critical issues of our time.

What does shucking corn have to do with an understaffed police department in San Jose? It all comes down to resources and being open to accepting assistance.

On Tuesday, Santa Clara County proclaimed the week of Aug. 21-26 as “Freedom Week.” The facts are staggering. Roughly 80 percent of slaves in the world today are women and it is an increasing problem.