Patricia Mahan, Santa Clara’s vice mayor after serving as mayor from 2002 through 2010, says she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. While it is unclear if Mahan’s condition will require leave from her position, she reportedly is expected to fully recover with proper treatment.

Tuesday’s City Council meeting wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for San Jose’s thriving medical marijuana industry. But the council’s decision to implement a land use and regulatory program starting Oct. 27 will be a major step toward a cap of 10 collectives within city limits. Collective supporters are now working to gather signatures to put together a referendum that would repeal the ordinances.

Five public employee unions in San Jose put forward a pension reform proposal Tuesday that they estimate will save the city $467 million during the next five years. The unions represent police officers, firefighters, architects, engineers, middle managers and maintenance supervisors.

After two terms in the state assembly and two in the state senate, Joe Simitian will say goodbye to Sacramento next year, courtesy of California’s term limits. The smart money is betting on a Simitian run for Congress, though Rep. Anna Eshoo will have to stand down first. Rather than take a vacation from public service, Simitian may return to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

We live in an extraordinary community where you often hear stories of philanthropists writing large checks from their foundations to personal causes. Last week, Meg Whitman announced in East San Jose that she is giving $2.5 million to Summit Charter schools for 10 new 400 student high schools over the next decade. That same amount would pay for youth gang prevention services for up to 14 San Jose Schools in six districts for four years. Let me explain.

The current form of government in San Jose is a city manager form of government. I have encountered many residents who find this confusing. Many residents believe that the mayor is the boss, which is not the case in San Jose. I am proposing an incremental step where the city manager form of government stays intact but allows the mayor to be granted new authority.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in a decade to overnight in San Jose. That may placate some of the people who have been complaining that this president bypasses a city that overwhelmingly supported him and only spends time with the wealthy gods of social media on the Peninsula, who dispense $35,800 checks like ATMs. Truth be told, the only reason Obama was in San Jose was because he needed a place to crash.

The Bay Area’s public school system sustained another groin kick of aggressive generosity Tuesday when politically ambitious billionaire Meg Whitman bestowed $2.5 million on South Bay and Peninsula charter school programs. Apparently, the maid-firing former eBay exec didn’t spend all her money losing last year’s race for governor to Jerry Brown.

I’d like to ask how much the Water District spends each year on advertising and outreach? Water District ads encouraging people to conserve are on all of the time.  (By now, I think we’ve got it!)
— Timothy Wright

The budget for marketing campaigns has varied depending on the seasonal need. For example, the “Save 20 gallons” water conservation campaign was released in 2009, following a 15 percent mandatory conservation call by our board of directors.

While participating in last week’s Game Changers 2012 event, which focused on Silicon Valley’s economy and was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, I had the sinking feeling that public education was in a baseball “pickle” and down to its last out.

It is clear that the budget deficit this year and in future years cannot be solved only by pension reform. Even if the city stopped matching the employee contributions at the current rate of 250 percent to the average employer match on a 401K of 3-6 percent, taxpayers would still have a multi-billion dollar unfunded liability from commitments to current and future retirees already vested. Why beat around the bush when we know taxes will have to be raised to afford the pension obligations and maintain bare minimum services laid out in the city charter?

Tuesday’s City Council meeting will feature a status report on the city’s general fund, but no action will be taken in regards to declaring a “fiscal and service level emergency.” Consideration of that item has been deferred until after Oct. 31.

San Jose’s city council established guidelines Tuesday for the city’s medical marijuana regulatory program. As expected, the council stuck to many of its earlier ideas—a cap of 10 collectives, on-site cultivation of cannabis only and strict zoning regulations—and will move toward finalizing its decision at a Sept. 27 session. The city’s program would then go into effect a month later.

It looks like Palo Alto is about to follow in San Jose’s footsteps and is gearing up for a battle that could generate the same kind of acrimony seen last year during the Measures V and W election. The Palo Alto City Council approved a proposal this summer to put a measure on the November ballot that would repeal binding arbitration between the city and its public-safety unions.

A small ceremony was held on Saturday with little fanfare, but it was big on Americana style. An eagle scout was honored for his project that constructed a new sign at the Willow Glen Community Center. Volunteer work done by this scout and others helps augment the government’s work in the community during these tough budget times. Also, some suggestions on what the council should do this week when it takes its first decisive actions on how to regulate medical marijuana.

The hot topic at Tuesday’s City Council meeting will be medical marijuana, and a soon-to-be administered regulatory program that has critics on all sides. While the Planning Commission has recommended a more lax approach to the council’s direction, the city’s administration appears unwilling to budge.