San Jose Inside

Sam Liccardo delivered his first State of the City speech as San Jose mayor Saturday morning at Independence High School, and the message was one of better times to come.

Mayor Sam Liccardo will outline key initiatives and budget priorities for San Jose in his first state-of-the-city address this weekend.

Ex-mayor and part-time lawyer Chuck Reed will take another crack at statewide pension reform, reviving a campaign to cut public retirement costs and bolster his political legacy.

With the collective force of 6,000 litter picker-uppers, San Jose was able to haul away the equivalent of 44 filled-to-the-brim semis of trash last year.

Marketing is for terrible people, and art is for people who don’t realize they’re terrible. Leave it to an $85,000 city-sponsored “art project” highlighting San Jose’s sewer system to synergize the two.

The special election race for San Jose’s District 4 council seat has taken a turn for the confounding. Another batch of error-laden absentee ballots went out Monday, only this time Santa Clara County’s Registrar of Voters might not be to blame.

Trustee Leon Beauchman will step down at the end of this month from his elected seat on the Santa Clara County Board of Education. I first learned of his decision during a call from him in February. It was a bittersweet moment.

Two years after upping its local minimum wage, San Jose may back a statewide effort to raise the minimum to $13 an hour by 2017. Mayor Sam Liccardo, who voted against San Jose's minimum wage increase in 2012, says the policy makes more sense at a state level.

A federal appellate court struck down an attempt to void Sunnyvale’s restriction on high-capacity gun magazines, saying the ordinance is a reasonable effort to prevent gun violence.

Silicon Valley was once the female capital of the world for political power, but times have changed. In order to make progress, we need to not only elect more women leaders but also change the culture in which they are forced to compete.

Last week I attended the Children's Summit 2015 at Microsoft’s offices in Mountain View. In the packet for the workshop, I found a state budget analysis with the provocative headline, "Proposed State Budget Doesn't Do Enough For Kids.” When will we ever learn? Before it’s too late, I hope.

All candidates vying for San Jose’s District 4 council seat will have a chance to speak at a forum next Monday. Organizers originally planned to limit the panel to the top five fundraisers but opened it up to all active candidates after some pushback.

State regulators accuse a cannabis physician of working for an organized crime ring with ties to Eastern Europe. The defendants tell quite another story.

Rose Herrera has enthusiastically embraced her role as veem (vice mayor of San Jose), but City Hall insiders worry the second-term council member might be taking her post a little too seriously.

The Greater and Greener Conference, a leading international symposium for urban parks, takes place in San Francisco next month.