Santa Clara needs to come to terms with its new identity as a big city and update the way it does business.

Seven months after being forced out as San Jose's city manager, Ed Shikada is set to accept a permanent role as assistant city manager in Palo Alto.

Norbert Dueñas has spent the past 30 years working for the city of San Jose, steadily moving up the ladder until becoming the city's top employee in December. On Tuesday, a decision was announced that he will remain in his role as city manager, minus the "interim" tag.

A recent San Jose Inside story uncovered the hubris exhibited at the top levels of our city’s government. The piece shatters the mythology that “professional” governance is somehow better than elected leadership. But salacious details aside, the fact remains that San Jose will remain a second-class city until we adopt a strong-mayor form of government.

San Jose Inside has learned that allegations of inappropriate relationships, threats of violence and overzealous internal investigations have split the city manager’s office into factions. On Friday, the office's third top-level executive will resign—but not before parting with a $100,000 severance package.

The San Jose City Council has finally realized that staff keeps bringing back the same old thing on medical marijuana: a ban in the guise of regulations. Here's a sensible plan that will actually work.

There are currently at least three efforts to change the landscape and ambiance of St. James Park.

Following a closed session meeting for the City Council on Tuesday morning, San Jose City Manager Debra Figone announced that Ed Shikada will take over her role when she retires in December.

Community members will have a chance to weigh in on San Jose’s gang-prevention efforts at a series of town hall meetings this fall. The Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force will host four meetings this month through November to gather input about the city’s efforts to suppress local gang activity.

San Jose City Manager Debra Figone announced this week she will retire after overseeing city operations for six years. Her tenure, which will come to an end in December, has marked some of the most difficult years in the city’s history, as the City Council enacted layoffs and pay cuts to cope with historic budget deficits. Her departure will likely leave the city with an interim city manager, police chief and fire chief, all while the 2014 mayoral race is in full swing.

Call it a preemptive strike but Ken Yeager deserves a little credit for trying to get something while knowing he’d probably get nothing. Last week, the president of the county Board of Supervisors sent a letter to San Jose Mayor, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and the City Council proposing a deal on how to continue funding the Santa Clara Healthy Kids Program. There’s just one problem. San Jose is broke and has no interest in giving another dime now that the county got Measure A passed.

The recent appointment of Larry Esquivel to “interim” San Jose Police Chief, and the “indefinite” time extension given to name a new police chief, is a stark admission of governmental failure for the city of San Jose.

It is high time San Jose joined the big leagues and moved to a strong-mayor form of government. The recent response by City Manager Debra Figone to Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio’s public suggestion on who should be the police chief is simply another example of the bush-league government system that regulates elected officials to second-class status.

At the upcoming Aug. 7 City Council meeting, the discussion will focus on how to prioritize city spending IF revenues increase. So, in the example below, if revenues increase by $10 million—either by revenue growth or tax increase—this is how I think it should be spent by percentage.

Recently, a SJI columnist who also is a city councilmember suggested that libraries should be staffed with volunteers to avoid closure and increase hours of operation. I applaud this outside the box type of thinking, but why stop at libraries?