Public safety and the recruitment and retention of San Jose police officers dominated discussions during the campaign season. So, what's the right salary for a job in which men and women could very well have risk their life every day they put on a uniform? It's not supposed to be an easy question.

Taking the lead from nearby Bay Area cities, San Jose is poised to enact a developer fee to help pay for affordable housing.

As we turn the page on the election, Sam Liccardo and Dave Cortese each have an enormous responsibility to heal the wounds created by the race. Doing so could go a long way toward accomplishing city and county goals, such as eliminating the achievement gap in our schools.

Silicon Valley may be home base to many of the world’s most celebrated technical disruptors, but it also holds the dubious distinction of using a voting system that, to be kind, is, well, not exactly state of the art. And to the chagrin of many, it's not going to get better any time soon.

Just how many races would have commenced had Dave Cortese defeated Sam Liccardo?

Dave Cortese told supporters in an email Monday evening that it's "time to move on," acknowledging that he finished second to Sam Liccardo in the San Jose mayor's race. Liccardo confirmed in a text message to San Jose Inside that Cortese called him to concede.

San Jose's new mayor faces huge challenges. The most striking problem is not simply putting more cops on the street, though it is an important goal. The real work will be bringing a divided city together.

Dave Cortese refuses to go gently into that good night. The county supervisor and San Jose mayoral candidate announced Wednesday, a day after the election, that he will not concede victory to Sam Liccardo due to the large number of ballots still yet to be counted.

The votes have been counted—most of them anyway—and it's time to reflect on all that went into the 2014 Midterm elections. But before we do that, here's a collection of photos from the night that was make or break for local politicos.

Just as we predicted in March 2012, a Sicilian American, Bellarmine-educated attorney was elected mayor of San Jose this week. As of 2am, Sam Liccardo held a 2-percent lead over Dave Cortese.

There’s a lot riding on Election Day in Silicon Valley. Here's a breakdown of some locals races and where each candidate is expected to spend their night partying/crying into their drink.

San Jose Inside has learned that Kerry Hillis, a policy aide currently on leave from county Supervisor Cindy Chavez’ staff, purchased the anonymous attack blog The Daily Fetch from political consultant Jay Rosenthal in late 2012, according to a source. Hillis has also done work for San Jose's police union and mayoral candidate Dave Cortese.

A complaint filed against Sam Liccardo’s mayoral campaign alleges the San Jose council member broke election law by failing to report an in-kind contribution for the second time. But according to Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, who provided Liccardo with an email list, it's all a simple mixup.

An initiative that would repeal San Jose’s new medical marijuana regulations garnered enough signatures to make it to the ballot.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed on Wednesday called for a federal investigation into accusations that the police union president abused his authority by thwarting the city’s recruitment efforts. A day later, Reed and his political consultant found themselves on the receiving end of calls for an inquiry.

When the next big earthquake strikes, hundreds of buildings in Silicon Valley are prone to collapse. Yet unlike other major Bay Area cities that have adopted policies to incentivize seismic retrofitting—namely Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley and Fremont—San Jose has done nothing to fix the problem. A group of City Council officials want to create a program, similar to those in Oakland and San Francisco, encouraging property owners to make their buildings sturdier.