As Americans grow increasingly anxious about the scope of government spying, a recent report found that at least nine Bay Area public agencies—including the San Jose Police Department (SJPD)—use a controversial surveillance system that mines real time phone data.

In his final budget message before he terms out at the end of this year, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed says it’s time to invest in public safety again.

It’s come to this: Labor blasting city of San Jose officials via poetry. Bad poetry. Like really, really awful poetry. The missive at hand is a 12-line poem written in couplets by police union head Jim Unland.

City leaders on Tuesday will consider placing a measure to extend an about-to-expire library parcel tax on the June ballot.

Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio's plan to change the way San Jose funds it police department comes back to the Rules and Open Government Committee this week.

Police on Wednesday arrested a man suspected of lighting at least a dozen fires in downtown San Jose, one of which gutted a Victorian home and almost killed an elderly couple.

A video campaign launched by the San Jose Police Department and the Office of the Independent Police Auditor aims to solicit tips from the public to solve homicide cases that have gone cold. “Make the Call, San Jose” airs on CreaTV and is funded by the SJPD.

San Jose will start looking for ways to pay for body-worn cameras on police officers, which Independent Police Auditor LaDoris Cordell says will lessen citizen complaints and keep officers accountable for the way they conduct themselves in the field. That and more at this week’s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting.

San Jose Inside takes a look at some of the biggest stories to come in the year ahead.

Seventy-nine percent of the Police Officers Association’s members voted to ratify a contract with the city that will restore veteran officers’ wages to 2009 levels. The agreement, which comes after a weeklong vote, will phase in a 10-percent raise through 2015, making up for salary cuts over the past few years.

LaDoris Cordell, San Jose’s Independent Police Auditor, says a study has concluded that there is no spy inside her office.

“I am greatly relieved that the investigation has determined that there are no leaks of confidential information by any member of my staff,” Cordell said at a press conference outside her downtown office this afternoon.

Cordell announced her conclusions in response to a June 9, 2010 article in the San Jose Mercury News. The newspaper claimed that confidential information from inside the IPA’s office had been leaked to SJPD Sgt. Bobby Lopez, the former president of the San Jose Police Officers Association, during his tenure.

Back in 2006, Jorge Trujillo was allegedly beaten up in San Jose by two strangers, Daniel Miller, 19, and Edward Sample, 20, wielding baseball bats. He managed to stumble away from the scene, and got over a mile away, bumping into cars along the way, according to police. Finally, someone called 911 and reported him to the police. When they arrived, Trujillo refused to speak with them or even let them approach, so the officers did what they were trained to do: they tased him. Trujillo died in hospital the next day.

With the murder trial underway in San Jose, the question being asked is to what degree did the tasing contribute to his death? Would he have died from the beating alone, meaning that Miller and Sample are guilty of murder, or was it the tasing that pushed him over the edge.