The stink of ex-Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. has dissipated, and Santa Clara County is focused on a fresh start for 2014. “Scandal is no longer in the air,” Supervisor Ken Yeager said after Tuesday’s State of the County speech, delivered by recently sworn-in Board President Mike Wasserman. “We certainly spent most of last year changing and improving public outreach and creating much more transparency than there was before.” Wasserman’s address focused on the county’s role as a safety net for the most vulnerable, while also highlighting the little-known services it provides for residents.

Given that clientele often overlaps, Santa Clara County will integrate its departments of Drug and Alcohol Services and Mental Health. Also, on the agenda for Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting: a new name for the South County Airport, making campaign disclosure forms available online and funding an anti-terrorism law enforcement communications network.

Last month Fly delved into the litigious world of John Mlnarik, a local attorney and former candidate for a seat on the Santa Clara City Council. Mlnarik had open lawsuits against three four separate parties connected to his abysmal 2012 campaign, and an interesting countersuit coming back his way. Elena Rivkin Franz, a former employee of Mlnarik’s, accused him of using staff and resources from his law firm—The Mlnarik Law Group—to assist his campaign under the table. Fly did a little digging and found that the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has had an open investigation since September into the campaign of Mlnarik, who is currently the president-elect of the Santa Clara County Bar Association.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education and its Board of Education have been working to address education inequality through a myriad of measures, including the authorization of high quality charter schools. For this reason, I am troubled and angry about what happened at a seven-hour meeting last week.

The beginning of the New Year is a time for resolutions and “Top Ten” wishlists. This is my Bill Wilson Center wish list for addressing some of the major issues around homelessness for our youth.

While San Jose considers where to build a bond measure-funded softball complex, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will discuss a plan to bring it rent-free to the fairgrounds. Also on the agenda: a discussion about contraband being smuggled in with jail laundry, Section 8 housing help and a work-study program for college students.

The public has a short memory regarding scandals, but there are three transgressions voters will never forgive. One of them is intentionally increasing traffic.

Santa Clara County Board of Education trustee Joseph DiSalvo looks at the top educational initiatives gaining traction in 2014 that could pave the way to increased economic development, job growth, less crime and a burgeoning middle class.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, recently wrote a column for Huffington Post, arguing that America has “a moral obligation to provide a great education to each and every child, and we must create a new majority to make this happen.” I couldn’t agree more, and the time is now. We cannot afford to wait another three decades. Waiting patiently for change will cause the US to become a second-tier nation.

Saturday marks a year to the day since a gunman killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. To remember the lives lost, a group of community leaders and activists will hold a vigil this weekend in Sunnyvale, a city that grappled with a massacre of its own in 1988.

A Santa Clara County employee took a browbeating for criticizing Obamacare and told to take her complaints outside—literally off public property. That’s according to Norina Mooney’s attorneys at the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), a conservative legal defense group that defends “religious, parental and other constitutional rights.”

Despite going bankrupt in August, it looks like Rural Metro will continue providing ambulance services for Santa Clara County residents—at least through 2016. Other items on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors agenda include a request for $8 million from the department that oversees the child abuse hotline and a discussion on the Santa Jose Sate hate crime allegations.

George Shirakawa Jr. shuffled into court Wednesday for the first time since being sentenced to a year in jail. The former county supervisor wore a red jump suit and his wrists were shackled to his waist while his ankles were shackled together. Except for a whispered exchange with his attorney, Jay Rorty, Shirakawa didn’t say a word during the brief proceeding.

As I have written on a multiple occasions, public education is the most critical civil rights issue of our day. And since it’s that time of the season, I wish to give thanks to those who are making a measurable difference in education results, today and into the future.

Despite calling it “a humanitarian issue,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said he doesn’t want to assign blame to the the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services, which has failed to answer thousands of calls to the local child abuse hotline—the public’s first point of contact with welfare services.

Almost 28,000 people are expected to run in the 9th Annual Silicon Valley Turkey Trot, the Thanksgiving morning race put on each year by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Foundation. The runners, walkers and joggers might be surprised to note that money raised in previous years to pay health care premiums for low income kids was diverted to political campaigns.