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

A ruling on San Jose’s controversial pension reform initiative, Measure B, became public Monday, and both the city and union leaders claimed victory. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas wrote in her decision that the “legal question is whether and to extent Measure B violates vested rights.” The answer appears to be yes and no. Click to read the judge’s full decision.

School administrators in El Paso, Texas—and by extension Santa Clara County Superintendent Xavier De La Torre—were cleared of any wrongdoing in falsifying test scores as well as changing students’ grade levels to sidestep accountability measures, according to an El Paso Times report.

San Jose Inside’s Josh Koehn sat down in late October with City Manager Debra Figone, who will retire at the end of next week, to discuss her 44-year career in public service. The free-flowing discussion, which has been edited for clarity, touches on topics such as the city’s adversarial relationship with the Police Officers Association, the validity of international travel for elected officials, the possibility of another sports franchise coming to San Jose if the Oakland A’s cannot relocate here, and how Figone views the media’s coverage of local politics.

The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) confirmed Thursday that it has expanded its investigation into San Jose Councilman Xavier Campos’ 2010 campaign. Earlier this week, San Jose Inside reported that Campos and incarcerated former county Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. created fictitious business filings with the county Recorder’s office under identical names as their campaigns. The unconventional finance practice could have allowed the two men to funnel campaign contributions into secret bank accounts.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office seized documents in a Thanksgiving eve raid that implicate Xavier Campos’ campaign in funding the red-baiting political mailers that helped him win a seat on the San Jose City Council. Now, records obtained this week by Metro/San Jose Inside suggest that the District 5 councilmember engaged in a highly unconventional campaign finance practice—one used by the incarcerated former county supervisor—that would have allowed him to establish phony campaign bank accounts that could have gone undetected by agencies monitoring election spending.

A search of George Shirakawa Jr.‘s home the day before Thanksgiving turned up evidence that suggests Xavier Campos’ 2010 City Council campaign paid for materials to create a fraudulent political mailer that helped the San Jose city councilman get elected. The mailers portrayed Campos’ opponent, Magdalena Carrasco, as a communist to East San Jose’s Vietnamese voters, and Shirakawa’s DNA was found on a stamp affixed to one of the mailers. Campos ended up winning the primary election against Carrasco by 20 votes and later won the runoff.

A lobbyist-funded ballot initiative will attempt to overturn San Jose’s ban on expanded polystyrene (EPS) to-go containers at local restaurants. Sponsored by the California Restaurant Association, a petition that gathered 38,952 signatures was turned in to the City Clerk’s office Nov. 18. But before the county Registrar of Voters verifies if the necessary amount of signatures were gathered, critics have already lodged complaints with City Clerk Toni Taber that the petition misled signers.

Judge Griffin Bonini denied a motion by George Shirakawa Jr.‘s defense attorney to reseal grand jury transcripts pertaining to the incarcerated former county supervisor’s alleged role in a political mail fraud scandal.

George Shirakawa Jr. is currently spending his days in the Santa Rita Jail infirmary, while his county-provided attorney is attempting to seal grand jury transcripts that shed new information on his alleged role in a political mail fraud scandal. Since the documents remain public for the time being, San Jose Inside has decided to publish the grand jury transcripts in their entirety.

As previously noted in this space, it’s nearly impossible to get Xavier Campos to agree to an interview. It helps, however, if you have a close relationship with the media-dodging councilman like NBC’s Damian Trujillo, who scored a rare on-camera chat last week. What did we learn from Trujillo’s interview and a follow-up report? Hardly anything. But we did learn plenty about Trujillo and NBC Bay Area.

Getting San Jose Councilman Xavier Campos to agree to an interview is a difficult proposition. Unless you’re the New York Times or NBC Bay Area’s Damian Trujillo. The latter scored an on-air interview Thursday with the councilman, who invoked the Fifth Amendment in front of the grand jury last month. In his interview, Campos claims that he had nothing to do with a fraudulent political mailer that helped his defeat his opponent, Magdalena Carrasco, in the 2010 council race. He also said he took the Fifth because he doesn’t trust the District Attorney’s office. But, according to NBC’s legal expert, Campos might have said too much, and he could be recalled in front of the grand jury.

A Santa Clara County Grand Jury drilled into financial transactions between George Shirakawa Jr. and California Assembly leader Nora Campos that occurred shortly after voters received a fraudulent mailer posted with stamps bearing Shirakawa’s DNA. Five thousand dollars changed hands as the Speaker pro Tempore’s younger brother battled in a tight race for a San Jose City Council seat, secured thanks to illegal, anonymous dirty tricks. Metro and San Jose Inside broke the Grand Jury report this week. Read part two of our report here.

Xavier Campos refuses to cooperate with investigation into mail fraud scandal, according to grand jury transcripts exclusively obtained by Metro and San Jose Inside.

Disgraced former county Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. will spend the next year in jail for his pilfering of campaign funds. Judge Daniel T. Nishigaya on Friday sentenced Shirakawa, who pleaded guilty this spring to five felonies and seven misdemeanors, to a year behind bars, minus one day served. Following the ruling, he was immediately escorted out of court and taken into custody. A source within the county Sheriff’s Office tells San Jose Inside that Shirakawa will spend his time behind bars in Alameda County. He will receive probation for three years following his release.

Mike Honda—Silicon Valley’s globe-trotting, karaoke-singing, hard-partying congressman—has had a charmed career. Now, a well-funded challenger, Ro Khanna, asks whether being likeable is enough, or whether the public expects a lawmaker to work hard, write laws and fight to keep valley industries competitive.