An angry Facebook post directed at San Jose Councilman Johnny Khamis has led to three San Jose police officers being investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs division.

Dr. Xavier De La Torre provides guidance and oversees the work of 31 school districts, 17,000 teachers and 280,000 students under the umbrella of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE). In his role as county superintendent of education, he also leads an office of about 1,800 employees. But in just a little more than a year and a half on the job, De La Torre is facing the very real prospect of being fired or asked to resign.

The Grand Jury indicted former county Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. on one felony count of false personation Monday. According to the Grand Jury’s report, which by law will not be released for 10 days, Shirakawa allegedly took part in a political mail fraud scheme “on or about and between May 1, 2010, and June 8, 2010.” According to prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office, Shirakawa’s DNA was found on political mailers that portrayed then-San Jose City Council candidate Magdalena Carrasco as a communist. Carrasco lost the primary by 20 votes to current District 5 Councilman Xavier Campos, a close friend and former staffer to Shirakawa, before going on to lose the runoff. A source tells San Jose Inside that Carrasco, Campos and the councilmember’s sister, State Assemblymember Nora Campos, were all deposed by the Grand Jury last week.

Dave Cortese’s announcement this week that he is running for mayor of San Jose, more or less, sets the field for next year’s race. Campaign fundraising can’t officially start until December, but endorsements are right around the corner. In fact, the South Bay Labor Council has taken an unusually quick approach to finishing its endorsement process for mayor. Today, questionnaires for the SBLC’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) were due today. San Jose Inside has attained a copy of that questionnaire.

First he behested $200,000 on behalf of a shadow group under the control of John Arnold, the former Enron executive who helped crash California’s economy before making big bucks as a hedge-fund manager. Then he acted as chief requester for $50K from Richard Riordan, the former mayor of LA, and a matching denomination from a couple of pension-busting obsessed businessman in Silicon Valley. Now, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, in his quest to put a state pension reform measure on next year’s ballot, appears to have joined forces with the Manhattan Institute and its billionaire chairman Paul Singer, an ardent supporter of The One Percent.

Dave Cortese made a long-expected announcement Wednesday that he will run for mayor of San Jose in 2014. The District 3 county supervisor, who made an unsuccessful run in 2006 while serving as a San Jose councilmember, plans to file papers with the Registrar of Voters on Wednesday afternoon.

More than seven months since he resigned from office and pleaded guilty to five felonies and seven misdemeanors, former county supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. will finally be sentenced for crimes that include perjury and a misuse of campaign funds. Judge Daniel T. Nishigaya, the third judge to handle the case, set Nov. 8 for sentencing. Defense attorney John Williams said he might call a character witness, who happens to be a member of the Mercury News editorial board.

Hyperbole is the crudest way to make a point. It’s also the easiest way to lose an audience. But there’s a desperate talking point in local political circles going unchallenged. No longer.

Last year it was utility bills. This year, the San Jose Independent Police Auditor’s office has placed signs on more than 100 buses in San Jose, asking residents to reach out if they think a police officer has has broken the law or acted inappropriately. Judge LaDoris Cordell, who oversees the IPA, says the buses on which the ads are displayed—in English, Spanish and Vietnamese—come out of the Chaboya garage line and criss-cross East San Jose and downtown.

George Shirakawa Jr. can no longer afford his legal bills, according to his top-dollar lawyer. As a result, county taxpayers will now start picking up the tab. In court Wednesday, attorney John Williams told Judge Risë Jones Pichon that the disgraced former county supervisor needs a public defender to represent him on a felony charge of false personation. That case, as well as a sentencing hearing for Shirakawa’s admitted misuse of campaign funds and perjury, will be heard next week.

The going rate for San Jose police to shoot a man under unusual circumstances is $275,000 per bullet, according to a lawsuit settlement between the city and a Halloween drunk. Of course, taking a bullet might not be worth it. Javier Gonzales-Guerrero took 20.

A judge ruled Friday that charges against George Shirakawa Jr. for his alleged involvement in a 2010 political mail fraud scandal should not be thrown out as part of a plea deal the disgraced former county supervisor agreed to earlier this year. The ruling was a victory for prosecutors, whose efforts to put Shirakawa behind bars had stalled in recent months. “We think justice was done,” said prosecutor Karyn Sinunu-Towery. “It was fair.”

For the last several months, a fight with multi-million dollar implications has quietly been waged over fire safety requirements in San Jose’s tallest buildings. The clash—featuring a tangled array of alliances between elected officials, developers, lobbyists, a monopolistic breathing device manufacturer, a union spurned and an ambivalent fire department—will come to a head Thursday afternoon, when the Public Safety, Finance & Strategic Support Committee meets to discuss the city’s tri-annual review of its fire and building codes.

In his weekly call-in show Monday with KLIV 1590 executive director George Sampson, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed pulled back the curtain a bit on the city’s efforts to find a permanent police chief. The question is whether or not City Manager Debra Figone—the person charged with suggesting who to hire—was ready for that curtain call. Reed told Sampson he expects the city to officially name a permanent police chief by the end of this year. But, according to the city manager’s office, the search to name a long-term police chief has not been active in roughly eight months.

Breaking up is hard to do. Breaking up a fight between the San Jose police union and City Hall could be damn near impossible. In what appeared to be an effort to mend fences and remind people who’s the boss, Acting Police Chief Larry Esquivel recently sent an email this week to his command staff—roughly 50 deputy police chiefs, lieutenants and captains—scolding them for signing on to a letter critical of the city recent actions involving labor negotiations.

The South Bay Labor Council spent almost a quarter-million dollars supporting Cindy Chavez’ successful run for a county supervisor seat, according to forms filed last month with the Registrar of Voters. The details of the labor organization’s staggering campaign fundraising and spending have not been made public until now. Taking into respect money spent by the Chavez campaign and other groups supporting her, it appears more than $750,000 was spent getting her into office. While few candidates can pull together a coalition of support like Chavez, the coordination between her campaign and outside groups raises some serious questions for the Fair Political Practices Commission.