The final decision for who gets the $300,000-plus-per-year job running day-to-day operations of San Diego County could come in the next few weeks.

Joanne Segovia is accused of buying and distributing opioids for eight years, running some transactions from her San Jose Police Officers’ Association office.

The board approved more funds for senior housing, a land swap for supportive housing in Cupertino, an investment into rental assistance with seven non-profits, a new housing development in Milpitas and more affordable housing in Mountain View, some specifically for foster youth. 

The funding will support water supply and flood protection projects to adapt to extreme weather caused by climate change.

Independent political action committees were big spenders for the 2022 mayoral candidates.

The city’s shifting demographics, a continuing affordable housing shortage, endemic homelessness, a looming budget deficit and the reality of five council elections – plus another mayoral ballot – in just two years create additional uncertainties.

Residents in single-family dwellings whose collection day was Friday should leave their recycling carts out today until the material is collected. Residents who have junk pickup service scheduled for Friday, should leave their items out to be collected today,

Despite passionate and eloquent pleas from the City Hall audience, the Dec. 5 San Jose City Council decision wasn’t about taxpayers’ money, or voters’ rights. Cash, political power and private conversations not streamed on Zoom won the night.

The vacancies were created by the November election, when District 8 Councilmember Sylvia Arenas was elected as the District 1 representative on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and District 10 Councilmember Matt Mahan was elected mayor.

Mahan said he appreciated Chavez' 'most gracious concession in the true spirit of our robust democracy,' and congratulated her on a strong campaign.

Matt Mahan today widened his lead over Cindy Chavez with an estimated 90% of mayoral ballots counted. In order to win, Chavez would need to get more than 60% of the remaining ballots. Her vote totals haven’t come close to that percentage in the eight days of counting since Election Day.

Chavez would have to increase her winning percentage of the approximately 57,000 uncounted ballots to 55%, in order to wipe out Mahan's lead.

The Sunday ballot count in the San Jose mayoral election showed Mahan with 103,241 votes,  or 50.89%. Chavez had 98,610 votes, or 49.11%.

The list of Election Day front runners in Santa Clara County remained unchanged after Friday's count.

San Jose, a million-person city in which a fifth of its residents choose the mayor, has a history of close elections. Only three of the past seven open elections could be called lopsided victories. The last time an open seat was decided in one round was 40 years ago, in 1982—the year 39-year-old Matt Mahan was born.

Chavez is the architect of many of our city and county’s key policies on crime, homelessness, housing and government accountability. The problem is those policies are failing. They don’t need to be defended; they need to be changed.