In spite of all the staff time and taxpayer money that went into SJ2020, Santa Clara County students have benefited not one whit.

Taking the lead from nearby Bay Area cities, San Jose is poised to enact a developer fee to help pay for affordable housing.

This could be the week city leaders vote on a marijuana ordinance—or not.

In unanimous vote Tuesday, the City Council OK'd a lease agreement with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

A proposal making its way to the City Council this week would relax some of the disability retirement rules for public safety workers imposed by voter-approved pension reforms.

After losing an appeal over ballot measure language, Mayor Chuck Reed decided to drop his state pension reform campaign and delay it to 2016.

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

Parking prices may double in downtown pretty soon. But a couple city leaders insist there must be a better way to offset the cost of upgraded meters, rather than passing the price-spike down to drivers. Also on the agenda: wild pigs, a construction tax hiatus and a discussion about where to place that long-delayed bond-funded softball complex.

A legal fight may keep San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s state public pension initiative off the November ballot now that proponents want to sue over the way California Attorney General Kamala Harris worded the ballot language.

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.

In a near-unanimous vote Thursday, the county’s Democratic Central Committee agreed to move its endorsement decision for the San Jose mayor’s race from April to February. Moving the schedule up a couple months gives the party more time to mobilize a campaign behind its preferred candidate, who many presume to be county Supervisor Dave Cortese.

Neither Mayor Chuck Reed nor his union opponents liked the way California Attorney General Kamala Harris worded the official description of a polarizing pension reform ballot measure, which on Monday was cleared for signature-gathering to place it on the November ballot.

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

San Jose will consider skirting its living wage policy to appease a massive corporation and some developers. The City Council on Tuesday will discuss an appeal from Starbucks and other vendors to be exempt from the rule—they’re interested in leasing space at City Hall and the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

Mayor Chuck Reed came out swinging this afternoon, calling for an end to the “lying, cheating and lawbreaking” by public employee unions who oppose Measures V and W.

At a press conference held this afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce headquarters in downtown San Jose, Reed denounced the police and firefighters unions’ controversial campaign to dissuade citizens from voting yes on the measures.