In the second installment of an interview with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, we discuss his administration's legacy, mistakes that were made along the way and the battle over pension reform.

San Jose Inside editor Josh Koehn sat down for a interview last week with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. In the first part of their conversation, the two discuss the city's controversial pension reforms, the depleted police ranks, the current mayor's race, San Jose's lawsuit with Major League Baseball and Reed's insistence that he's not a closet Republican.

Don Rocha issued a scathing memo Friday in support of a general sales tax measure while calling out Mayor Chuck Reed and his bloc of Measure B supporters on the council, as well as the Mercury News editorial board. On Monday, Rocha doubled-down.

Voters may get a chance to modify Measure B, if the City Council agrees to place proposed changes on the fall ballot.

UPDATE: What looked like a promising compromise on pension reform between the city and its police/fire unions has once again dissolved into a dispute on what really happened during negotiations.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed summoned a press conference Monday morning to announce his endorsement of council ally Sam Liccardo to succeed him.

Tuesday's primary election told us a number of things: Ro Khanna has more than an uphill fight against Mike Honda, spoilers altered the San Jose mayor's race and libertarians in Silicon Valley have disappeared.

Measure B supporters popped the champagne moments after the first returns registered for the library parcel tax extension: a landslide victory.

A judge this morning signed off on an agreement that prevents the city from reducing employee pay to offset rising pension costs until at least 2015.

Voters in downtown San Jose will have a chance Wednesday to hear candidates for District 3 discuss issues ranging from pubic safety and traffic congestion to homelessness and downtown development.

Last week, Santa Clara County Judge Patricia Lucas issued a final Measure B verdict. A reader wondered in an email why we didn’t write about it. Fair point, which brings us to this update. The final decision in the landmark pension reform case that forced employees to contribute 16 percent more of their pay to retirement costs is similar to the tentative ruling trotted out in December, except for a couple details.

Chuck Reed spent much of his eighth and final State of the City speech thanking his predecessors while noting that a mayor’s work goes on long after he or she leaves office. Noting that he and past elected officials in San Jose have stood “on the shoulders of giants,” Reed said the work he and the council have carried out in recent years must be viewed outside the prism of four-year term limits. “We have to think in much longer timeframes,” he said.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed eats, sleeps and positively spits pension reform. He slammed through PR in San Jose with the help of voters in 2012, and while Measure B hasn’t accomplished everything he wanted, Reed’s doubled down with a proposed statewide measure (also being challenged in court). Getting the money to put a PR initiative on the state ballot takes beaucoup bucks, which is part of the reason Reed’s been speaking at conferences across the country the last year while rallying support from hedge-fund billionaires like Paul Singer and venture capitalist Michael Moritz. But the topic of one meeting the mayor took last month would dramatically alter his state pension plan.

The year 2013 will be remembered for its political turmoil, local and nationwide. A former county supervisor went to jail and the spotlight subsequently landed on his political buddy, a San Jose councilman. The Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to get married, and the president lied to the nation about domestic spying. San Jose Inside runs down the list of stories that caught our attention this year.

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.

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.