The District Attorney’s Office could soon be joining the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) in investigating County Supervisor George Shirakawa for his failure to file campaign disclosure forms the last four years. This week the DA requested all correspondence between Shirakawa’s office and the county Registrar of Voters,  the Mercury News reports. The Merc has been following up on the story Metro broke last month, which found that Shirakawa chose not to file forms the last four years disclosing how he has raised money to pay off a $110,000 debt he incurred during his 2008 supervisor campaign.

When the music stopped and a vote was taken to add a new trustee to the Santa Clara County Office of Education board Wednesday night, two elected officials must have realized they lost this round of political musical chairs.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed decided to endorse Johnny Khamis for the District 10 City Council seat in November’s election. Reed, who was joined in supporting Khamis with former San Jose Councilmember Pat Dando and State Assemblymember Jim Cunneen, both of whom are Republicans, called Khamis “a long time friend and a loyal supporter” in a press release sent out Tuesday morning. His selection is interesting on a number of fronts.

I am very embarrassed. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, I have contributed to diluting the critical conversation about the quality of public education in Santa Clara County. The debate on how to ensure a high quality public education experience for every child in the county is too important to have it held hostage to a serious error of judgment. The focus of far too many articles in the San Jose Mercury News has been about a condo and contract debacle that I have tried to own for personal naivety. And not asking the right questions of legal counsel when the new superintendent’s contract was negotiated in March 2012.

Santa Clara County’s scofflaw Supervisor George Shirakawa had no problem admitting in last week’s Metro cover story his four-year failure to file campaign disclosure forms. But that seems to have changed now that the reported illegal conduct —along with payments he made to friends and family members with money he raised to run for office and retire campaign debts—has resulted in a Fair Political Practices Commission investigation into the supervisor’s secretive activities.

Tuesday’s City Council meeting will feature a fight over the city’s pawn shop ordinance, unforeseen expenses for the Environmental Innovation Center and some political gamesmanship on upcoming ballot measures for the November election.

Outraged! Angry! These two emotions were prevalent last week after Mercury News reporter Sharon Noguchi broke the story that former county superintendent Dr. Chalres Weis wants the county to take back a condo the Board of Education loaned him money to buy in 2008. It is conceivable that this loan might cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, as I said last week, I feel strongly that “the primary interest in this matter is to guard the financial interests of the taxpayer, and the fiscal integrity of the organization.”

Groups hoping to increase San Jose’s minimum wage in November through Measure D lost a court fight on two fronts Thursday. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Mark H. Pierce ruled that a line about costs from Measure D’s ballot statement must be taken out because it is misleading. He also rejected arguments that opponents of Measure D should have to change their ballot statement because minimum wage backers “failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the subject arguments are false and misleading.”

Enrique Flores is the founder of Eastside Heroes, a mentoring non-profit, director of the Corozon Project in East San Jose, and a policy aide for Supervisor Dave Cortese.—Editor

In just 10 days this August, seven of our San Jose residents were killed, and five more are recovering from gun shot wounds. Some call this a “spike” in violence, I call it “The Start of the Second War.”

We’re sad to announce that Leigh Weimers has passed away at the age of 76. Warm and easygoing, Leigh was a much beloved figure in San Jose who wrote a column for the San Jose Mercury News for 47 years. Leigh went into the hospital a month ago for congestive heart failure and was scheduled for heart surgery this week.

County Supervisor George Shirakawa waded into the fight over who’s to blame for the rise in crime in San Jose Thursday afternoon, releasing a statement voicing his displeasure with comments San Jose Councilmember Sam Liccardo made to the media. In response, Liccardo shrugged before calling out Nora Campos for her letter to San Jose’s police chief. Go ahead and click through, because this gets good.

The City Council meets Tuesday to discuss the installation of new bike lanes, fees for events at a downtown park and the expansion of corporate office space at Santana Row, amongst other items. Not on the agenda, according to city spokesman David Vossbrink, is a report expected to come out Tuesday morning from the office of State Auditor Elaine Howle, who took a closer look at Mayor Chuck Reed’s use of the number $650 million in regards to the city’s worst-case unfunded liability scenario.

A key piece of evidence has disappeared in the Mercury News rack theft caper. At least one news rack in the Mercury’s possession vanished as the San Jose Police Department prepared to commence a criminal investigation into the daily’s dumping of its competitors’ racks. Mercury News executives offered no explanation for the disappearance—only that they had “triple checked” the yard.

There are two kinds of thieves: ones who own up to their actions when caught and those who make up facts to justify their thievery. The Mercury News executive team has chosen to go the route of lying thieves. Luckily, no one is really fooled, and the ethical character of the group running the Bay Area’s daily newspapers is now on display for all to see. The emperor has no clothes.

San Jose Police were called to the headquarters of the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday afternoon after an independent distribution firm discovered its news racks — along with those of other local publications — in a metal recycling dumpster behind the daily’s plant. News outlets whose news racks were found in the garbage container included Metro, the Palo Alto Daily Post, the Mountain View Voice, Good Times, La Oferta, the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

UPDATE: When will Casino M8trix open? Maybe as soon as July 20. City officials say they are cautiously optimistic Police Chief Chris Moore will grant the casino its necessary permits at a hearing July 19, because the card room owners have relented and agreed to open the first floor only while continuing negotiations on how top floor gaming will be managed. But casino owner Eric Swallow says the city never contacted him about such an arrangement.