On January 22, five weeks before former Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. was charged with 12 criminal counts, Cindy Chavez met District Attorney Jeff Rosen for lunch at P.F. Chang’s in downtown San Jose.  Not only did Chavez throw down the race card and lobby Rosen “not to do anything,” South Bay Labor Council’s new executive Ben Field also lunched with Rosen and echoed the message.

When Teresa Alvarado announced that she was running for George Shirakawa Jr.’s vacated county supervisor seat, County Executive Jeff Smith helpfully forwarded the email to Working Partnership USA’s executive team: Bob Brownstein and Cindy Chavez. The forwarding of memos by Smith highlights the cozy relationship between the County of Santa Clara and Working Partnerships USA (WPUSA), the organization led by longtime labor union executive and current supervisor candidate Cindy Chavez. WPUSA is joined at the hip to the powerful South Bay Labor Council (SBLC), with whom it has historically shared offices, facilities, equipment, political objectives and allocated employees. Last year, SBLC led the effort to raise county sales taxes by $500 million over the next ten years and to increase San Jose’s minimum wage by 25 percent. It also endorsed 70 candidates for political office. Working Partnerships has been the recipient of at least $518,163 from the cash-challenged county in the past two years, performing a grab bag of services. Newly released documents obtained via a San Jose Inside public records request show the county’s contracts represented about 15 percent of Working Partnerships’ revenues for those years.

On March 24, Metro/San Jose Inside reported that Santa Clara Family Health Foundation (SCFHF) executive board member and officer Cindy Chavez participated in a board decision to provide $250,000 in funding to the Yes on A committee, on which she and Kathleen King—CEO of SCFHF—constituted a majority of the three-member committee. The committee subsequently turned over a large portion of the funds to the South Bay Labor Council Issues PAC and Democratic Central Committee’s PAC. Because of Chavez’s obvious conflicts of interest—she headed up the SBLC at the time—and the importance of a countywide sales tax increase, which will be paid by all residents, Metro/San Jose Inside felt this was a matter of public interest.

On Friday, nine nonprofit executives wrote a letter to express their thoughts on recent articles. They worry that investigative reporting could make nonprofits “the target of unfounded accusations and public reproach.” Because we feel this is a useful debate to have, and because we want to give differing points of view the proper attention they deserve, we are running below the letter in full, in addition to its appearance in the comments section where it was submitted. —Editor

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider granting a fair chunk of change to a nonprofit trying to set itself up as a small business support center. This comes on the heels of greater scrutiny regarding public funds going to entities that are not required to disclose their financial dealings. Also on Tuesday’s agenda, the Board of Supervisors will consider supporting a change to the state Constitution that would lower the percentage of votes needed to raise local taxes.

While on its executive committee, prospective county supervisor candidate Cindy Chavez helped move hundreds of thousands of dollars out of a local health nonprofit, according to copies of board minutes obtained by San Jose Inside. At a pivotal meeting last June, Chavez voted to approve a budget that included a line item in which one of her employers, Working Partnerships USA, had a financial interest—and to fund a political campaign that was largely run by her other employer, the South Bay Labor Council. The two transactions totaled $400,000, more than a quarter of the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation’s budget.

Teresa Alavarado made it official Thursday, when she filed papers and paid the $1,430.31 fee to run for the vacant District 2 county supervisor seat. San Jose Inside just so happened to be checking up on Registrar of Voters records when Alvarado and her campaign manager, Peter Allen, walked into the office.

Two members of the San Jose City Council are calling for an investigation into whether city funds were illegally used in local campaigns. Councilmembers Pete Constant and Johnny Khamis are asking the city manager and city attorney to “investigate whether any city funds that were provided to either Santa Clara Family Health Foundation or VMC Foundation were used to fund any campaign activities in any manner,” according to a memo released Thursday. The memo notes that the city has given the foundations more than $6 million in the last three years.

Funds from two local non-profit health care foundations made their way to phone banks and mail campaigns of the South Bay Labor Council in 2012 after routing the money through a Measure A’s campaign committee. Both the VMC Foundation and the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation gave more than a quarter-million dollars each—a total of $539,000—to support an 1/8th cent county sales tax measure, Measure A. At least $90,000 of those monies were transferred to the South Bay Labor Council. An incestuous tangle of organizations, directors and consultants characterized the transactions, with common decision-makers on both the giving and receiving ends. None of the organization are willing to discuss how the funds were used and how decisions were made. Former San Jose vice mayor and South Bay Labor Council CEO Cindy Chavez currently heads up the nonprofit SBLC-linked Working Partnerships USA (WPUSA) and sits on the board for the Health Trust and Santa Clara Family Health Foundation.

I don’t regularly watch Board of Supes meetings. But I watched on Tuesday because I don’t often see a board trying to figure out how to replace a colleague who is being charged with five felonies. (Sorry, George Shirakawa, it has nothing to do with you being a Raiders fan. That would have been cause enough for a sixth felony.) The board decided to hold a special election on June 4 because they didn’t want to look like 4 white guys telling East San Jose who should represent them. Brilliant political move. I noticed something interesting in the process.

Political theater, like a good novel or legend, needs strong central characters. Last Friday, we saw the district attorney ride in like Sir Lancelot, with Queen Guinevere by his side, to mete out a quick and final blow to the morally depraved Saxon,  in this case George Shirakawa, Jr.

If it were only that simple. The triumph of Good over Evil story line quickly morphed into a human tragedy as the county supervisor fell on his sword, resigned his position, agreed to plead guilty and attributed his betrayal of public trust to a gambling addiction.

Madison Nguyen, San Jose’s vice mayor and councilmember for District 7, filed paperwork Dec. 19 with the City Clerk’s office declaring her intent to run for mayor.

Those sounds in the background are rumblings that the District Attorney’s Office and Fair Political Practices Commission will conclude their separate investigations into county Supervisor George Shirakawa’s spendy ways sometime in the second half of this month. That could be why one of his longtime closest allies, Cindy Chavez, has been voicing her interests in the not yet vacant supervisor’s job.

Working Partnerships USA, the labor-aligned nonprofit headed by former San Jose vice mayor Cindy Chavez, yesterday released its most recent Internal Revenue Service Form 990, after eight days of refusing requests to view the document. A review of the organization’s filings over the years found spending increases during key elections despite IRS restrictions on political activities by charities. In total, the nonprofit has raised and spent more than $25 million since 1998.

The 2012 election is barely over and already people are opining on who will contend for the Presidency in 2016 or who will be the next Mayor in 2014. Who will replace Supervisor George Shirakawa if he resigns? Which brings us to the mental gymnastics some local pundits are making regarding recent changes at the South Bay Labor Council. Is Cindy Chavez running for Mayor? Is she positioning herself for Supervisor?

Cindy Chavez is out as CEO of the South Bay Labor Council. End of an era? Not quite. Chavez, who joined the SBLC in 2009 after an unsuccessful mayoral run and two terms on the San Jose City Council, will continue in the role of executive director of Working Partnerships, the think tank that helped organize the successful Measure D campaign and shares a building with SBLC.

Folks at the North Pole have been inundated with holiday wish lists from local politicos. Following are some of the requests they have received.