A.M. Splash: Quan Recall Officially Dead

Just a few months ago there were three campaigns to recall Mayor Jean Quan. Now there are none. The Committee to Recall Mayor Quan Now on Thursday officially ended its bid to unseat the mayor, who is now assured that there will be no recall vote on the November ballot. "The recall is dead," committee treasurer Len Raphael said Thursday. "The money didn't come through and the costs went up dramatically."

The city filed its petition for bankruptcy protection with a Sacramento federal court on Thursday, marking the official beginning of Stockton's Chapter 9 case. The filing includes City Hall's pendency plan, an alternative budget to be used during bankruptcy proceedings. The City Council approved the spending plan Tuesday night in a contentious, five-hour meeting.

Suspended San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi testified Thursday that he committed a violent act against his wife, and that such conduct falls below official standards of his staff and reflects adversely on the department. But he also told the city's Ethics Commission that he believes in the power of redemption, as he fights to save his job.

After three years of minimal growth or even decreases in property values, the Santa Clara County Assessor on Thursday reported the first solid increase in assessed values since 2008. The total net assessed value of all residential and commercial property grew 3.25 percent to $308.8 billion in 2012, up from 0.88 percent growth and $299.1 billion in 2011.

The San Francisco 49ers are going to court to collect some $30 million in redevelopment money the city of Santa Clara promised them for their new stadium. Problem is, the city doesn’t have that money after the state dissolved all local redevelopment agencies earlier this year. And the Santa Clara County agency now responsible for doling out any leftover redevelopment funds decided the community had more important uses for the cash than the planned $1.2 billion stadium.

It reads like an outline for a B-grade detective novel: A reclusive elderly couple with no close relatives lives in a house crammed with jewelry, stamp collections, stock certificates and dozens of pieces of art worth, conservatively, $3 million. Throw in a huge model train collection, too. And rats...(I)t's the discovery of the rats by city health inspectors that eventually forces the couple to go live in a hotel, leaving their fortunes behind in their Berkeley home, intermingled with mounds of trash... According to new details revealed this week in an 87-page affidavit written by a veteran District Attorney inspector, it is how Superior Court Judge Paul Seeman, 57, came to be arrested June 14 and charged with elder theft and perjury.