SV411

The week ahead could be the craziest ever in San Jose's political history. For one thing, there's the possibility that Ron Gonzales could become the first mayor in modern San Jose history to resign in disgrace rather than face criminal charges. His wife Guisselle just quit her job at Transmetrics, which was seeking BART contracts—and subcontracts for the $0.7 billion airport expansion. Now everyone's waiting for the Grand Jury to wrap up its look into the NorCal trash mess. While it's politically touchy to drop a bombshell the week before an election, DA George Kennedy would look worse if he sat on the charges or if they appeared in this column first. George shot out a memo last week admonishing his troops not to talk about those proceedings after Fly reported that the mayor took the fifth in his Grand Jury testimony. His investigators also called and asked us to identify our highly confidential sources. Yeah, right. So, anyway, here's a likely scenario: presented with evidence of lawbreaking by Deputy DA Jules Finkelstein, the Gonzster has a choice between facing indictment and spending six figures on attorney's fees or stepping down. The cash-strapped mayor chooses the latter. Mayoral candidate Cindy Chavez dodges the prosecution bullet but everyone thinks the probability that she knew nothing about the Teamsters-Norcal matter is about as likely as Jimmy Hoffa being found alive. Follow the saga as it unfolds at our new blog site: SV411.com.

The Real Mulcoy

Hey, why are fire trucks driving around town with Dave Cortese for Mayor banners? Is that legal? . ... Chuck Reed says his family keeps asking him when he'll change his loud American flag tie. He says it's an emotional issue for him as long as American troops are serving in Iraq. ... Over at the District Attorney's office, they still haven't filled David Pandori's job. "We're expecting him to be back in June," our sources say with a smile. Still, Pandori managed to pull off a surprise Mercury News endorsement, though how bankable is that when Merc columnists and its community newspaper division have broken ranks and endorsed Michael Mulcahy? ... Of all the tricks we've seen, Fly was surprised to see Mulcahy's name on the ballot twice. Oh wait, that other Michael listed on the mayoral ballot is ... Macarelli? Just who the heck is Michael Macarelli, and more importantly, who put him up to running against Mulcahy? No one, swears trolley driver Macarelli, 42, who by the way also looks like the 41-year-old Mulcahy. It's all too weird for Fly, and the tongue-twisting similarity between Macarelli and Mulcahy—two names that ironically appear next to each other on the supposedly nonalphabetical June ballot—is sure to confuse some voters. Mulcahy says even he was confused; he almost sat down behind Macarelli's name at a candidate forum earlier this month. The half-Italian Mulcahy is taking every opportunity to remind people how his Irish name is spelled. "It matters for someone like me, who doesn't have broad name recognition," he says. OK, seriously, Signore Macarelli, no one put you up to this? "I'm running because the city and VTA are not going in the right direction," he says. "I feel it is my civic duty to help." ... Finally, we were getting tired of hearing all that happy talk about how Mulcahy was San Jose's Gavin Newsom, and realizing we had never seen them in the same room together, figured we'd better check on that too. So we dragged Mulcahy over to an Carl Guardino's house, where the San Francisco mayor was holding court, and demanded that they pose for a photo together. So there you have it. Gavin Newsom is not Michael Mulcahy. He's really Patrick Kennedy.

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