Internal Affairs:

Road lobbyist with firsthand pothole knowledge

Interstate 580 is the most-pothole riddled freeway in the Bay Area and on Wednesday it claimed another driver — but not just any motorist. Carl Guardino, President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and member of the California Transportation Commission.

En route to Sacramento and driving in between two big trucks in his little Prius down the Altamont Pass, he smacked hard into a very bumpy patch of road in the center lane.

Boom!

“My back right tire literally blew up,” Guardino said. “As my car pulled in one direction closer to the semi to my right, I was able to get around the truck and over two lanes onto a very narrow shoulder before my car became inoperable.”

Scary? You bet. After a 90-minute wait until the tow truck arrived and using Waze to direct the driver, plus $500 for new tires, Guardino was back on the road headed to the state Capitol. Oh, what was that meeting about with legislative leaders?

“Ironically,” Guardino said, “to discuss transportation funding for road maintenance and pothole repairs.”

Gathering money for City Council race

The first round of fundraising reports in the 2016 election season hit the web last week — and a few San Jose City Council hopefuls are off to a running start by raising the most dough. The reports tracked campaign contributions and spending from July 1 to Dec. 31.

In the District 6 election to succeed outgoing Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio — the city’s most crowded and arguably most interesting race — former San Jose Planning Commissioner Norman Kline led the pack after raising $40,584 and lending his campaign an additional $10,010.

Tech manager Erik Fong raised $35,858 and lent his campaign an additional $5,000. Dev Davis raised $12,375 and lent $20,000 to her campaign, while Helen Chapman raised $16,054 and lent her campaign an additional $16,000.

Peter Allen raised $26,433, and Chris Roth raised $21,314. Jeffrey Bedolla did not file a report and two late-comers, Ruben Navarro and Myron Von Raesfeld, joined the race too late to report their fundraising.

In the District 2 race to replace outgoing Councilman Ash Kalra, attorney Elias Portales led the way by raising $35,770. Sergio Jimenez raised about $17,000 and there were no filings for Steve Brown or Henry Perry, who is rumored to have dropped out. Joe Lopez joined the race too late and will have filings at the next deadline.

The District 4 race is pitting incumbent Manh Nguyen against a competitor from last year, Lan Diep. Nguyen raised $17,060 and lent his campaign an additional $1,000. Diep entered the race too late to file fundraising reports.

Another busy contest is the District 8 race to succeed Vice Mayor Rose Herrera. Attorney Jimmy Nguyen emerged ahead by raising $14,276 and lending his campaign an additional $10,000. Joshua Barousse raised $20,211, while Denise Belisle raised $14,445 and lent her campaign $5,000. Patrick Waite and Sylvia Arenas, who both joined the race late, hadn’t raised any money yet.

And finally, Councilman Johnny Khamis, who is running uncontested in District 10, raised $26,650.

Trustee was packing a construction tool at meeting

It sounds like the stuff of a TV cops drama: a reported concealed weapon at a packed public meeting, a hot police pursuit and frisking of a public official. Nope, just a meeting of the Morgan Hill school board.

Shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday, someone called the Morgan Hill Police to report trustee Rick Badillo appeared to have a gun tucked into his waistband. Arriving officers met the unidentified caller, then asked Superintendent Steve Betando to ask for a meeting recess and to tell Badillo to step into a back room.

Betando said he conveyed the messages. But instead of heading to the back room, Badillo strode in the opposite direction toward the district office’s main entrance. “I told Steve I’m not a second-class citizen, I’m going out the front door,” Badillo told IA. One of the officers emerged from the back and dashed after him.

After Badillo walked through the foyer he turned around to see the officer falling on top of some children who were packed into the hallway with their parents, waiting for another item on the board agenda. “I thought, ‘That’s odd,'” said Badillo.

The cop picked himself up and resumed the chase, ordering Badillo to put his hands up. The officer and his partner then frisked the trustee outside the building, and confirmed that the bulge was actually a Leatherman pocket multi-tool. Badillo, who works in construction, had come to the meeting straight from work.

“I’m thankful for the police doing their due diligence,” Badillo said. “People can get shook up, but not me, I’m fine.”

Speculation abounds who called the cops and whether it was an attempt to embarrass Badillo, who’s at odds with Betando and three other board members. Sgt. Carson Thomas said police granted the caller’s request for anonymity, and Betando told us he doesn’t know.

A few stories about the late Don Edwards

A group of about 180 old friends said goodbye to Don Edwards at the IBEW union hall last Saturday, nearly four months after the longtime San Jose congressman died at the age of 100 in Carmel. As you might expect, there were more than a few stories about a charismatic man who seemed to go through life uncowed.

Terri Poche, Edwards’ longtime aide, revealed that Edwards loathed precinct-walking. When Poche gently chided him for not doing more, Edwards tried to defend himself by saying he had indeed walked a certain San Jose neighborhood. In fact, he had accompanied Poche’s children for trick-or-treating at Halloween.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who says he got his first nudge toward politics when Edwards responded personally to a letter Cortese sent to him as a youngster, told a story known among the property owners of the East Side. Edwards, a superb golfer, also led the neighborhood boys in climbing the fence of the San Jose Country Club to play touch football on the fairways.

Erik Edwards, Don’s grandson and now an attorney on the Peninsula, recalled attending American University in the 1990s and visiting his grandfather in Congress. Erik said he was once pulled aside by U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, D-Ill., a fierce conservative, who told him that the liberal Edwards was one of the finest men in Congress. (Improbably, Hyde and Edwards were close friends.)

Finally, Phil Hammer, a longtime Edwards supporter and husband of ex-Mayor Susan Hammer, told a story about how he and Edwards had both gone into the drink on a whitewater rafting mission in the Sierras. Hammer wore the casual Edwards uniform for his remarks — dark blue cashmere sweater, collared shirt, and khaki pants. “On him, it looked like a million bucks,” said Hammer, who conceded that he couldn’t match the congressman’s image.

Internal Affairs is an offbeat look at local and state politics. This week’s items were written by Gary Richards, Ramona Giwargis, Sharon Noguchi, Scott Herhold, and Paul Rogers. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call 408-920-5782.