Internal Affairs: Campos playing with fire on fire station plan Sunday, September 30, 2007 By the Mercury News San Jose City Councilwoman Nora Campos seemingly obliterated any pretense of wanting to get along with Mayor Chuck Reed last week when she put out a chest-beating press release after a surprising political victory. Campos, the council's labor-friendly yin to Reed's pro-business yang, pulled together seven votes Tuesday to rebuild Fire Station No. 2 in her district - at a cost of $9.5 million. "My only regret," she huffed in her subsequent press release, "is that the mayor did not participate in building a critical public safety project for our city." What Campos didn't say is that prior to Tuesday's vote, she sparked an uproar over whether she'd broken the state's open-meeting laws. Those concerns arose after Campos sprang a last-minute memo on the council the day of the vote. On the memo were four signatures - hers, Vice Mayor Dave Cortese's and those of council members Madison Nguyen and Kansen Chu. But according to City Hall insiders, Campos's staff also spoke to Reed's office about the issue, and Reed had spoken to Councilman Pete Constant the week prior. That makes six on an 11-member board. State law prohibits a majority of elected officials from talking about an issue in private prior to a vote. "I am confident that there was a violation of the Brown Act," Constant told IA. Campos said she didn't know the mayor had spoken with Constant about the matter, but Reed didn't quite sound like he bought that. Stuck in the middle was City Attorney Rick Doyle, who said he had no evidence all six people had talked about the issue prior to the vote. Between the way the deal went down and the subsequent press release, Reed was miffed. He met with Campos early Thursday to express his disappointment. "I understand that these budget decisions are difficult," he told IA. "But I do have high expectation for our council members to engage in these discussions in a professional manner." Campos, for her part, told IA her press release wasn't meant to attack the mayor and that she's looking forward to working with him in the future. Internal Affairs is compiled by Mercury News staff. This week's items were written by Joshua Molina, John Woolfolk, Julie Patel and Deborah Lohse. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call (408) 271-3638.