San Jose City Councilman Ash Kalra has quietly pleaded guilty to drunken driving and will report Tuesday for the first of five days of court-ordered community service work.

Kalra’s lawyer, Eric Geffon, entered a guilty plea on his behalf June 9 to driving drunk in downtown San Jose last month. Judge Edward F. Lee then sentenced Kalra to a standard first-offense combination of about $2,000 in fines, three years of probation, 90 days of drunken driving counseling and almost a week’s worth of community service work.

“I’ve definitely learned a lot from this,” said Kalra, 39. “And I’m hoping my experience will continue to serve as an example to others, a wake-up call for them.”

Kalra, who has been out of custody since being booked at the county jail the night of his arrest, was not required to be present for sentencing on the misdemeanor offense. He was given credit for a day in custody and sentenced to serve the remaining five days through the Santa Clara County Jail’s weekend work program.

The program assigns low-risk offenders to do community service for state and local governments and nonprofit agencies. The offenders must pay to participate and work at least eight hours per day to be credited for a day of jail time.

Agencies that use the program’s workers include San Jose’s road and parks departments; Santa Clara County’s road, airport and parks divisions; Caltrans and even some Little Leagues.

Despite its name, the program doesn’t require weekend work. Kalra will serve out his sentence on weekdays in early July, when the program typically assigns offenders to jobs at the jail’s minimum-security Elmwood facility.

Kalra was driving south on Market Street just past Santa Clara Street in his gold 2006 Toyota Prius about 1:40 a.m. May 7 when California Highway Patrol officers noticed his right rear taillight was out. They pulled him over just past San Fernando Street.

CHP reports said Kalra told officers he had been drinking while watching a San Jose Sharks game with some City Hall colleagues at the Firehouse No. 1 Bar and Grill and at Temple Bar & Lounge. CHP officers reported that Kalra smelled of liquor and that he failed a field sobriety test. Tests showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.12 percent, well above the 0.08 percent legal limit.

After his release from jail that same day, Kalra called a Sunday afternoon news conference at his southeast San Jose home, where he disclosed the arrest and apologized for what he called “a terrible error in judgment.” He said he was “deeply embarrassed” by his actions and “prepared to take the full consequences for them.”

Kalra had worked for 11 years as a lawyer in the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office, where he represented people facing drug charges who could not afford an attorney. He became San Jose’s first Indian-American council member after being elected in November 2008.

Kalra said he’s been treated the same as anyone else facing a similar charge and is eager to put the matter behind him.

“The system worked the way it should,” Kalra said.

Contact John Woolfolk at 408-975-9346.