SF Magazine Writing Another Dellums Article

Last year, San Francisco Magazine devoted an entire issue to Oakland. It was a great work and I don't write that because I was in it. It did try to cover the base, although I felt it could have focused more on Oakland's African American businesses than it did. My overall impression was that the publisher wanted to present Oakland to the monied White establishment of San Francisco.

I kind of said that in this video:



But still it was a great work.

One of the articles was on Mayor Ron Dellums and there I said that the good Mayor could do more.

So Friday, I was contacted for my comments in preparation for this new article and I pretty much said the same thing. But what was of interest to me was what the reporter said OTHERS were saying about the Mayor.

His supporters feels Dellums is doing a good job but that others don't know it. But what they point to are small projects, when Oakland really needs big projects and a coherent downtown development plan (We haven't had one since 1985).

I could go on but I don't want to steal thunder from San Francisco Magazine. I'm glad they're still paying attention to Oakland. Now, if they would only look at Blacks in Oakland, that would make it complete.

Oakland And The Market Crash - What About Our "Swap Option Bonds"?

When I worked for Elihu Harris as Economic Advisor between 1995 and 1999, Goldman Sachs responded to an RFP issued by our then-treasurer Jan Myzck to issue municipal bonds for Oakland projects.

At the time, Goldman was competing with an organization I favored, the minority firm Pryor McClendon Counts (PMC). Goldman proposed using a kind of "swap-option" bond, where our payments were essentially swapped with those of another party -- a counterparty -- with the idea that we would be under the rate of interest of the other bond when it was lower.

I prefered PMC's more basic proposal because it had less risk attached, but Goldman won the competition and was the sole-source organization with zero minority participation -- a situation I just plain didn't like at all and since Jan was Black, I was really steamed that she handled matters the way she did. PMC had a good -- great =- proposal but she was in Goldman's back pocket.

Elihu hated the outcome of the deal as well. I --- to this day -- don't know what was up there with her.

Fast forward to today and the market crash. I talked to a friend of mine who said that a city that was "involved in a swap might take a look at how they're doing."

Well, it's a good idea, yeah?

Stay tuned.

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