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C.J. Walton's a Richmond-based realtor who posted this at activerain.com But beyond the tragedy of the sellers, there was the tragedy of the perfectly prepared, and perfectly priced condos that are not getting the traffic that they deserve. My client has found a wonderful deal, and yet there is one Lake Merritt Condo that is still out there, that I can't get out of my head. Imagine coming home to an Italian spa every night. This condo had it all exquisite bathrooms, wonderful kitchen, smart use of light and space and it has sat on the market for over 2 weeks. This beautiful condo is the tragedy of a glut of inventory. It isn't that people don't want to buy, it is that there is so much inventory to get through that it is hard to find that needle in the haystack. By the way, this beautiful condo is not my listing. But if you want the address just email and I will give it to you. My point is this, of the many condos I visited, this one had most of competition out dist...

Yikes! This is totally terrible news. The blogger -- mparent7777-2 -- is right; who else has been doing this and getting away with it? This story represents a perfect example of why the government needs to be limited in its power and why our privacy as citizens needs to be protected. Benjamin Robinson, a 40-year old government agent from Oakland, CA within the Department of Commerce, has been charged with illegally accessing a Homeland Security Database in order to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family. His indictment by a federal grand jury in San Jose this week was in connection with allegations that he accessed the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) over 163 times to track the woman’s movements. Robinson is being charged with making false claims to a government agency and unlawfully accessing data from a protected computer (seems the computer wasn’t very secure at all). If found guilty, Robinson could face a $500,000 fine and a maximum of up to 10 years in prison....

Paul Rosynsky, who writes for the Oakland Tribune, wrote this blockbuster article for the Oakland Post. It reveals major errors in that the Oakland Police failed to record interviews between the murder suspect and Yusuf Bey 1V, leading to an observation that some kind of deal was made. Here's Paul. By Paul T. Rosynsky Oakland Tribune Staff Writer Special to the Oakland Post For a high-profile murder case, the slaying of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey was solved with lightning speed. Less than 48 hours after Bailey was killed Aug. 2 as he walked to work in downtown Oakland, police had a taped confession from a Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman claiming responsibility. It was a victorious moment. The police had solved a crime that had brought national scorn on Oakland and its growing crime problem. Bailey was the first journalist since 1993 killed on U. S. soil for doing his job. But as the confessed killer, Devaughndre Broussard, 19, appeared in court Thursday to enter his...

Mayor Ron Dellums made a decision to avoid adding more police to help deter the ever-present spectre of crime in Oakland. Not surprisingly, some people are up in arms about this. Here's what I found on the Topix site: Oakland Dimond... ya gotta be kidding me! he says he wants to form a community policing program. WTF is that? so, on top of me paying $13,000/year in property taxes, i have to be a guardian angle for Oakland. fine, PAY ME THEN! excerpt: Dellums says he has no plans to significantly increase the number of Oakland police officers, despite the reality that Oakland's under-sized force of nearly 740 officers is roughly half the size of cities of comparable size. "I don't believe the (Oakland) residents support the idea of a huge increase in the police force," he said. "Measure Y was passed to accommodate those needs. "In lieu of more police, we think community policing is the answer." On this point the mayor and I agreed to disagree, bec...

From the RCPC website at Rockridge.org The Rockridge Kitchen Tour, a fundraiser for the Rockridge Community Planning Council (RCPC), debuted in 1995 and has continued to be a sterling biennial fall event ever since. This year’s tour is our seventh and it features, as always, nine remodeled or renovated kitchens in the Rockridge neighborhood. The 2005 tour attracted over 750 guests who were treated to unique kitchens such as the Hudson Street kitchen, personalized for easy accessibility for its wheelchair-bound owner, and the owner-renovated 1914-inspired kitchen on Taft Avenue. This year, the selection committee considered a record number of exquisite kitchens—twice as many as ever before. The final selections are remarkable not only for their spectacular designs, but for their innovative use of materials and clever tailoring to suit homes small and large, Craftsman and contemporary. This year’s tour proudly includes a resident artist’s kitchen with its owner’s paintings adding bril...

I hate to write this, but if someone comes to me at Strada like the way this person did they're off to jail. What's so bad is that others allowed this to happen. I know we're not supposed to fight back, but -- why? Why not? I mean if someone's going to come up to me and try to take my business possessions, why can't I fight them? Crime wave targeting Cal students Armed robber snatches 6 laptops in one of many brazen offenses By Doug Oakley, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 09/13/2007 08:38:54 AM PDT Click photo to enlargeAlison Duncan Kerr, right, works with her back against the wall at Cafe Strada across from UC...«123»University of California, Berkeley, students are being kicked, punched and robbed at gunpoint in an alarming wave of violent crime on and around campus. Armed robberies on campus and in the nearby neighborhood usually increase at the start of the school year, according to police. But this year, the number of robberies has gone way up since sch...

Phil Tagami , developer of The Rotunda Building and The Fox Theater, and always interested in the new and innovative, has embarked on something very new media, and that's because it's new media. It's called "Tagami Vision" and is less an expression of his point of view and more a presentation of what others -- including me -- think of Oakland. Phil started dabbling in video-blogging at the behest of his brother Ted Tagami, who's established a great reputation in buying ads for new media companies. Ted, like myself, has a video channel on Blip.tv and had Phil start his own channel . But that idea and channel have morphed into the high quality presentation that is Tagami Vision . Tagami Vision has District Attorney Tom Orloff, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, and others as guests and more people in the future. It's only a matter of time before it becomes appointment Internet viewing. It's that good.