Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

I just came from a dinner and during that event, learned that Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Deborah Edgerly may have been placed on administrative leave, but David Shea, Chief of Staff for Mayor Ron Delums would not confirm that a high-level meeting took place today or that the outcome was indeed to change the CAO's status from "retiring July 31st but still working" to "paid administrative leave." In my view, swaying from one decision to another is not a sign of good leadership. It's not the Mayor Dellums can't be a good leader, but I think what's happened is that Dellums made a bet that Senator Hillary Clinton would be the next step in his occupational life, lost that bet when he failed to back Senator Barack Obama, who's going to be the next president, and now is concerned about maintaining the job of Mayor. Thus, the back-and-forth indecision.

I will be a guest and part of a panel on the matter of Deborah Edgerly, Mayor Dellums, and the "state" of The City of Oakland, Thursday Morning June 25th on KQED's "Forum," 88.5 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's a call-in show. I don't -- yet -- know who the other panelists will be.

According to various friends and news sources, Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly will retire July 31st 2008 . But from what I here, the embattled CAO's (Chief Administrative Officer) situation is such that it's Civil War (in capital letters) and foks have chosen sides. I personally stand by this view: that Miss E's phone call to help out her nephew set in motion a perfect storm of events and a clash between the following "agenda groups" 1) Professional / executive class African American female City of Oakland Employees This group is paced by the CAO, and is a loosely formed set of tight relationships, that one friend once described as "The Black Female Mafia.) 2) City of Oakland Employees who are not part of group one and specifically don't like the CAO. This includes people in the Oakland Police Department, but also other City of Oakland departments and personnel who I can't mention. This includes African Americans, male and female. It...

Some other SF Bay Area columnists who are friends of mine and just enjoyed an evening out with -- without talking about Oakland politics -- are still way wrong regarding Deborah Edgerly and the Edgerly Family. Specifically, my friend Chip Johnson , who presents a picture of an Oakland that was transformed by Deborah Edgerly into a sea of people who are related to her. If you believe that, you're a totally big fool. You're also all the more foolish if you think favoritism started with her. Hell, one major reason I accused former Mayor Jerry Brown of racism in 2000 was that I believed he picked those he was most comfortable with -- young white professionals -- over equals like myself who are Black. In my view, what Jerry Brown would do is relegate all of the young Black employees who should be in his office to then-City Manager Robert Bobb's office and, pointing at a young African American woman in his office, say -- as he did to me during our dispute over my treatment...

The SF Sentinel now reports a story we first broke at this blog where Larry Bowoto , the Nigerian man who claims he was shot by persons employed by Chevron, and whom Chevron points to as the person who held their employees hostage for several days, has dropped his lawsuit claim of human rights violations. The Sentinel observes: It is looking more and more likely that Bowoto and 150 of his compatriots took over the Chevron oil platform off Nigeria in a hostage takeover — which is far different from their claims of human rights abuse. The trial is in September.

Look, now Cal's being down right silly and arrogant. On Sunday, I understand that there was another rally -- I was resting from a busy week -- and that even Berkeley Councilmember Donna Sprng got involved. Now, UC Spokesperson Dan Mogulof seems to imply that the University doesn't want to talk to anyone. Dan Mogulof, just do it. Let's stop this silly game, find something clever and political to say to get them to go home. Why not offer the protesters a chance to be part of the action of planning? It's called a Citizen's Review Commitee. Look, I know Cal can do better. The way Cal's behaving is not what I learned at the Department of City and Regional Planning, where I got my Master's Degree...at Cal. Cal needs to grow up.

I just saw the SFGate online article about Oakland City Admininstrator Deborah Edgerly and it has the headline, "Paid to do nothing". That's an insult and a smear, especially since the same article explains that Edgerly ran a meeting because Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums was late to attend it. The Chronicle's Chris Heredia wrote: On Friday, Dellums asked all city department heads to report directly to him until further notice. Edgerly, however, ran the first half of a weekly meeting of city department heads on Monday when Dellums was running late. So that means she's not paid to do nothing -- she's doing something . But most SFGate readers will just see that stupid headline and then make dumb comments in the comments section. Then they will communicate that to others and the public will have the wrong view of Miss E. Look, I don't think the SF Chronicle should do that. It's not right and it's certainly a smear of the first order.