Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

As of this writing, The KPFA Morning Show is no more, but you can attend a protest of the action at 11 AM at KPFA on 1929 Martin Luther King Jr Way, near the intersection of Martin Luther King and University Avenue in Berkeley. On Monday, four employees of The Berkeley, CA-based, Pacifica-owned KPFA Morning Show , KPFA's most popular locally-produced program - were fired as part of what was called a "cost-cutting" move. The staff includes the two KPFA Morning Show hosts Aimee Allison and Brian Edwards-Tiekert, and Morning Show Executive Producer Laura Prives and Esther Manilla. Many Oaklanders know Aimee Allison as the local personality for Comcast, as well as a former candidate for the Oakland District Two Council Seat that's currently occupied by Pat Kernighan, who won another four year term on election day. Meanwhile, according to a source via email, Brian Edwards-Tiekert was pointed to as the person who made "enemies" on the KPFA Board of Direct...

The much-anticipated final Oakland Mayor's Race ballot count that was to take place at 4 PM today (and had television media rushing to the Alameda County Registrar's Office at 4 PM just as this video blogger was leaving) has been delayed around 24 hours. According to David Mac Donald, who was the hero of the Alameda County effort to handle the massive turnout for the 2008 Presidential Election that saw Barack Obama elected the first African-American President of The United States, the reason is a "crowded election." "We've had more ballots to process in this election, than in any election in history," Mac Donald said. "And the reason is because with Ranked Choice Voting, every voter in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro got three ballot cards. And so it's triple the amount of paper that we have to handle. So it's been a big effort, but we're making a lot of progress. We're getting there." Mac Donald said that he...

Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Wade Phillips posted one of the most pathetic post-game speeches this blogger has ever heard by an NFL coach after the Cowboys were slammed 45 to 7 against the Green Bay Packers. Now, with a 1 and 7 season so far, the media's calling for Coach Phillips head to be rolled. Indeed, Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones, who must feel like he's being cursed for making fun of the idea of drafting Tim Tebow, said that people would feel a change. The Cowboys lost to a good team in the Packers and an excellent quarterback in Aaron Rogers, but the collapse of Dallas was shocking. It started with a 28-point second quarter, and that's when it was apparent the Cowboys were going to be blown out of the building. They were. The Cowboys suffered their most embarrassing loss of the season, and then on NFL Network Sunday night, Coach Phillips took the podium. Afterward, NFL Network analysts Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin, and Steve Mariucci got into a live...

Last Tuesday night, the night of the 2010 Midterm Elections, as now Governor-Elect Jerry Brown was making his way through the audience of media and well-wishers, and this video blogger was filming the action, Brown turned right, and into my camcorder's lens. The first thing out of Jerry's mouth - well the second thing after "there's that blogger" - was referring to the comments that Arnie Fields made about him during our interview. Arnie Fields ran for Mayor and lost, again, big time. Arnie knows in his heart of hearts that he's not going to be the Mayor of Oakland unless he makes a concerted effort. But that's another blog post. Arnie's ran twice because he's got Jerry Brown on the brain, and doesn't like the "10K" - Jerry Brown's project that brought thousands of units of apartment and condo housing to downtown Oakland, and helped transform Oakland's population. Ok, we've been through that discussion. But i...

The news that Oakland Councilmember Jean Quan may be the next Mayor of Oakland has outraged Oakland Police Officers. This blogger just got a call this evening from a long time friend who's name I will not reveal and who's working "out in the field" on the streets of Oakland after the Mehserle verdict, who said "Hey. It's busy out here, people on the street, but we've got it really well contained. We're way over-prepared for this, this time."  (Which explains why he was able to take time to call this blogger.) Then his tone changed. This is someone who doesn't get that upset a lot; not this time. He said "You know me. I generally don't pay attention to politics, but whoa! This shit out here is nothing compared to what I was told. You're politically in the know, so I call on you. Is it true, we're going to have Jean Quan as our Mayor!? If that's the case, I'm outta Oakland, and I'm taking as many people as...

The unthinkable just happened. Oakland District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan outpaced Former California State Senator Don Perata 51 percent to 48 percent and unofficially won the Oakland Mayor's Race.  If the results hold, Quan becomes Oakland's first female mayor and its first Asian mayor. This news is according to the Alameda County Registrar's Office . Congratulations to Mayor-Elect Jean Quan, if these results hold up. The numbers are really, really close. The results, the product of the new Ranked Choice Voting system, went through 10 computerized rounds. Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan and Councilmember Kaplan transferred the largest number of votes, so it must be surmised that their strategy of supporting each other actually worked. If you think about it, and look at the numbers, that means three-fourths of the second choice results were for Jean Quan. That's amazing. This is really funny, in a good way. It means the system worked, even if some may n...

In a small press conference Thursday, Oakland Councilmember and City Council President Jane Brunner and Oakland City Administrator Dan Lindheim sat down to talk about the election and the status of Oakland Police staffing. Well, it was really all about Oakland Police staffing, and not so much about the ranked choice voting election. Oakland Mayor-Elect Don Perata (which we can say because his 11 point first vote lead coupled with the first and second choices yet to be counted puts him closest to the needed 50 percent majority), said at his election party that his first action as Mayor of Oakland will be to reinstate the 80 police officer positions eliminated to trim Oakland's huge budget deficit. Here's the video containing Perata's comments at the 4:28 mark: Don Perata's proposed action was met with some hesitation from new Oakland District 4 (Montclair - Oakland Hills) Councilmember Libby Schaaf, who said that she wasn't willing to rubber stamp Pe...