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Yelp has become the go-to site for ratings on businesses of all types, including the "City of Oakland Parking Service System." That's everything from the Parking Department Office at City Hall Plaza, to the parking enforcement employees on the street, and everyone in between. The collective gets a nice "one-star" rating on Yelp . And the comments are something to read. Here's a sample: Several weeks ago I received a parking ticket for parking at an expired meter in Oakland. When I went to pay it today, I was surprised to see another citation that was past due associated with my license number... Then I remembered: many months ago, I found a parking ticket on my car when I failed to move it for street sweeping. The next day, I tried to pay for said ticket, both online, and using the over-the-phone method. Neither worked. Several days later, I tried once more to pay the ticket, again to no avail. I was told several times that no such ticket existed in t...

This is yet another email sent to this blogger about the Oakland Parking problem. From the way it reads, Oakland, CA's predatory parking practice (say that three times fast), where the city aggressively tickets and tows cars, is still with us. Hello, I am speaking out because this just started this past Tuesday. Please see all the pictures and my letter to the Parking Citation place. thank you.There are 6 - 12 cars parked here 7 days per week. i have lived here for 6.5 years and NEVER gotten a ticket here until NOW. we all are getting tickets daily. Double Parking in a Culdesac? this is unjust. how do we fight this now? How sad that the City Of Oakland would stoop this low to get money. and calling the number to get help is a waste of time. Please let me know if you can help or what we can do. There are a few of us here in the neighborhood that are disabled. AND people who work and visit people at Highland Hospital park here. they also get tickets. hmm.. the parking people ON...

ALERT! A's Stadium San Jose vs. Oakland update. A quick follow-up on yesterday's post r egarding opposition to the San Jose effort to build a stadium for the Oakland A's (Athletics): the San Jose City Council passed it's much discussed amendment to its General Plan. What that means is more housing where industrial property is currently situated, and more urban costs and less tax increment revenue generation from a tax base that some San Joseans feel has already suffered a "death by a thousand cuts." This decision is a major blow to the city's ability to afford a stadium for the Oakland A's. That is, of course, assuming San Jose withstands a court challenge from both the San Francisco Giants and The City of San Francisco, as well as The City of Oakland. Stay tuned.

Over all of the talk about an Oakland A's baseball stadium in San Jose instead of Oakland, the San Jose Murky News failed to mention the organized opponents in the form of Better Sense San Jose .   Better Sense San Jose describes itself as: a community based all volunteer organization founded to promote open and transparent government, and sensible, prioritized spending in the City of San Jose. It has a simple position on the Lew Wolff proposal, stating that San Jose can't afford it, and that it's a "poor economic deal" for the city and a lousy investment. Here are the reasons Better Sense San Jose gives : - land purchases and infrastructure improvements for a stadium will cost San Jose an estimated $100M in present value initially, plus a loss of roughly $1M a year from foregone property taxes. - the net ROI (Return on Investment) for San Jose is 2% or less, while the Redevelopment Agency bonds supplying the capital cost 5% or more per year. A bad deal. ...

The interview with Maisha Quint of the East Side Arts Alliance and Michael Siegel of the Law Firm of Siegel and Yee (Where his father, Dan Siegel and Oakland Council President Jane Brunner are partners), was not conducted by this blogger, but by someone named Kali Akuno who has a series of videos he calls "The Black Agenda Morning Shot." The videos, totaling about 19 minutes of run-time, were not brought to my attention by anyone; I found them on YouTube. I've never met Maisha, and Michael I met for the first time and just after interviewing now-Mayor-Elect Jean Quan at Siegel and Lee during The Oakland Mayor's Race. While I'm personally opposed to the idea of a "black agenda" - because I think a separatist view doesn't help the cause for diversity, and because more often than not, it's not my agenda, and I just don't like being dictated to by the masses, regardless of color - their point of view on how the Oakland Gang Injunction contri...

Councilmember Brooks A couple of bloggers on Twitter cyber-approached me in an effort to start what, from a bird's eye view looks like a smear campaign against Oakland Councilmember Desley Brooks (District Six - Central East Oakland). Both point to a 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article on her by Phil Matier, and on how she allegedly gives City of Oakland money out to friends and allies. My Twitter response was that it's not proper form to use a 2006 issue in 2010. Moreover, there are a lot of people among the masses who dislike people "just because." Yes, it may be sport, but it's not right. Desley may, and at times does, have a prickly nature, but when it comes to the needs of her district, there are many who swear by her. That's why she won the November election. If the attackers have something on Desley, which I doubt, they need to make sure it's current and very substantive, not old and unsubstantive.

This short blog started with a tweet this blogger ran across, and now I can't find because I don't follow the Twitterer who issued it on Twitter. At any rate the message of the tweet was that an education scholar Richard Rothstein, who talked at the California School Boards Association on Friday in San Francisco, made a comment that education and training could not overcome bad economic background. There was no link to the tweet issued communicating that idea, or words to that effect, and the tweet didn't come from Richard Rothstein. Moreover it was all but impossible to find a blog post or news account of what Mr. Rothstein actually said. But it made me think of how economic development and education officials in Oakland don't talk to each other. At all. Yet, economic development planners are supposed to be trying to bring jobs to the same neighborhoods the education officials, and here I mean teachers, work in. Why not talk with them about what the need...