Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

SAN FRANCISCO — Earlier today, the Board of Directors of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) approved an historic agreement with organized labor (*see list of signatory unions below) designed to ensure labor peace and equal opportunity for small, local, disadvantaged, union, and non-union businesses throughout the construction of the $4 billion Transbay Transit Center Project.  Construction of the Project will create more than 125,000 jobs.  The Project Labor Agreement (PLA) is a pact that all construction and trade workers, both union and non-union, must abide by while working on the Transbay site.  Under the pact, all workers agree to work by the same rules, on an equal playing field.  In return, workers are provided uniform benefits and protections. The Transbay Transit Center Project will require workers from diverse crafts, including plumbers, carpenters, operating engineers, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, electricians, and la...

Apparently giving a response to efforts to recall embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan after her bungling of the Occupy Oakland effort, her husband Floyd Quan wrote an email that has many Oakland insiders up in arms. The basic read of has Mr. Quan calling for the removal and replacement of the Oakland City Council, and with a form of what he calls "direct democracy" via neighborhood organizations, like the Montclair / Oakland Democratic Club. Many have taken the email as Mr. Quan retaliating for the recall effort. Here's the email posted "as is": The idea if neighborhood assemblies is exactly what the Town Halls were meant to be; we did 8 of them with the last being the biggest, almost 600 people at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. It you see this is as a alternative power structure, so be it. The ideas of issues that flowed from these are the basis for us to work on as priorities for the city, neighborhood by neighborhood. We wanted to use thes...

Here's an update to the original Zennie62.com blog post : it seems a Houston-based blog picked up my lasted re-telling of the "Is Rick Perry Gay?" question the mainstream media has avoided asking. Here's what Chicago Pride wrote : Houston — Some bloggers want Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry to answer one simple question: "Are you gay?" The issue is being dredged up again on the San Francisco Chronicle's website by blogger Zennie Abraham. "It's a good question to ask that's not been asked: why has CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC not followed up on the long-time claims that Rick Perry may be Gay, or at least had a romantic encounter with a man, but they're all over the Herman Cain rumors," Abraham wrote on Monday. The details of the Perry rumor -- as presented by blogger Mike Starks and the venerable newspaper the Austin American-Statesman -- are that the Perry's wife discovered him in a compromising position with...

Alana Nguyen , the new Executive Director of SFGate.com, has blocked Zennie62 from further blog postings on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. The exact reason for the sudden action wasn't stated in the email sent to announce it, but emails and conversations the day before pointed to a sudden concern for a blog subject Zennie62 (Zennie Abraham) has covered before: why the mainstream media failed to ask Texas Governor Rick Perry about allegations that he's Gay or had a Gay relationship with the now former Secretary of State Geoff Connor. Nguyen, who was found by SFGate.com while she was managing editor at YardBarker, has a law degree from Stanford, but is best known for her work at YardBarker, and her time as AOL's "Miss Gossip for AOL FanHouse. She started with the website in September, and it seems wants to make changes. But one of the talks Nguyen and this blogger had was regarding the City Brights program. The disclaimer says that City Brights blogge...

In the ongoing story of the City of Oakland, Occupy Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan, and the Oakland Police, comes this interesting new blog post by the Oakland Police Officers Association.   The blog post is all well and good; until the part that reads "Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages."  A big ouch to Mayor Quan Read on: An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association 1 November 2011 – Oakland, Ca. We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours. As your police officers, we are confused. On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampm...

A bit of catching up to do on Oakland News, so here we go. Occupy Oakland Occupy Oakland continues to "occupy" the collective minds of Oakland and much of America, just one week after Oakland's Brutal Tuesday, where police and Occupy Oakland protestors clashed. The result were some injuries to protesters - one fatal and to Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen. After suffering in critical condition for some time, the good new is that Olsen is out of that status, and is recovering. Mr. Olsen was visited by both the Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, and Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan. And in related news, Jordan got to the media to defend the actions of the police who hurt Olsen. Jordan said “I want to ensure you that all allegations of misconduct and excessive uses of force are being thoroughly investigated by internal and external investigative sources,’’ Jordan said. “I am confident in our abilities to conduct thorough and fair investigations into the actions of p...

The Oakland News is dominated by the Oakland Raiders trade for now-former Cincinnati Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer . In case you missed it, here's the first seven minutes of today's press conference at Raiders Headquarters: What cracked me up about the start of the press conference was that Coach Jackson said "There's a report out there that this deal was Hue Jackson's.." And then went on to congratulate the Raiders Organization. At that time, the number one Google News result in a search for " Carson Palmer" was "Carson Palmer Trade To Raiders Has Hue Jackson Mark " - by this blogger! Some of the questions concerned Palmer's quitting the Bengals in protest, and wondered if he still has passion for the game. I think of it as the reverse: the fact that Carson quit in protest means he has passion for pro football. The Lawsuit Against CEDA On Code Enforcement I got this email today that was sent by Gwin Martin and to M...