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Ignacio De La Fuente voted to bring in a San Francisco Restaurant, The Beach Chalet, to run the unused boathouse facility at Lake Merritt. Moreover, most of the Oakland City Council selected them and over locals like Everrett and Jones. With this, why should I buy my car at Broadway Auto Row? Why should I "Buy Oakland?" A good question. And one the Oakland City Council must answer.

This year Oaklanders who care have ran accross the name of a key aide to Jerry Brown. His name is Gil Duran. I most often see Duran with Mayor Brown at local bars, most notably Cafe Van Kleef. On one occasion, on a Wednesday of the week that President Bush's aide Karl Rove's involvement in the CIA Leak Scandal was being reported, I ran into Duran and Mayor Brown at Peter Van Kleef's establishment. I asked Jerry what he thought of the Karl Rove matter. Pointing at Gil, Jerry said "He's Karl Rove. Right there." After reading the story about Everett and Jones today, I think I understand.

Article Last Updated: 04/08/2006 3:16 AM PDT Restaurateur: Brown pledged lease for favor Mayor, who supported another eatery's boathouse bid, denies quid pro quo agreement By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE OAKLAND — The owner of Everett & Jones Barbeque said Friday that Mayor Jerry Brown promised her a lucrative lease for a new eatery at the Lake Merritt Boathouse if she defended him from charges of racism. Through a spokesman, Brown, whose term expires Jan. 1, called the allegation "crazy" and denied the existence of a quid pro quo agreement. Earlier this week, Brown broke a tie vote of the Oakland City Council in favor of the Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant in San Francisco, passing over the popular barbecue joint in Jack London Square. "I was devastated," Dorothy King said, adding she had no doubt that the decision was motivated by racism and politics. Brown, running for state attorney general, declined to directly address King'...

When I served as Economic Advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris, the last thing I had time to do, and never took time to do, was comb the Internet looking for negative information about my boss. I especially didn't do this on City of Oakland time. What I did was meet with constituents, building developers, attend and run meetings, do research on and create ideas for development projects and meet with the press. I not only never had time to sit down at the computer to fire off hot emails at immagined "ememies of the mayor," I never used City of Oakland taxpayer money to do it. But that's certainly not true for some of Jerry Brown's staff. ' Every time they've visited the Oakland Focus site and attempted to leave a comment, my traffic recording system noted their IP adress and location: "City of Oakland." I was able to match that with the time and location of the comment. And in one case, a staffer emailed me because Jerry himself was picking on her...

Lewis Cohen, the fomer aide to Oakland Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, cleared the air regarding his rant last October in The Daily Kos. In an email response to my question regarding the Daily Kos post, he wrote: "It's from me. It speaks for itself. nowhere does refer to any personal problem between me and Ignacio. It is about a disagreement over our views on development, police accountability and schools. There is nothing that refers to Elihu in any way shape or form. Administration refers to the school district." There you go.

Shortly after I posted a column reporting Former Oakland Council President Ignacio De La Fuente's Aide Lewis Cohen's Daily Kos rant, he emailed to say that what I wrote was not accurate, but would not say why. I responded that all people care about is the Daily Kos post. Cohen's had ample time to refute the Daily Kos, as he's been contacted about the posting before; he didn't return the phone calls placed by the East Bay Express. So what's up, Lewis?

I saw this comment buried deep under a post (which is linked to via the title of this post) on The Daily Kos, a popular blog: Sadly Ignacio stoppped being progressive (none / 1) some time ago. I was his top aide for 8 years. I have not been supporting him for Mayor, though I ran his first three campaigns and his last mayoral run. Ignacio is focused on power for power's sake. He is running as the developer's candidate and the candidate of the chamber of commerce. He abandoned progressives by opposing extension of Living Wage ordinance to the port even though he carried the City's ordinance before he decided that placating developers was the way tyo pay for his mayoral ambitions. He abandoned progressives by oppossing civillian oversight of police and along with Mayor Brown gave an explicit greenlight (I was in the room when this happened) to the police abuses that led to the Riders scandal. He and his pal Don Perata found it funny that Oakland cops fired non-lethal ammunitio...