Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

If one needs more evidence that Mayor Dellums backed the wrong presidential candidate, here's more. His own constituents, by a massive margin, have given more money to Senator Barack Obama's campaign for President. As I told Mayor Dellums great communications director, all the Mayor has to do is switch his endorsement to Barack Obama. It's that easy. Here's the Tribune article. Obama gets more money than Clinton Illinois senator trumps New York's in donations from Contra Costa, Alameda counties By Lisa Vorderbrueggen, STAFF WRITER Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., may lead the presidential fundraising pack nationally but in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, it is the charismatic junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who has the edge. Nearly $4 out of every $10 shelled out by East Bay residents as of Sept. 30 went to Obama, led in large measure by contributions from folk in the liberal strongholds of Berkeley, Oakland and Piedmont. Generous voters in the two...

This was at Rebron.org This reporter and I were at this same meeting, a North Oakland Community meeting where this time Ron Dellums, our mayor spoke. I have some different takeaways from what she wrote, though top of mind for everybody at this meeting was how to control the violence in North Oakland. You’d think the easy answer is get more cops on the street but it’s not that easy. If it was easy, it’d be already done. So violence was the main issue, the expansion of Children’s Hospital/zoning in general was the other top issue. I should be more concerned since several murders and shooting have happened within a one/two block radius of my house, but I know the neighborhood is getting better. I see it everyday. What I did like hearing was what Ron Dellums had to say with Oakland as a model city. I think he’s right about the opportunity. There’s a lot of Oakland pride and there’s a lot to like about Oakland, people just see the violence in Oakland but don’t see the there there. People ...

October 15th, 2007 | Coast Guard, Waterway Security, Security SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - The Department of Homeland Security has announced the awarding of over $6.1 million in supplementary Port Security Grant funds to the ports of San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and Stockton, California. The San Francisco Marine Exchange was selected by the Coast Guard Federal Maritime Security Coordinator as the fiduciary agent to oversee the use of these funds on behalf of the Northern California Area Maritime Security Committee. The Port of Redwood City received an additional award of $33,000.00. These funds are to be used to enhance seaport security, mitigate seaport risks, and aid the resumption of seaport trade following an incident or disaster. The funds will be spent in accordance with a risk mitigation and resumption of trade plan that will be developed to steer the use of future Port Security Grant funds over the next five years.

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Over at Tagami Vision, Phil's got a great video interview with Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker. In this series on crime, Chief Tucker gives us a view on how the Oakland Police work to fight crime in Oakland.

A great article that needed to be written! It's amazing how stupid we are not to try to develop a diverse work force. Blacks see bleak future in Silicon Valley Census shows dot-com bust harder on African Americans, Latinos By Mike Swift, MEDIANEWS STAFF Article Last Updated: 10/15/2007 06:57:51 AM PDT When Geoffry Brown was laid off from a marketing job with a San Jose software company in 2003, he could not know what lay ahead: several years of unemployment, a divorce and, ultimately, a pay cut when he went back to work. "Nobody wants to hire a 46-, 47-year-old guy. Could I say that being black had anything to do with it? I won't go that far," Brown said. "But I will say I didn't have some of the (employment) networks some people had." Brown questioned whether he should leave Northern California for a place with cheaper housing and a more vibrant African-American culture. During the tough years after the 2001 tech bust, many blacks in Silicon Valley w...