Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com The latest news in the Bay Bridge Cable Collapse Disaster is that CalTrans spokesperson Bart Ney told KRON-TV that the Bay Bridge could reopen under a "best-case scenario" Thursday if repairs and bridge testing were completed in time. My response: please don't rush this. Let's get it right. In fact, it's not even a good idea to put out the message that this process could be done in a jiffy because if it is, the bridge is re-opened, and we have another Bay Bridge Cable Collapse Disaster, it will be a life-changing event for drivers, passengers, and California. Everyone would call for the heads of the people ruining CalTrans, and the next "F-U" letter sent by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be to Caltrans Director Randy Iwasaki. The quality problems my blogging friend Yobie Benjamin points to should be adressed as part o...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com Kudos to BART for offering "beefed-up" service with extra trains in the wake of the Bay Bridge Cable Collapse, according to BART spokesperson Linton Johnson , but what's really needed, and we don't have, is a 24-hour BART schedule. There's no real idea when the bridge is going to be fit to be opened and Henry K. Lee's SFGate.com article explains that it could be days before that happens, especially with these high winds impacting the bridge not to mention making sure this accident does not happen again regardless of conditions, so a major part of what (even with this recession) still is our economic engine is crippled. Some Oaklanders, for example, work in San Francisco and don't get off until midnight or later - just when BART has stopped running at midnight even with this closure. So what we face is a period from midnight to 4 am when we can...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com Yesterday I received an email from Oakland City Councilmember Jean Quan (District 4 - Oakland Hills, Montclair) regarding her decision to run for Mayor of Oakland .  Here's the text from that email: You are receiving this because you are a subscriber to my newsletter.  A few times a year I send out separate political blasts.  You may know by now, I have launched a run for Mayor for November 2010.   We've formed an Exploratory Committee and have met with hundreds of Oakland residents in house parties and other events to hear what they want the next Mayor to do and to share my vision and passion for the Oakland we love. My family has lived in Oakland for over a 100 years; I've raised my family here and love this city. For more than 20 years I've fought for Oakland, working with people at the grassroots to rebuild our scho...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I spent so much time dealing with the Oakland Parking ticket and tow situation that I lost time working and some sleep too. Today was the day I caught up with work, but frankly I'm totally overwhelmed. I'm also not looking forward to returning to the Oakland Parking office but I'll have to bite that bullet I suppose. I've got an occupational life beyond any one blog; it includes my simulation games for the classroom and the work I do for clients in building new media platforms for them. So if someone reading this - it's on a bunch of my blogs - wants a small-expense pay internship learning and doing blogging, vlogging, and new media in general, drop me an email and a resume. Ideally I'm looking to restart my "SBS Personalities" program of bloggers but expand it to my Zennie.62 blog network, so up to five people will work. If you want to ge...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I happened on this YouTube video where famous intellectual, author, and spokesperson on the media and politics Noam Chomsky talks about right-wing media during a recent visit to San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. I've always felt Chomsky had his pulse on the zeitgeist of what's wrong in America. My favorite was his take on mainstream media , and while it was over a decade ago, it still applies today in a way. For example, he wrote: The elite media set a framework within which others operate. If you are watching the Associated Press, who grind out a constant flow of news, in the mid-afternoon it breaks and there is something that comes along every day that says "Notice to Editors: Tomorrow’s New York Times is going to have the following stories on the front page." The point of that is, if you’re an editor of a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio and you don’t...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com As the SF Chronicle's Henry Lee explains , Oakland's City Auditor Courtney Ruby officially tells us what some Oaklanders have always known: that the City of Oakland's hiring practices in the 5,500-employee organization have the "appearance of favoritism". I didn't need a report to support what I've seen and experienced in the past and the present , but I'm glad it's released. Let's take a closer look. The report, which you can download with a click on this link to the Oakland City Auditor's website , was prepared for Ruby's office by the Sacramento consulting firm of Sjoberg and Evashenk. The 123-page document is not kind to the City of Oakland, and Oaklanders should be concerned with what the comprehensive report reveals. Here's just a taste of what the Oakland City Auditor's report states: 1. People were promoted ...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com This week for me in the City of Oakland has been one in hell. First, some housekeeping: for anyone who came to see my experimental Oakland talk show at the Lake Chalet , I'm sorry for not being there Wednesday as I was dealing with this City of Oakland issue far longer than I expected to. I'm going to do it again on Friday at 4 PM. It's one thing to deal with tickets, but quite another to learn that if you pay the California DMV , the City of Oakland will not honor that payment for Oakland tickets if your car was towed. I also learned that its common for Oaklanders to "double pay" - that is pay the DMV first, but then be arm-twisted into paying the City of Oakland for the same set of tickets already paid for at the DMV ! Got that? And while the City of Oakland says it will pay you back, it takes almost a year to do, when it's done! In other w...