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In an amusing blog post (and for its pure hubris), The Oakland Police Association has stated in a new blog that it's time for Occupy Oakland to go. Frankly, releasing this blog post was one of the dumbest actions any Oakland public organization outside the Mayor could have made. It just shows how little respect the Oakland Police have for the Mayor of Oakland and the chain of command. Here's the blog post: November 11, 2011 On behalf of the 645 Oakland police officers we represent, this letter comes to you out of duty to protect the Oakland community and its citizens. Oakland police officers are the 99% and we understand and sympathize with your message. We respect your right to peaceful protest. We are also sworn to protect the citizens of Oakland. Right now, Oakland is in a state of emergency. Our police officers are the 99% struggling in Oakland neighborhoods every day to contain the 1% who rob, steal, rape and murder our law-abiding citizens. The Occupy Oakla...

For the many who never knew Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson, who was Oakland's last three-term Mayor, and its first African American Mayor, serving from 1977 to 1991, when he lost to Elihu Harris.  During his time, Mayor Wilson was a tireless promoter of Oakland.  The video below has Mayor Wilson making a video to announce the State Urban Economic Development Conference to help prospective developers and business owners build and relocate in Oakland.  In the video, Wilson presents different views of Oakland, showing everyone what a great city it really is. By contrast, Oakland doesn't have such events in the present day.  Instead, we have meetings to present our public safety plans to residents.  It's all fear-based, not economics based, and at a time when Oakland needs to create more jobs. Mayor Wilson died of cancer in 1990

The Cal - Stanford Big Game is next week, and promises to be another memorable college football contest. As usual, there will be a number of parties, but there's one event that you really must come to: a benefit for Jill's Legacy . Jill's Legacy is a non-profit organization based around Cal Crew Team Member Jill Costello, who lost her battle with lung cancer at the age of 22. The website describes the organization in this way: Jill's Legacy is an Advisory Board to the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation made up of promising young professionals who have each been personally touched by Lung Cancer. The Board has been called Jill's Legacy in memory of 22-year-old college student and athlete at U.C. Berkeley, Jillian Costello, who lost her battle with Lung Cancer in June of 2010, just one year after being diagnosed. With its oldest member just 24, this Board of empowered young adults is largely made up of Jill's closest friends and loved ones. The grou...

Occupy Oakland has revealed one thing: just how basically ignorant so many people can be at once.  There are many examples here, but the latest one is the shooting and death of a person at 14th and Broadway, and all over a "bag of weed."  That's Oakland for ya.  There's way too much media around Occupy Oakland, which is a good thing because offers just enough information to be able to make a sound determination of what actually was going on out there.  First, because the shooting happened at 14th and Broadway, which is next to the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, conservative blogs like Big Government by Andrew Brietbart and also HotAir, have jumped all over the incident as evidence that the occupation needs to end.  That's even though many say it had nothing to do with the movement at all.  See this AP Video: The sad fact is that 14th and Broadway has long been a place where you could run into drug dealers and vagrants, and possibly be robbed by t...

This blogger felt it necessary to add a post regarding the issue of being blocked from posting at SFGate.com and, according to the emails and exchanges received, due to the Rick Perry blog posts, and the new SFGate.com Executive Director Alana Nguyen's fear that the take presented, and the way it was presented might "get them sued."   (And for the record, my blog posts and videos about LGBT issues have always been consistent and supportive of the LGBT political community.) First, thank you to the many people who have chimed in with words of support.  The news is that there has been no impact on revenues generated by Zennie62Media properties in the wake of the SFGate.com action. Indeed, only 3 percent of total video view come from blog posts, and about half of the video views are from return visitors. And while the full list of sources of views will not be revealed here, of late, SFGate.com's impact has been minimal at best. And for those who haven't seen it, h...

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...