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Wayans' Fulton Development Group Backs Out Of Oakland

According to today's Oakland Tribune , the Wayans have dropped out of any futher development discussions with the City of Oakland regarding the path of West Oakland land that I've long considered really under Port ownership. They ceased talks because the Port's plans would get in their way. The land near it has been part of the redevelopment plans for the Port for decades, al the way back to when I was Economic Advisor to Mayor Harris. The Wayans proposal is really not well suited for that part of town, but for Third and Linden Street, near Jack London Square.

Chauncey Bailey Funeral On Wednesday At St. Benedict's Catholic Church, 2245 82nd Ave, Oakland - Tribune

From the Oakland Tribune Oakland newsman Bailey to be laid to rest Wednesday By Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE Article Last Updated: 08/07/2007 02:47:50 AM PDT It was in 1973 when Chauncey Bailey asked his journalism teacher at Merritt College for some career advice that would forever change the coverage of African-American issues in Oakland and make Mr. Bailey a noted and constant presence in print, radio and television here for the past 15 years. Back then, Mr. Bailey had recently earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from San Jose State University but, not unlike many young people, he wasn't quite sure what to do next. "He asked me, 'Should I join the Black Panther Party or go into the newspaper business?" said Bailey's former journalism instructor Charles Aikens, who worked as a sports writer for the Oakland Tribune in the late 1960s. "I said, 'It would be better to get that daily newspaper experience and bring the skills you

My Friend Chauncey Bailey Shot Dead Thursday Morning - Oakland Tribune

Oakland journalist shot dead in street Motive not known in slaying of Post editor By Harry Harris and Angela Hill, STAFF WRITERS Article Last Updated: 08/03/2007 07:33:11 AM PDT Unidentified mourners observe a moment of prayer at the spot where Oakland Post editor Chauncey... OAKLAND — In what police called a targeted killing, longtime Bay Area journalist Chauncey Bailey was ambushed and fatally shot Thursday morning at 14th and Alice streets in downtown as he walked to the Oakland Post, where he recently had been named editor. Investigators so far have only a vague description of the gunman and no motive in the shooting. "We have not ruled out anything, including whether it was work-related or a personal dispute," said Oakland homicide Sgt. Derwin Longmire. "But this was no random act. He was the target of a deliberate murder." About 7:25 a.m., Bailey, 57, a former Oakland Tribune reporter, was walking to work from an apartment where he had recently been living nea

Strong Quake At 4:39 AM - Centered Near Oakland - 4.2 In Size

I am in the process of uploading a video question for the CNN YouTube Debates and all of a sudden the whole place shook violently for about five seconds, which really seemed like an long time. Maybe it was a "4" on the Richter Scale? The Earthquake website had a ? by it which means the size of this things' not yet known. I'm sitting here wondering if the earth's going to shake again. I hope not, but you never know... Ok. It came in as a 4.2 quake. Here's the information: Magnitude 4.2 - regional moment magnitude (Mw) Time Friday, July 20, 2007 at 4:42:22 AM (PDT) Friday, July 20, 2007 at 11:42:22 (UTC) Distance from Oakland, CA - 4 km (2 miles) ENE (69 degrees) Piedmont, CA - 4 km (3 miles) ESE (113 degrees) Moraga, CA - 7 km (4 miles) SW (234 degrees) Alameda, CA - 8 km (5 miles) NE (51 degrees) Coordinates 37 deg. 48.4 min. N (37.807N), 122 deg. 11.3 min. W (122.188W) Depth 5.8 km (3.6 miles) Location Quality Excellent Location Quality Parameters Ns

Adams Point Social Hour - 1st Friday of every month

From The Yahoo Message Board For 14X NCPC You are cordially invited to a NEW NEIGHBORHOOD EVENT Adams Point Social Hour Los Cantaros Restaurant & Taqueria 1st Friday of every month 6:00-7:00 p.m. Stop by Los Cantaros, 336 Grand Avenue, and look for your neighbors with the Adams Point Stickers. Meet your neighbors, buy an evening treat, and maybe top the night off with a walk to Art Murmur, Oakland's free art gallery night (http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com). Cheers! From, The Adams Point Action Council Board

Oakland Public Service Hoang Bahn Needs Your Help In Adams Point

Greetings Neighbors! We need some people to step in and help Hoang Bahn, our public services coordinator, run Wednesday's quarterly neighborhood meeting. I have to phase out my involvement in the group, and thanks to the efforts of various people in the community, we have some very good proactive plans underway for improving the neighborhood and making it safer and more enjoyable. But this does require people to get involved, if nothing else to bring our needs to the attention of the city. So, please, I know everyone is busy, but if you are at all interested in getting more involved in improving the neighborhood, please email Hoang at: HBanh@oaklandnet. com. She has been working super hard for us, but she only can do her work with our input and help. So, please, drop her a line and let her know you want to help. Take care, Charles

The Grand Avenue Business Association will hold its Second Annual Grand National Night Out Block Party

From Stu Sweetow SECOND ANNUAL GRAND NATIONAL NIGHT OUT BLOCK PARTY The Grand Avenue Business Association will hold its Second Annual Grand National Night Out Block Party on Tuesday August 7, 2007 from 6:00p.m.- 8:00p.m. To thank residents, Grand Avenue merchants will set up tables outside their stores to offer food, snacks, and soft drinks plus discounts, demonstrations, dance lessons, music and much more. It will be an evening of enchantment and entertainment. Merchants on Grand Avenue from the Grand Lake Theater up to Wildwood and on Santa Clara near the freeway entrance, will be hosting the party to demonstrate their appreciation to their neighbors. Bring your families and friends for a feast of fun. For more information contact Nicholas Eveleigh, GABA President at 510-654-3112, or Stu Sweetow at 510-839-2020.

Waste Management's Holding Oakland's Need To Rid Garbage Hostage

I've never ever liked the Waste Managment contract and believed it was the best example of the worst of privitization, the next being SMG, which manages the Oakland Coliseum. Sorry, but I'm no far of privitization. Residents fume over stinky garbage Reports of restored service a bunch of trash talk, they say Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 19, 2007 Talks in the drawn-out East Bay garbage-hauler lockout recessed Wednesday without breakthroughs, while Waste Management Inc. said service was restored to pre-lockout levels but many customers complained they were still getting partial or no service. "It's a mess," said Pamela Drake, director of the Lakeshore Business Improvement District near Lake Merritt, where cans in the shopping district normally emptied by Waste Management were overflowing. "They haven't been doing any pickup at all," she said. Drake said she drove to Waste Management's headquarters on 98th Avenue on

Grand Lake Guardian Dead Or Dormant?

It's one thing to have one writer like me take a break and work on other aspects of a several thousand page site, but it's quite another when a website with a group of writers doens't make a single post but once in three months. I'm writing about The Grand Lake Guardian. Unlike this blog, which is part of a 50-blog network, I never believed the Grand Lake Guardian got much traffic at all, even though it's insider fan(s) objected to this point-of-view. When I checked the traffic using Compete, there wasn't enough activity for it to register stats. On Alexa, the only report was that it ranked 6,944,395 of all websites, but there was no 3 month average for it. What this means is that the site's traffic is so low, it's difficult to register. This blog's part of Blogger, so it's harder for those systems to measure Oakland Focus Traffic. But I can say that the blog is read each day or some posting is -- between 5 times and as many as 200 times a

Darel Carey Reportedly Goes Off; Challenges Phil Tagami - Comments Stupid

First, I got wind of this Thursday night at the gym, and looked into the article. The person who told me about this was right. The comments in the Tribune article are as distasteful as the way Mr. Carey reportedly came after Phil Tagami. I've captured both below. And as a word of warning, I do not publish anonymous comments. Don't try. As to where I was during all this? The MLB All Star Game, happily. Oakland business leaders in near-brawl at City Hall By Cecily Burt, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE Article Last Updated: 07/12/2007 12:58:35 PM PDT OAKLAND — Two men known to blow off steam at city meetings from time to time nearly came to physical blows outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon, although the only casualty appears to be Councilmember Larry Reid's bad back, wrenched while trying to keep the peace. The near dust-up happened in the middle of Tuesday's Community and Economic Development Committee meeting. The room was packed because comedy film mogul Keenen Iv

Dancing Girls In Oakland At Cafe Van Kleef

On the first Saturday of each month, Cafe Van Kleef, a great electic hangout at 1621 Telegraph features a dance group called The Hot Pink Feathers. It's a San Francisco-based group of women who described their performance as "Hot Pink Feathers is the world's premiere samba burlesque dance troupe. These San Francisco-based dancing darlings are spreading the glitter gospel across the globe with their exuberant extravangzas. From family friendly to all-out risque revues, the Feathers entertainment themes range from Brazilian Carnaval, New Orleans Mardi Gras, French Can Can, Gypsy Cabaret, Tropical Sambafest, to Bawdy Bollywood and beyond." They dance to the music of a band called "Blue Bone Express" and in the hottest outfits anyone's ever seen. They pack the house. I've only seen them once before this video, and when I did I told Peter Van Kleef, the establishment's owner, than I'd film the event -- that's what it is, really -- the ne

Uptown Bar Owner Kevin Burns Attacked By Members of Mista Masta Tuesday Night

The Uptown Bar is known for hosting music groups of all kinds from rock to rap and hip hop, which pretty much means they're going to see all kinds of personalities. Tuesday, July 3rd was no exception. On that evening, Uptown hoted a hip hop group called Mista Masta, which is repped by ATM Records , at least that's true according to Uptown's calendar as it looked for this week -- that will change. Anyway, the group got a little rowdy and after their performance didn't clear the stage to close. Uptown Manager and Owner Kevin Burns decided to take matters into his own hands, and got up onto the stage to tell the group it was time to clean up. As he did this, he was hit by a woman on one side and then clobbered in the head by a man, both unidentified, but also part of the group. Kevin called the cops, but by the time they arrived, the Mista Masta clan was out of the door and gone. When I conducted an online search, I learned that the only Mista Masta is someone als

Oaklanders Express Disappointment With Mayor Dellums

We were all very excited when Ron Dellumns became Mayor of Oakland as w wanted a fresh face and a new start. But since he assumed office, Mayor Dellumns has been largely quiet. But what's personally distressing to me is that when I call the Mayor's Office main number -- 510-238-3141 -- I've gotten a voicemail message during business hours on several occasions. It's happened so much that I now call another number I used when I needed to directly contact Jerry Brown. I'm not giving that number out just yet, because once I do, the Mayor's Office may change it. Oaklanders have echoed the same feelings I express here. Take a look at this forum exchange I found on Topix.com: Graham Carter Berkeley, CA Reply » | Flag | #1 Jan 12, 2006 If he moved elsewhere HE would not be missed - as major HE was a total failure. deeba dabba Saint Louis, MO Reply » | Flag | #2 Saturday Jun 16 yep, i don't doubt it, crap always seems to like to stick around Oakland Kevin San

Oakland and The SF Bay Area Slowly Becoming More Racist Than The South

Yep. You read that clear as day. I will repeat the title: "Oakland and The SF Bay Area Slowly Becoming More Racist Than The South" Before I explain, let's recap exactly what the definition of racism is by referring to this Wikipedia definition: In practice, racism takes forms such as racial prejudice, segregation or subordination (subjugation). Racism can more narrowly refer to a legalized system of domination by one ethnic group over another, such as in institutional racism. Racial prejudice refers to a pre-formed notion of individuals based on their perceived racial heritage. It involves hasty generalizations about members of a group based on the perceived characteristics of one or more members of the group. Generalizations include beliefs that every member of a group has the same personality traits, interests, language, culture, ideas, norms and attitudes. Racial prejudices are sometimes promoted by the mainstream media. Racism has started wars and slavery. It is,

Another Mugging In Adams Point

I walked into a local restaurant off Piedmont Avenue and got both a great meal and a great conversation with two Oakland School teachers. Unfortunately, I learned that one of them was just mugged at gunpoint on Palm Avenue last week. That's the same street I live on. The pattern's becoming all too familar: white women being the target of someone Black or Latino in their teens or maybe 20 at best. I stopped writing for a while here because I was sick to my stomach of reporting crime. I still am.

East Bay For Obama - The Video

I've been heavily involved in supporting Senator Barack Obama's run for President of The United States. One of my most recent decisions was to join East Bay For Obama, a fun organization that has various fundraisers and gatherings around the objective of supporting and promoting the Senator and his candidacy. To gain a small taste of what an East Bay For Obama function is like, I made this video below. You can find out more about the group at the Barack Obama website at www.barackobama.com, just click on My Barack Obama and then "Groups." Here's the video:

Emeryville 3.0 Earthquake Happened Just 16 Minutes Ago

Here's the info on the Earthquake you may have felt in Oakland. It's from the US Government's site. Magnitude 3.0 - duration magnitude (Md) Time Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 12:20:19 PM (PDT) Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 19:20:19 (UTC) Distance from Emeryville, CA - 2 km (1 miles) NNW (345 degrees) Berkeley, CA - 3 km (2 miles) SW (218 degrees) Albany, CA - 4 km (3 miles) S (177 degrees) Kensington, CA - 6 km (4 miles) SSW (192 degrees) Oakland, CA - 9 km (5 miles) NW (318 degrees) Coordinates 37 deg. 51.2 min. N (37.853N), 122 deg. 17.6 min. W (122.293W) Depth 8.5 km (5.3 miles) Location Quality Good Location Quality Parameters Nst=136, Nph=136, Dmin=4 km, Rmss=0.18 sec, Erho=0.1 km, Erzz=0.4 km, Gp=28.8 degrees Event ID# nc51181496