Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

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 laborers.  These wor

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

Here's an update to the original Zennie62.com blog post : it seems a Houston-based blog picked up my lasted re-telling of the "Is Rick Perry Gay?" question the mainstream media has avoided asking. Here's what Chicago Pride wrote : Houston — Some bloggers want Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry to answer one simple question: "Are you gay?" The issue is being dredged up again on the San Francisco Chronicle's website by blogger Zennie Abraham. "It's a good question to ask that's not been asked: why has CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC not followed up on the long-time claims that Rick Perry may be Gay, or at least had a romantic encounter with a man, but they're all over the Herman Cain rumors," Abraham wrote on Monday. The details of the Perry rumor -- as presented by blogger Mike Starks and the venerable newspaper the Austin American-Statesman -- are that the Perry's wife discovered him in a compromising position with

Alana Nguyen , the new Executive Director of SFGate.com, has blocked Zennie62 from further blog postings on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. The exact reason for the sudden action wasn't stated in the email sent to announce it, but emails and conversations the day before pointed to a sudden concern for a blog subject Zennie62 (Zennie Abraham) has covered before: why the mainstream media failed to ask Texas Governor Rick Perry about allegations that he's Gay or had a Gay relationship with the now former Secretary of State Geoff Connor. Nguyen, who was found by SFGate.com while she was managing editor at YardBarker, has a law degree from Stanford, but is best known for her work at YardBarker, and her time as AOL's "Miss Gossip for AOL FanHouse. She started with the website in September, and it seems wants to make changes. But one of the talks Nguyen and this blogger had was regarding the City Brights program. The disclaimer says that City Brights blogge

In the ongoing story of the City of Oakland, Occupy Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan, and the Oakland Police, comes this interesting new blog post by the Oakland Police Officers Association.   The blog post is all well and good; until the part that reads "Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages."  A big ouch to Mayor Quan Read on: An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association 1 November 2011 – Oakland, Ca. We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours. As your police officers, we are confused. On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampments

A bit of catching up to do on Oakland News, so here we go. Occupy Oakland Occupy Oakland continues to "occupy" the collective minds of Oakland and much of America, just one week after Oakland's Brutal Tuesday, where police and Occupy Oakland protestors clashed. The result were some injuries to protesters - one fatal and to Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen. After suffering in critical condition for some time, the good new is that Olsen is out of that status, and is recovering. Mr. Olsen was visited by both the Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, and Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan. And in related news, Jordan got to the media to defend the actions of the police who hurt Olsen. Jordan said “I want to ensure you that all allegations of misconduct and excessive uses of force are being thoroughly investigated by internal and external investigative sources,’’ Jordan said. “I am confident in our abilities to conduct thorough and fair investigations into the actions of p

The Oakland News is dominated by the Oakland Raiders trade for now-former Cincinnati Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer . In case you missed it, here's the first seven minutes of today's press conference at Raiders Headquarters: What cracked me up about the start of the press conference was that Coach Jackson said "There's a report out there that this deal was Hue Jackson's.." And then went on to congratulate the Raiders Organization. At that time, the number one Google News result in a search for " Carson Palmer" was "Carson Palmer Trade To Raiders Has Hue Jackson Mark " - by this blogger! Some of the questions concerned Palmer's quitting the Bengals in protest, and wondered if he still has passion for the game. I think of it as the reverse: the fact that Carson quit in protest means he has passion for pro football. The Lawsuit Against CEDA On Code Enforcement I got this email today that was sent by Gwin Martin and to M

In Oakland's political history, or at least since Mayor Lionel Wilson, no Mayor of this town has ever been associated with a speech that could even be twisted as having a racial or ethnic bias. And for two basic reasons: 1) it's not in step with Oakland's wonderful melting pot, and the pride of diversity expressed by Oaklanders for decades, and 2), it's just politically stupid to do in California, let alone much of urban America. That's what makes Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's recent speech given before a San Francisco Chinese community organization all the more unfortunate. This blogger cyber-walked over the video today, and while searching for videos regarding Occupy Oakland. The objective was to find any video showing Mayor Quan talking with Occupy Oakland protestors, but the keywords "Occupy Oakland Quan" didn't yield the immediate desired result. But what stopped the presses was a video with this title: "Mayor Jean Quan says Chinese

The email from the City of Oakland's media contact had a title that was clear as a bell: "Oakland City Administrator Appoints Howard A. Jordan as Interim Chief of Police." So, this blogger immediately thought it was a misprint. After all, the Oakland City Charter that now-California Governor, and then Mayor Jerry Brown worked hard to get Oakland voters to change to give the Mayor of Oakland the power to make one key appointment and to be responsible for showing "community leadership." To that end, every Mayor of Oakland has presented their choice for Chief of Police, even as it's really the task of the City Administrator. With Jerry Brown and Robert Bobb, the selection was Richard Word. Under Mayor Ron Dellums, Anthony Batts was the choice, and Dellums led the press conference to introduce him: Even though the Oakland City Charter gives the Mayor the power to appoint only the City Administrator, that hasn't stopped Mayors Brown and Dellums from

Two years ago, Calpine Energy Company embarked on an effort to build a new power plant that has a voluntary cap on greenhouse gas emissions. This blogger talked to Norma Dunn about the-then proposed Rusell Energy Center in 2009: Now, it's one of the largest construction projects in the Bay Area is underway right now in Hayward with 200 workers on site. Here's Calpine's description of the project: The Russell City Energy Center is a proposed 619-megawatt combined-cycle electric generating facility that will bring much-needed energy capacity to western Alameda county and the San Francisco peninsula. The facility will serve the needs of 600,000 households. The Energy Center, which will use clean, natural gas for fuel, will allow for a greater than 90 percent reduction of emissions and will be 40 percent more fuel efficient than older, fossil-fueled generating facilities in the Bay Area. To celebrate the beginning of construction, Calpine CEO Jack Fusco will be on the

A lot of Oakland, Ca. news, so let's get to it. (Oh, and that's Oakland, California, for international readers who may not know.) First, this blogger was a late attendee at a party thrown by "Men of The East Bay" for Emerge California. The idea was created by AC Transit Board Member Joel Young as a way to welcome Emerge California (the non-profit organization that mentors women who want to enter local politics) after its move from San Francisco to Oakland. Held at Hibiscus Restaurant at 17th and San Pablo in downtown Oakland Thursday night, the event (which costs $20 for attendees) was well-attended and well-received by all. That Young, who has been fighting a domestic violence accusation, produced the event for women raised more than a few eyebrows. But the good news is everyone was supportive of Young's effort, even his rival candidates for the 18th Assembly District seat, Kathy Neal and Able Guillen, who were in attendance. The only bit of grous

As Oakland's Downtown grows with places to go, increasing jobs and commerce, there are small signs of class tensions developing. This was evident in the wake of the Moneyball Premier at The Paramount Theater. No, this blogger did not have a ticket to the event, and considering the work that was to be done, attendance suddenly wasn't an option anyway. Still, around 10-ish, at night, after working on videos related to my new Atlanta VidBlogger Nation Show on Comcast XFinity in Atlanta, going down to check out the scene and have dinner seemed like a good idea. (So if you're in Atlanta, I'm on 24 and 7.) So, the first stop was Luka's for a great burger and fries. Got to say that Luka's burger is still consistently excellent, and the fries are a meal themselves. The crowd was the typically cool interracial mix the tap room is known for. But wanderlust set in and I headed off for other parts of the Uptown Entertainment District. It's best to divide Upt

That the San Francisco TransBay Terminal Area Plan has been released, let alone that the new San Francisco TransBay Terminal is under construction (and forget for the moment Wednesday's press conference) is just plain remarkable. As the video from the press conference will show, this is a huge project, and a much needed one. When this blogger first saw plans for what this TransBay Center will be way back in 1995, I really never thought this was going to get off the ground. Then, the cost was estimated to be $2 billion, and now it's $4 billion, and all of the building complex that was the historic Transbay Terminal is gone. A thing of San Francisco Bay Area history. Its shocking, because I've used that complex so many times I forgot to count them. For those who are new to the area, or just growing up to become aware of what's happening, The Transbay Terminal was the place AC Transit Buses came over from the East Bay, and SamTrans buses came over from Marin County, b