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I'm getting a bunch of emails on the happenings in the Oakland Mayor's Office just days after my decision to expell the bad food that was in me: dealing with Oakland's mess of a sports politics situation, of which the Oakland Athletics - not Mayor Dellums - have created. The latest news is David K. Chai, Dellums Chief of Staff is on his way out and possibly but at this point not certain that Dellums' executive assistant Marisol Lopez would take the top spot. One email described the situation like this: his (Dellums') choices for COS (chief of staff) (wonderful at first with Dan Boggan, then unproductive with David Chai, and now completely disorienting with Marisol Lopez his most likely choice) are distancing him from even his own, most loyal supporters. The emails have also allowed me to see why our current Sports and Entertainment Task Force was being undermined by Dellums' dealings to create a new baseball task force: no consistent mayor's staff conta...

Video Commentary : MySpace , Metacafe , Blip.tv , Crackle , Stupid Videos , Sclipo , Viddler and Howcast John Burris is a well-known Oakland attorney representing the family of Oscar Grant in the wake of the shooting of Grant by Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Day. Burris attended the funeral last Friday, March 27th of the four Oakland Police Officers who were murdered by Lovell Mixon on Saturday March 21st in Oakland. I unfortunately did not attend the event as I was sick, but I did watch it on television. Burris brings up a point that I noticed but given the weight of the matter, put on the back-burner of my mind because I didn't want to think the unthinkable: that not only was the Mayor of Oakland not allowed to speak but Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who was in attendance, was not even acknoweldged by the presenters. That's a huge no-no. Congresswoman Lee is the head of the Congressional Black Caucus. Both are African American. All of the elected offici...

For about two years there has been talk of the formation of a Sports Task Force. I first sent an email asking for such a group to the staff of Mayor Ron Dellums during the first two months of his administration but did not receive feedback. Then I twice talked to the Mayor about brieking him regarding what happened to Oakland's Super Bowl Bid and the Oakland Sports Commission I established in 1998. The Mayor said he would get back to me on the matter, er, have his secretary call me, but never did that, so I had lost any faith in his interest in solving Oakland's long-standing sports industry problems. Then I was approached by Steve Lowe and Chris DeBenadetti, both who have been active in Oakland politics and sports journalism respectively. We talked about such a task force with a member of the Mayor's Staff over a year ago. Then we waited, but to Lowe's credit he pushed for it constantly. Now it's formed. The first meeting was Thursday of two week...

Chip Johnson SF Chron: - Loyalty or else in King Dellums' realm : “The city of Oakland no longer operates under a representative democracy - it's now a monarchy. And within the confines of that form of government, any criticism or disloyalty directed at the king - whether real or imagined - is dealt with. Her crime: She gave an affectionate hug to an elderly woman who spoke at a City Council meeting against a Dellums appointment to the city's housing authority commission in early October.” --- This is unfortunate but nothing new. It's what happens when you are in an arena where people are not compensated for creating wealth but for artificially giving loyalty just to get paid. Thus, the way to rise in such organizations is via the backstabbing Johnson points to. It's why we didn't get the 2005 Super Bowl. Forget the Raiders and the legal matters, it's this kind of rampant disfuction that is the reason. It's fair to say if you see a person of ...

As a preface to what I'm about to write, let me state that I'm generally one of the persons who's been very critical of Mayor Dellums' performance. Indeed, in the case of bringing in a new City Administrator, Dellums is dragging his feet beyond a reasonable degree of time. Thus, Oakland City Attorney John Russo's public charge last week that the Oakland City Charter is such that the Mayor may be violating it by not naming a City Administrator is shockingly sloppy in logic and approach. I'm frankly surprised Russo would take such a brazen road in trying to get the Mayor to act. It's the duty of the media to provide an informational check on these actions. And in this case, Russo's builying tactics cause me to wonder if it's overstepping the normal attorney-client relationship. Not that Dellums doesn't deserve it because it's obvious that he misread the City Charter. The Charter states: Section 502. Acting City Administrator. The...

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson has had a field day -- or year -- going after Mayor Ron Dellums and pointing to his shortcomings, and today's no exception  : As he nears the halfway point in his four-year term, Dellums must decide whether to hire former City Manager Robert Bobb to his old position or continue with Dan Lindheim, a political appointment with little experience in city government. The national search to replace former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, fired in July amidst a corruption scandal, has fizzled, leaving Lindheim to run day-to-day operations while Bobb, hired in July as a consultant, shows up twice a month and acts as the de-facto city administrator, City Hall sources say. The arrangement leaves Lindheim feeling undermined and Bobb in limbo, the sources say, while city residents are without leadership or clear direction. It's an uncomfortable situation that must be resolved. Well, Robert Bobb's certainly in limbo but fortunatel...

I feel I'm more qualified than most to make this assertion: Mayor Ron Dellums YouTube page channel is a year late and lousy.  Why a year late?  Because I'm the person who told the Mayor's communications staff they needed a YouTube channel, among other things.  This came at a lunch I had last year with one of Dellums' communcations staffers who would regularly contact me.   I had considered writing a proposal for my company to be their new media consultant, but then thought better of it when I realized I may be giving up this blog's ability to write what it pleased unless I contractually asked for it.  Then I also pondered that writing such a proposal may just give them basic answers for free.  So I pulled back.   But over lunch, this YouTube page is one idea I said was basic.  But it's not enough to have one, and there's a lot of problems with the channel. For example the video on Dellums speaking at the Cathedral of Christ the Light has on...

  Paul Cobb is a long-time Oakland, California writer, activist, community organizer and now publisher of the Oakand Post. I met Paul at his office in Downtown Oakland to talk about a wide range of subjects, but the two I was most interested in talking about were who killed Chauncey Bailey and what Paul thought about the current Mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums.   Bailey was an Oakland journalist who was supposedly murdered by people associated with Your Black Muslim Bakery (YBMB) on August 2, 2007.  But Cobb and others believe that the chain of events that led to someone, perhaps Devaughndre Broussard of YBMB,  murdering a journalist in the line of duty is more complicated and may lead to people and institutions one would not expect. Cobb's assertions regarding the relationship between Bailey and members of the Oakland Police Department would seem to match the concerns expressed in this website article by the Chauncey Bailey Project .  The person who sh...

Last year, San Francisco Magazine devoted an e ntire issue to Oakland . It was a great work and I don't write that because I was in it. It did try to cover the base, although I felt it could have focused more on Oakland's African American businesses than it did. My overall impression was that the publisher wanted to present Oakland to the monied White establishment of San Francisco. I kind of said that in this video: But still it was a great work. One of the articles was on Mayor Ron Dellums and there I said that the good Mayor could do more. So Friday, I was contacted for my comments in preparation for this new article and I pretty much said the same thing. But what was of interest to me was what the reporter said OTHERS were saying about the Mayor. His supporters feels Dellums is doing a good job but that others don't know it. But what they point to are small projects, when Oakland really needs big projects and a coherent downtown development plan (We ha...

With $48 million of Oakland reserves gone, and over $21 million unaccounted for, it looks like Oakland will have a rough September. We have our key players; former City Manager Robert Bobb teaming up with Mayor Ron Dellums, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, City Councilwoman Jean Quan and Mayor's Cheif of Staff David Chai all trying to uncover the mystery of the missing millions, and are working together to present a new budget for the City of Oakland. This could mean tough times up ahead. Read the whole story by Matier and Ross SF Gate : Oakland's finances appear to be far worse than suspected. Former City Manager Robert Bobb, who has parachuted into town at the request of Mayor Ron Dellums to try to sort out the fiscal mess, has discovered that Oakland's reserves have been drawn down by as much as $48 million in the past year, and accounting for most of the missing funds hasn't been easy. Just last year, Bobb said, the city reported a reserve of between $60 million ...

Today, it was annouced that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums fired Chief Administrative Officer Deborah Edgerly after sending signals that he was going to first leave the process such that he could retire, then placed her on administrative leave, then on Tuesday of this week, decided to fire her. Regardless of where you look, it's hard to find a cool head in all of the Oakland City Hall mess. For more, read: "Chip Johnson's right about favoritism."

I just came from a dinner and during that event, learned that Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Deborah Edgerly may have been placed on administrative leave, but David Shea, Chief of Staff for Mayor Ron Delums would not confirm that a high-level meeting took place today or that the outcome was indeed to change the CAO's status from "retiring July 31st but still working" to "paid administrative leave." In my view, swaying from one decision to another is not a sign of good leadership. It's not the Mayor Dellums can't be a good leader, but I think what's happened is that Dellums made a bet that Senator Hillary Clinton would be the next step in his occupational life, lost that bet when he failed to back Senator Barack Obama, who's going to be the next president, and now is concerned about maintaining the job of Mayor. Thus, the back-and-forth indecision.

Ok. Here's another reason why Mayor Ron Dellums and other Oakland Officials should think twice before firing or forcing out Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly regarding her alledged interference with a police investigation is this: she's protected by the Oakland City Charter and such an action is blocked and considered a crime itself -- Section 1208. Violation. The violation of any provision of the Charter shall be deemed a misdemeanor and be punishable upon conviction in the manner provided by State Law, unless otherwise expressly provided for in this Charter. (Amended by: Stats. November 1988 and Stats. November 2000.) One thing I learned from working for Mayor Elihu Harris was to ask what the Oakland City Charter says. So I did. This is the section of the Charter that governs "Miss E": ARTICLE V THE CITY MANAGER Section 500. Appointment. The Mayor shall appoint a City Administrator, subject to the confirmation by the City Council, who shall be the c...

This news comes from the same Newsletter by Mayor Ron Dellums as the other post below. I don't know anything of value about either appointee. Margaret Gordon' a long time player in West Oakland, so I guess that's some information of value, eh? Mayor Dellums' two Port Commission appointments were overwhelmingly approved by the Oakland City Council this month. "Both Margaret Gordon and Victor Uno embody my sincere interest in addressing the critical and wide-ranging issues facing our City's port," said Mayor Dellums. Over the last decade, Gordon, a West Oakland resident, has become a strong public health and environmental advocate for her community, meanwhile gaining regional and statewide respect for her knowledge of the issues. Victor Uno, brings to the Port Commission an extensive labor background, as he is currently a National Board Member for the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, and the Business Manager for the International Brothe...

From Oaklandnet.com About Ron Dellums Contact the Office of the Mayor Ron Dellums 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza 3rd Floor Oakland, CA 94612 officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com T: (510) 238-3141 F: (510) 238-4731 An Oakland native, Ron Dellums grew up on Wood St in West Oakland, attended Oakland schools and graduated from Oakland Tech, Merritt College (AA), SF State (BA), and UC Berkeley (MSW). Ron served two years active duty in the United States Marine Corps, Following graduate school, Ron worked as a psychiatric social worker for the California Department of Mental Hygiene. He then directed various programs in Bayview/Hunters Point before becoming Director of the Hunters Point Youth Opportunity Center. Subsequently, he was Director of employment programs for the SF Poverty program and then Senior Consultant on manpower programs for Social Dynamics Inc, a leading Bay Area consulting firm. In 1967, he was elected to the Berkeley City Council and in 1970 to the US House of Representatives. He repr...

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...

Mayor Ron Dellums made the massive error of backing Senator Hillary Clinton in the Presidential race, a sure sign that Barack Obama will win the nomination. Of course, this didn't come as just a simple endorsement -- it came as yet another Clinton deal. In this case, Hillary placed Mayor Ron Dellums in some role in her campaign. How many times she's done this in some form makes one dizzy. But what's really wild is that Dellums would back someone who's flipped-flopped on so many issues and supported the Iraq War that it's not funny. Plus, Dellums apparently can't bring himself to back a young Black Senator named Barack Obama. It's funny with some older African Americans in Oakland. They're so afraid of anyone Black who can be in charge that they'd back someone White. I'm serious about this, and would not write it if it were not true. The real mental slaves are those who say to me -- who are Black -- that Barack can't win because he...

VSmoothe attacks Mayor Dellums for taking credit for the Shorenstein Building on the T-12 site downtown. A building in the design and planning process since 2000.

This is from a Yahoo! Message board for the Adams Point community.. It expresses the outrage and pain of many who have been assaulted for no reason in downtown Oakland and the surrounding area. For me, I walk from BART to a restaurant many times at night and nothing has happened, but that's no reason not to have feelings for those who seem to appear vulnerable to attackers. Dear Mr. Mayor, My co-worker was mugged last night in downtown Oakland last night as we were talking on the phone about commuting to work in the morning. She lives a couple blocks from the area that prosecutors call the Axis of Evil because so many crimes occur there. Do you know where the Axis of Evil is? It is right outside of your office at City Hall. A sex offender across the street from me is suspected of participating in the kidnapping and repeated rape of a 15-year-old girl last month -- but our two child endangerment investigators are each carrying a load of more than 200 active cases and they don...

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 ...