Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com Briefly I have to admit to some confusion. The Alameda Chamber of Commerce is for the redevelopment of the Alameda Naval Air Station as proposed by SunCal, but against an initiative process . Or at least as written. That's unusual. In all of my years working in economic development developers were afraid to go to the voters to get a building project approved. The answer is obvious: they could lose, big time. Yet opponents always said "Take it to the voters". Well, that's being done now. It's a good idea. Plus, my personal bias having served on the original Alameda Base Reuse Committee, is to see our work become reality in the development of the former air station. More later.

  News is coming in that the election season has started early in Alameda this year and it looks like islanders are finally going to get a chance to make something exceptional happen out at the city’s run-down old Navy base. The backers of a plan to clean up and reuse the old Naval Air Station at Alameda Point today submitted the initiative language to the city. Now they will start collecting signatures to place the plan on the Nov. 3 ballot. This is frankly great news for Alameda. That old Navy base has sat unused and neglected for a long, long time. Finally a plan that someone can pay for is coming forward to get the place cleaned up and ready for real public use again. A lot of ideas have come and gone out there, but this is the only one makes any damn sense at all. Look, this has been a long time coming and I’m sure voters are going to get an earful from professional nimby’s who will oppose anything that even resembles a plan that could actually be achieved. And see my...

More at ActionAlameda.org : “Less than a week after low-level City of Alameda functionaries appeared on the news trying to dismiss claims by Save Our City! Alameda that the city is in dire financial straits, Mayor Johnson and Council member Frank Mataresse were on the local news themselves defending cuts to fire services and fire station “brownouts.” Johnson and Mataresse were interviewed on KTVU news along with Domenick Weaver, president of the local firefighters association, about the rotating brownouts which will begin at the end of this month. Last week, the City scrambled to respond to assertions by Save Our City! Alameda in a TV ad that the City is on the path to bankruptcy, as evidenced by the City’s inability to avoid the brownouts, outstanding lawsuits against the City, and the City’s plans to subsidize SunCal’s project at Alameda Point to the tune of several hundred million dollars.”

It's about time! OAKLAND -- Alameda County hopes to attack two root causes of homelessness next year with new social service programs aimed at the mentally ill. Using a portion of a annual $20 million grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the county and two partners will seek to offer permanent housing and services to mentally ill homeless persons. "The programs will serve a very under-served and chronic homeless population in our county," said Riley Wilkerson, manager of the county's community development agency. "We are really starting to make inroads and focus in on the populations that have a high level of use." One of the new programs will focus on mentally ill homeless who have criminal histories. The program, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment Shelter Plus Care, will give permanent housing to 13 homeless individuals and provide each with services. The other program, STAY Well Housing Project, will focus on 31 menta...

As I was leaving a visit to the then-new Oakland headquarters of Obama for America, I literally ran into Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. He was kind enough to stop and talk with me on camera about the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and the youth vote, and his issues of concern.

If it's true that law follows society, then this is a sure sign of the end of the conservative era and the start of a period of fairness. BERKELEY Judge allows race as factor in enrollment Decision is first since Prop. 209 to let school district integrate Bob Egelko, SF Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Berkeley's public schools, the first in the nation to desegregate voluntarily, can consider the racial composition of a student's neighborhood in an enrollment system designed to keep each campus racially diverse, an Alameda County judge has ruled. The decision by Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith could lead to the first California appellate ruling on a school district's ability to maintain a voluntary integration program under Proposition 209, the 1996 initiative that banned race and sex preferences in public education, employment and contracting. The case may also be affected by a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of school i...

I can count on one hand the number of times I've walked into the Burger King on the corner of 13th and Broadway, and one reason is the up-and-down pattern of clean in the facility. For anyone who wonders what happens when employees don't keep an eatery clean, read on. What caught my eye was this statement: "This is a common problem in restaurants that don't keep their systems clean" Wow. Grease fire sparks downtown blaze By Janis Mara, Staff Writer Article Last Updated: 02/12/2007 11:50:06 AM PST A firefighter climbs to the roop of a building at 13th and Broadway in Oakland. (Laura A. Oda - Staff) Commuters in downtown Oakland were put off their morning coffee and croissan'wichs Monday, when smoke poured from a building just after 9 a.m. at 13th and Broadway. The fire at the two-story Civic Center Market Place building started as a grease fire in the ground-floor Burger King's flue system, Oakland Fire Battalion Chief William Towner said. No one was in...