Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at EBE : “San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson said today that the City Of Oakland should sue the Oakland A's to keep the team's name and uniform colors in Oakland, now that the team has reiterated its intention to leave. ” -- Hmm.. I wonder if now the City will not do it because of Dellums relationship with Johnson?

Violence is why Oaklanders forsake the city The irony of this column by Chip Johnson of the SF Chronicle is that he and I were talking on Lakeshore the other day and he introduced me to someone he's acquainted with who was complaining to us about how vandals destroy locks on the news stands to get papers to then resell. This person confronted one of the vandals and got into a fight with him. The point is the essense of Oakland's crime problem is it's terrible economic development. Housing was never the way to go.

I can't disagree more with my friend Chip Johnson on the idea of replacing district elections in Oakland with an all-at-large system. The simple reason is that having people represent a district means that economic resources are better targeted and people are more engaged than in an at-large system. Think about it. While the current system certainly has problems, what Chip forgets is that the ability to influence councilmembers in an at-large system will be left more to the rich and powerful than to small neighborhood activists and groups. What did he say? That's right. If you think that politics exists without the need or attempt to influence is some way, then you're dreaming. Big time. The fact is that the district process brings power closer to the common person. It takes less money, effort, and time when the geographic area is smaller and that produces better and more engaged citizens at the grass roots level. There's a reason the district election sy...

This is a video of my just completed (as of this writing) trip to the CNN Roland Martin Show and the CNN iReporters, Kevin Negenberger, Maggie Dowling, and Katy Brown, I met.

In the ongoing drama that is Oaklsnd City Hall, we have the old news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now taking a look -- a deep look -- at charges of nepotism and favoritism at Oakland City Hall. If you want to see the supoena sent to City Attorney John Russo, click here. But I'm not surprised because about two months ago or so the Chronicle's Chip Johnson himself said to me that he thought the FBI should be involved in this matter. That was a long time before his article came out , but the FBI seems to follow the path set by Johnson, who was not quiet or secretive of his dislike for now-Former Oakland City Administrator Edgerly's approach. That I now state publicly has bothered me because it came to a point where I could not tell if Chip's work was personal or professional. I suppose the best columnists do their most outstanding work angry, but there were times I belived it was a little much. Still, the end result -- a total analysis of w...

In yet another example of piling on, we have the California Report comparing Oakland's governance to a Keystone Cops movie. I'm not sure I'd go that far at all. But 30-year Sacramento veteran and former speaker Willie Brown staffer Bill Cavala -- who has a haircut right from a Keystone Cops movie -- thinks so. In the California Report, Cavala writes: “Cronyism” is one the charges made about virtually all elected officials. Unlike most work, political activity engenders opponents, those that would like you or your allies out of political office and replaced by themselves or their allies. To protect yourself from those opponents, politicians seek what others find in privacy in the company of people they trust. “Loyalty”, a political virtue, really means trustworthy under pressure. So when picking subordinates or employees, those of us in the political world add “loyalty” to the list of attributes we look for – along with skills, intelligence, judgment that everyone looks ...

The call for a City of Oakland "hiring audit", given by both Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and Mayor Ron Dellums in the wake of the firing of Chief Administrative Officer Deborah Edgerly on Tuesday (and the focus of a July 15th City Council meeting), is a terrible, emotional, knee-jerk idea adopted by two elected officials who need to take three steps back and rethink their entire approach to this matter. They've already made a ton of errors. Dellums mistake is in appearing as if he has all of the managerial stability of a switch-hitter, changing from one way of dealing with Deborah Edgerly, then opting for a nuclear approach. Ignacio does, what he does all too well, pounce in to take advantage of a perceived weakness in his opponent. But his mistake is in his execution of this action. Remember that Dellums beat De La Fuente in the last Oakland Mayor's race, and now public perception of Dellums has reached rock-bottom, so low that Ignacio's playing...

Sf Chroncle's scribe and my cantankerous friend Chip Johnson wrote an article that saw the light of day , and then was forgotten -- until now. It involves Larae Brown, who was a Controller with the City of Oakland and according to Johnson, doing her job, which was finding flaws in bookkeeping. Seems she found a huge one: Chip Johnson reports: The trouble began in 2006 when Brown completed a reconciliation of more than 100 city bank accounts, a task she alleges had not been performed since 1999 - and what she found was extremely troubling. In her review, she discovered the city's cash balance was overstated by $172 million and 77 of 111 city accounts showed negative fund balances. By her estimates, all that was left in city coffers were bond funds, whose use is restricted by state law. When she raised concerns with her superiors, the suit claims, she was told that City Administrator Deborah Edgerly had devised a 10-year repayment plan to cover a half-dozen negative fund balan...

SF Chronicle Columnist Chip Johnson and The ANG Newspaper Group is calling for Oakland School Board Member Chirs Dobbins to step down. Here's the story, but I'm not using Chip's column here as to read his account makes the matter sound as if they were having regular sex. There's no proof of that kind of relationship, but it doesn't look good, that's for sure. I have to admit that much of this seems like people wanting to engage in gossip. BUT, Chris should have had better judgement than to take up the kind of association that's being reported. But I only met him once, during a rally to save the Oakland A's. It's too bad all around because Chris seemed to be totally into his position on the school board. On second thought, maybe too much so. Here's another account... Oakland school board member Chris Dobbins went on several dates with a 17-year-old girl, sent her inappropriate text messages and e-mail, and had several late night rendezvous...