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Jerry Brown orders scrapping of Prop. 8 - Inside Bay Area : “SAN FRANCISCO—California Attorney General Jerry Brown changed course on the state's new same-sex marriage ban Friday and urged the state Supreme Court to void Proposition 8. In a dramatic reversal, Brown filed a legal brief saying the measure that amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman is itself unconstitutional because it deprives a minority group of a fundamental right. Earlier, Brown had said he would defend the ballot measure against legal challenges from gay marriage supporters. But Brown said he reached a different conclusion "upon further reflection and a deeper probing into all the aspects of our Constitution." "It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative," he said in an interview Friday night. "Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitut

I remember when then-Oakland City Manager made curbs on the sale of guns in Oakland a major priority; then Mayor and now AG Jerry Brown fired him.  Since then, Oakland's taken its collective eye off the ball of controlling gun sales.  And the lack of attention has been so severe that it's led to this article in today's Oakland Tribune  : OAKLAND — Seventeen-year-old Dominique Nubie stood on a West Oakland street corner talking about what matters in his life. "Guns "... everybody here has guns," he said, motioning around. Instead of the usual high school concerns about finishing homework or making the basketball team, Dominique worries most about survival in a neighborhood where many of his peers own guns. Oakland is teeming with guns. They're easy to buy, easy to steal and seen by some young men as a necessary possession in certain Oakland neighborhoods where to be unarmed means to be vulnerable. "If I got a gun, I feel like I can't be touc

  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 shot Bailey was wearing a s

Richmond City Council Approves Chevron Upgrade Plan 5 to 4 After a long and bruising Tuesday night-into-Wednesday morning Richmond City Council meeting, the City Council approved Chevron's Richmond Oil Refinery Upgrade Plan on an emotional 5-4 vote and approving the community development plan 6 to 1. I attended the packed meeting which seemed to draw every media person in the Bay Area to Cutting Boulevard and the council gathering. It was indeed a people-circus, with folks representing those who wanted to save their Chevron jobs (which probably weren't going any where anyway) and others who were in opposition to the idea that Chevron was breathing, let alone upgrading an existing facility. The main issue is the assumed production using crude oil: Chevron says they don't use it at the plant; opponents say they're lying. The project has been the source of much controvery, with California Attorney General Jerry Brown weighing in, saying that the Environmental Im

Some other SF Bay Area columnists who are friends of mine and just enjoyed an evening out with -- without talking about Oakland politics -- are still way wrong regarding Deborah Edgerly and the Edgerly Family. Specifically, my friend Chip Johnson , who presents a picture of an Oakland that was transformed by Deborah Edgerly into a sea of people who are related to her. If you believe that, you're a totally big fool. You're also all the more foolish if you think favoritism started with her. Hell, one major reason I accused former Mayor Jerry Brown of racism in 2000 was that I believed he picked those he was most comfortable with -- young white professionals -- over equals like myself who are Black. In my view, what Jerry Brown would do is relegate all of the young Black employees who should be in his office to then-City Manager Robert Bobb's office and, pointing at a young African American woman in his office, say -- as he did to me during our dispute over my treatment

For me, covering what turned out to be this three-part video documentary started with a call from a friend and fellow Cal Alum who said that I should get "down there" with my camera because there was no video on what was happening. So, fresh from a meeting, and with two hours to spare, I went over to the Grove in front of Cal Memorial Stadium, the site of the clash between the Cal Tree Sitters and the UC Administration and Police. The overall story is that we -- Cal -- needs an upgraded stadium facility and the plans for this have been in the works for almost ten years. With the success of Cal Coach Jeff Tedford, it became easier to raise money toward this objective. As part of the effort , the University of California was able to secure $500 million from British Petroleum, most of which would go to the creation of a new research institute, and the rest toward what will be an athletic facility upgrade -- a new training center where the Grove is. (CORRECTION - The BP D

Ok, how does one explain an unprecedented KTVU video report on Mayor Ron Dellums spending and "high life" habits as leader of our City? Hey, Jerry Brown's not cheap either, but he never got that kind of coverage at all. Someone's out to get Dellums, and what's blocking his ability to recover his image is the fact that he does not believe in working with image-makers, the press, or PR people. That's a fact, folks. Dellums' staff has asked him to "get help" in this area, but he's resistant to the whole deal. Now, I think someone sees Dellums as vulnerable to bad press, so they piled it on. But the simple fact is that Jerry Brown also "lived it up" you just didn't read about it much, or cared. Mayor Elihu Harris didn't do that. It's not his style and he really cares about the office and what people would think. So it's not a case of someone picking on Dellums for reasons of race, just to get that out of the way, b