Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com On YouTube.com LakeFest is a street fair that was held last Saturday and Sunday August 1st and 2nd on Lakeshore Avenue between Lake Park and Mandana near the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. After a long absence, it's back for its second year and with great bands and vendors selling clothes and representing everything from the new Lake Chalet restaurant to "Friends of the Oakland Public Library." I talked with a number of Oaklanders about the festival because there was a long period of time that, well, there was not an event of this kind at this location. That is until Helen Wyman stepped in. Helen Wyman is an event producer currently best known for the first, successful Uptown street fair held June 18th of this year. She explained that this event has nothing to do with the version of year's past and is brand new. "'LakeFest' was a concept we ...

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! Have you ever walked by a group doing something interesting and yet never stopped to, or perhaps feared to, inquire what they were doing?  If so, this video-blog is for you .  I'm in Georgia as I write this and visiting my Mom, but two Saturdays ago I saw a YouTube video of people playing drums under the "Columns" at Lake Merritt in Oakland, where I live for those of you reading this in, er, Japan.  I said to myself, and wrote on the Oakland Focus Blog , that if I ever encountered that group I was going to have my camera at the ready and interview them (if they let me of course). Well that's what I did on that Saturday morning.  The group is called "Emeryville Taiko" at www.etaiko.org , and as Sensei Susan Horn informs us in the video, they were located in Emeryville, but are now at 27th and Harrison St, near the Whole Foods Market and near Lake Merritt.   But on Saturday's they have this Taiko...

I created this video at the specific request of Tyson Chandler at CNN's iReport. The idea is to give viewers a look at the secret places in your town, so I made this one for Oakland:

On March 22nd, the Parkway Theater in at 1834 Park Blvd in Oakland played its last set of films to a large audience, then stopped after 12 years of operation and a lot of memories. This is the video story I made from that night: A victim of the economy and a landlord seeking higher rents, Parkway Owners Catherine and Kyle Fisher made a decision to close the legendary business just four days before the last opening night. But no sooner did that happen than a group of concerned Oaklanders sprang into action. They set up a website called http://iliketheparkway.com and a facebook page called "Save The Parkway Speakeasy Theater", then held now three meetings. This video presents much of the action and talk from the second meet: a large event at Roos Cafe on Park Avenue, just three doors from the Parkway itself. Here's the video from the meeting: The meeting attendees divided into several sub-groups and determined possible future programming and business models fo...

The once popular news site "The Grand Lake Guardian" is in a coma and according to my source, it's not coming out of it anytime, soon.   "He's gone on to other things" my source said, "He's not done anything in a while." That's for sure.  The topmost post is dated "2008-02-13" which was last year before Valentine's Day.  It's too bad for the area around Lake Merritt, which came to adopt the site in a way, if only because Jim Ratiff, the founder, had collected a group of some of Oakland's most involved Lake citizens. But as happens with blogs from time to time, the people lose interest.  A blog must be updated each day just to keep fresh.  And that's the problem.   Jim's site was more of a website than a blog, which causes more work just to update.  I can see why he may have tired of the whole effort: he used the wrong kind of platform. If you're going to do this you have to make it easy on yoursel...

This was from the Yahoo Adams Point Message Board: A friend called this a.m. to say he and two others were walking home yesterday mid-evening and were held up at gun point by one man: black, wearing black hoodie and black pants. This occurred on Euclid between Lagunitas and Van Buren. Thankkfully, no one got hurt. He will post more details himself when he gets to a computer with Internet service, but in the meantime, I wanted neighbors to be alert.

More at SFGate.com : “A man was found stabbed to death in downtown Oakland, police said today. Nemekhbayer Gaitav, 42, was found inside an apartment on the 1400 block of Jackson Street near Lake Merritt about 10 p.m. Monday, authorities said. He had been stabbed and was pronounced dead at the scene. No arrests have been made.”

During dinner with a good friend, I had a chance conversation with Oakland Police beat officers in the Lake Merritt area. After a lively talk, they told me to share with you this message: do not walk by yourself at night. Even as the area is safer after the arrest of the "Takeover Robbers" the terrible economy leaves many vulnerable. There's an increased police presence around Central Oakland, but the police totally do not want you to walk anywhere by yourself at night. Period.

This is from the Adams Point Yahoo! Message Board. Hello. On very short notice, City Attorney John Russo's office was able to arrange for Mr. Russo to join us at our meeting next week. He will take questions, and present some information about a new joint effort between the OPD, the Alameda County DA's office, and the Oakland City Attorney's office to crack down on "chronic non-felony crimes" such as disorderly conduct, illegal dumping, drug-related offenses, disturbing the peace and selling stolen property. See the website for the City Attorney: http://www.oaklandcityattorney.org/. Beat 14X Problem Solving Officer Madlansacay will be joining us for the first time in a few months as well, so if you have questions about recent crimes or related matters, please bring those to his attention during the Q&A with him. Below is the text of the meeting agenda. I will also post a copy in Word Document format in the Files section of the Yahoo Group. Incid...

Credit to HariOak.com for this news: Lake Merritt lovers may have noticed that all the fountains have been turned off. Four of the motors have failed and are out of warranty. A replacement motor is broken. Three of the four fountains are owned by the La ke Merritt Institute , which is struggling to come up with the $7,000 it needs to replace the motors. Let's help! Please send donations, whether they are large or small, to the Lake Merritt Institute, 568 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610. The institute is a non- profit, 501C3 corporation, so donations are deductible to the extent of the law. Below is an excerpt of a letter that the Institute's Dr. Richard Bailey sent to the Adams Point Action Council, which is spearheading this fund drive. "Cheers: That is great! We could certainly use this kind of help. To answer your questions: "Funds for the aeration fountains should be sent to: The Lake Merritt Institute, 568 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA...

This is what I remember about "9-11" -- the day that the World Trade Center was destroyed due to a terrorist attack by what we now know and call the Al Qiada terrorist group. I was living in Oakland, Ca at the time.

The familiar, long time home of Oakland Kosher Foods at 3419 Lakeshore Ave suffered a fire two weeks ago, causing about $30,000 of damage. " Jewish and Breaking News " Reports: The Shabbat afternoon fire at Oakland Kosher Foods two weeks ago caused more damage than was initially estimated, co-owner Yuval Atias said this week. The Oakland Fire Department originally estimated the damage at $30,000, but it’s a great deal higher than that with a lot of repairs in the offing, Atias said. “We’re trying really hard to finish two weeks before Rosh Hashanah,” Atias said. “So that would put it around Sept. 10 or 15, somewhere in there.” Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown Sept. 29. While repairs are being made, Oakland Kosher Foods is storing meat and other products in a San Leandro warehouse, but also offering delivery. Some meat-cutting, as well as catering preparation, will be done in the kosher kitchen at Beth Jacob Congregation, which is located about a mile from the damage...

Lillie Jue is the manager of The Jue Trust and owns several buildings in Oakland and the Bay Area. A petite elderly woman of Chinese American decent, "Mrs Jue" as she's called out of respect, is someone you're compelled to like because she' parental in her manner. But what many have discovered -- including me -- is that she's a landlord that has several rent board complaints against her and questionable practices. Mrs Jue has been the subject of a number of emails I've received over the years and especially since I moved out of my apartment on Van Buren Avenue, after a spirited battle I waged against her. And no, the emails were not solicited by me, but my people who read this blog. Here's one I just got that the person insisted I publish. My husband and I rented an apartment from Mrs. Jue in 2004 at 740 Oakland Avenue, Oakland. I should have backed out from the beginning, as she had it listed for $1025. The day we went for lease signing, it w...

It seems that Athol avenue is experiencing a new rash of robberies and break-ins. It's caused a new buzz with people online. This was from the Yahoo Message Board: Greetings Neighbors: My neighbor on the 400 block of Athol was also burglarized on Friday, maybe early afternoon. Similar M.O. They got TVs and laptops. They even left my neighbor's big flat panel TV on the street (their truck was probably already too full of other stuff). This was very upsetting, since they are only two houses away, and either I and/or my assistant were working on the house (the neighbors house is just out of sight). In hindsight, I think I might have seen these guys. I did give them a second look, since they were unfamiliar and driving unusually slowly. I watched but then they disappeared around the corner. So that is very frustrating. I feel very stupid for not taking more action. Here's what I remember of their description (please note, this is a fuzzy recollection based on a very brief vie...

What does street cleaning make you think of? Noise? Dirt? Big trucks? All of the above? Want to hear that at night while you sleep? Well, it's for those reasons that the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group launched a petition drive to have the City of Oakland go from nighttime to daytime street cleaning and got 181 people to sign it. The trouble is that the City of Oakland's stil not implemented the change. Here's the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group's notice on the matter: Good Afternoon, 18 months ago, the Downtown Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group presented a petition with 181 signatures to the Oakland Public Works Agency and our City Councilmember, Nancy Nadel, requesting that street sweeping hours in our neighborhood be changed from 12AM-3AM to daytime hours. The petition read: "The current street sweeping hours are inconvenient because they occur when the highest percentage of us are home -- the middle of the night. The street sweeping sched...

I saw the 11:30 Friday showing of The Dark Knight at The Grand Lake Theater here in Oakland's Lake Merritt area, and told a friend how much I liked the second in the newest series of Batman movies. So he goes to see it that night with his wife and reports "I liked The Dark Knight or what I could hear, because the speakers blew out! I'll see it again. Wow. Hey Grand Lake Owner Allan Michaan, time to fix those speakers!

If you've never taken a canoe ride on Lake Merritt, and I have yet to do so, this is what it looks like, thanks to YouTuber laurenneutral -- the screen name:

Easy Lounge Fun On Wednesday Nights Ok. Those of you who are frequent readers of this blog space know that I've had problems with the Easy Lounge and some "unusual" bar service in the past. But I'm here to explain that's all gone. I went Wednesday night and had a fantastically relaxing time. To be totally frank, the vibe at Easy Lounge is different when two female bartenders are at the helm as opposed to the normal set of males and testosterone-laden service. The star of the show is Sylvia, who's an informative and personable image for Easy. Indeed, she's "easy to get along with and fun to talk to after a day of work. It's also the first time I've ever seen Tom Cruise' movie Cocktail. Ok. Stop with the frowning.

I have seen this group of people dancing and moving only once, and as I was in a car on the way to somewhere else, wasn't able to stop and discover when they met again. This video -- not mine -- was taken as these Oaklanders (I hope) were doing the Salsa thing under the "columns" at the end of Lake Merritt near Mac Arthur Blvd. If anyone watching this can add more detaills, please do in the comments section!

Today, it was announced that Rush Limbaugh signed a %400 million contract with Clear Channel. In this video , I explain that Rush's success came at a price. Michelle Sixta is a friend of mine and at one point lived on Madison, across Lake Merritt from me in Oakland, Ca. Michelle was a lot of fun. She and I would go on something called the "Back Yard Bird Watch" and generally had a good time, then lost touch after a few years. She was also -- prior to our meeting -- married to Rush as his second wife. She didn't talk about him much at all, but when she did, she explained that at first their marriage was fine, but as the years went on, Rush was more into himself than into her. He'd rather read a book than have sex. I hope she's going to get part of that $400 Million. Meanwhile, Rush has taken aim at Senator Barack Obama's run for president by employing his call screener James Gould as "Bo Snerdley" the official Obama criticizer. In my view, pick...