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[Aimee Allison] Mayor Dellums is finally using his city-chartered right to break a council tie by casting a vote for his appointee Michael Lighty to the Port Commission. The Mayor, who recently brokered a deal with port truckers and the state over tighter emissions regulations, is finally playing his hand at strong mayor. The Port Commission is one of the most powerful groups in city politics, and plays a key role in approving development project like the BART extension and housing, environmental fights as in the ongoing stand-off between truckers and the port, and jobs - as in whether local people are going to get the 6,000 jobs that will be created by the project at the old army base. More from Sanjiv Handa, East Bay News Service: Mayor Ron Dellums is still planning on attending the Oakland City Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 19, to cast the tie-breaking vote approving the nomination of Michael Lighty to the Board of Commissioners of the Port of Oakland.It has been so long since a may...

I just received this letter copy via email.  It comes on the heels of the news that A's Owner Lew Wolff called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums to request a meeting regarding keeping the A's in Oakland.  SEN. BOXER WORKS TO KEEP A’S IN OAKLAND Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today sent the following letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig: March 31, 2009 Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner Major League Baseball 245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor New York, NY 10167 Dear Commissioner Selig:             I appreciate the announcement you made yesterday that you are forming a committee to review the various proposals regarding the future of the Oakland Athletics.  As your committee does its work, I urge you to do everything possible to keep the team in Oakland.             As you may know, Oakland has recently gone t...

I have it from several sources that Mayor Ron Dellums plans to meet with A's Owner Lew Wolff after Baseball Spring Training.  That's an expansion on the other story that the City was making moves to contact the A's and present a plan.   What's good about this bit of news is the Mayor and not the Vice Mayor's doing the apparent heavy lifting. Nothing against Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, but it's time Oakland sent a clear leadership message to sports business owners, and that means the Mayor.  Period.    It also means we fall in and help him, and that organizations like the Chamber of Commerce avoid this knee-jerk tendency to form their own task force and try to get what they want, which is the ego-satisfaction of being involved at a major level.   What the Chamber has done is made it's own group in the past which has always made politics more complicated. Please, not this time.  That's Joe Haraburda's set of orders I write: sta...

I attended my first meeting of the Sports and Entertainment Task Force last Thursday, and which was its second meeting.  It appears that we're on track to produce a document by the April deadline, and I don't write this because I'm on the task force.  I do want this thing to work, and by that I mean we have to create a set of recommendations for the Mayor that's workable and doable.  But I must explain many of the task force members fear the "politicians" will not do anything.  More on that in a bit. This is where we are:  the first meeting was used to explain what the task force is, and what the Mayor expects to see.  We're a collection of concerned citizens who represent various concerns and backgrounds, from restaurant owners, to Internet business owners (me), to activists like Steve Lowe, and journalists like Chris De Benedetti, who's the chairman, to the Mayor's office, who has a staffer that records the action.  What the Mayor expects to s...

A Robert Bobb reminder post from the recent past: More at EBX : “Robert Bobb should have been Oakland's new city administrator. He was easily the most qualified candidate, and was Mayor Ron Dellums' first choice. Last month, the two men were talking salary and benefits, as they closed in on a deal to bring Bobb back to the East Bay. But then Oakland's respected former city manager changed his mind, and decided to take over the financially troubled Detroit public school system. What happened? According to knowledgeable sources, there were several reasons for why Bobb decided to turn down Dellums, and one of them had to do with Oakland's other "mayor" — Cynthia Dellums.” ...Because Bobb may be back.  More soon.  

This is listed under the file heading of "What was he thinking?"  I've learned using Huffington Post's "Fundrace" system that our own Robert Bobb, who's listed as a "consultant" with the adress P.O. Box 77556, Washington, D.C.,  gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's run for president, but nothing -- zip -- to Barack Obama! That's disappointing to learn for this Obama backer and volunteer. I got after Mayor Dellums for not backing now President-Elect Obama because doing so would send a message to young Black men in Oakland that he supports the future, but I would have guessed Mr. Bobb would have certainly backed Obama.   Now, that colors a lot of thoughts I had about Bobb and makes me reconsider past his actions when we were involved with The Super Bowl. I crossed-checked the Robert Bobb listed in Chicago and who did give to Barack's campaign and he's a lawyer in the windy city. But it says something not so good when older Af...