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Local children and their families are invited to a Halloween “Spook”tacular event at Hillsdale Shopping Center! Hillsdale is at 60 31st Avenue, San Mateo, California. To kick-off the festivities, participating stores will hand out treats to costumed children ages 12 and under from 5-6 p.m. Kids will also enjoy Halloween themed special events including a “Frankenswine” performance by Puppet Arts, Comedy Magic show by Count Dracula, balloon twisting, crafts and spooky science projects hosted by Mad Science of the Bay Area. For more information: 650-345-8222.

The Oakland City Council is to take up the annually thorny issue of city council district boundary changes, or what’s called “redistricting.” Tonight, as I sit here at Oakland City Council, there nine different scenarios the City Council has been asked to consider: Maps 18 and 21 through 28. What follows is a summary, based on what was written at the website at the City of Oakland’s webpage by the planning and zoning department. Map 18: “At the October 3, 2013 Rules and Legislation Committee of the City Council, the consultant produced a map, based on Map #17, which proposes the Maxwell Park neighborhood be combined into District 4; Map #18 proposes changes to Districts 5 and 6 which balance the population changes resulting from Maxwell Park being combined into District 4. Also, Map #18 shows Broadway Terrace as the boundary between Districts 1 and 4, which it was in 1993; and the map leaves the current border between Districts 1 & 3 the same as it is today: the Mosswood neighbo...

Oakland, CA – October 28, 2013 – Recently, Paul Tutwiler & Mabel Hom of the  Downtown Oakland  and  Lake Merritt/Uptown  community benefit districts’ Senior Citizen Task Force, recently renamed R.O.A.R, Resources for Oakland’s Active Retirees, were awarded the YMCA of the East Bay’s “You are the Difference” award at the Y’s 134 th  annual meeting and volunteer recognition ceremony. Last June, Tutwiler, among others, contacted the Downtown Oakland & Lake Merritt/Uptown CBDs to suggest a collaboration between the districts and local seniors.  Their goal was to get local seniors involved in the community by organizing weekly walks, beautification projects, recreational activities and more.  Since then, the program has proved to be a great success. “It’s nice to see Paul, Mabel and the senior citizen task force getting the recognition they deserve.  Together, we are happy to have been able to organize a great program f...

Artesa Winery Artesa Winery, which has perhaps the most breath-taking winery in California, has come out fighting in a Sonoma Coast California property battle against Friends of the Gualala River. Artesa Winery is fighting to improve and protect a neglected Sonoma, California property in the face of strident opposition from a controversial local group, Friends of the Gualala River. Sonoma County is a place known both for its excellent wine and its natural beauty. But, the conversation has turned ugly over the effort by one well-regarded winery to renovate part of an abandoned Sonoma property into a vineyard and preserve and protect remainder of it. Artesa Vineyard and Winery has owned the 324 acre property since 1999 when it purchased the lot with the intention to use it to grow Pinot Noir. The property has fallen into disrepair since it was used as an apple orchard in the early 1960’s. In 2009 Artesa submitted a proposal to convert 173 acres of this former orchard into v...

At Oakland FitnessSF , a man who's name I will leave out of this, harassed a couple over, of all things, how the woman was about to use a machine at the Grand Avenue facility, and the idea that he was supposed to use it before her just because he says he was a gym member for a longer period of time. I'm not kidding.  I can't believe I saw it. But as I was doing chest presses with weights, a I overheard an angry man behind me talking loudly to a man and woman (who I also know, and I'm leaving their names out of it) behind me. The angry man (Angry Man, from here on) was upset that the woman was about to use a clasp device to place on the top bar of a machine that's designed such that one can also pull weights from either side toward the person's body, or just do arm-focused lifts. The Angry Man was not even near the machine at first - he was clear over on the other side of the gym's second floor. But as soon as she started to use the machine, and he...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said this to the National Journal’s Sophie Quinton: “And so, you asked me what my challenge is. Well, my challenge is to let people know what the new Oakland looks like. Somebody just sent me an email saying, ‘Oh, you should have more black police since more than 50 percent of your residents are black.’ And I’m like, ‘Actually, no, 28 percent of my residents are black, but we’re pretty evenly divided between blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asians these days.’ But that’s their image of Oakland–and this is somebody who lives in the Bay Area.” (National Journal, October 6, 2013) In other words Quan’s saying ‘I don’t want you to think Oakland’s a black town’ because that’s a bad thing. Really? So it was bad for Oakland to be a city that elected a black Mayor in Lionel Wilson early on, and back in the 70s? It was bad for Oakland to have been the home of the Black Filmmakers’s Hall Of Fame? Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Thinks Black Oakland ...

Dr. Death, the epitome of Oakland Raiders Black Hole fandom, came to the Oakland City Council (along with about 60 other Raiders fans), and gave a classic, passionate speech imploring the elected officials to support the extension of the Coliseum City ENA. Look at it, because it's not likely you're going to see a presentation like this one for some time. Or until Summer of 2014.