Here's an excerpt, but click the title of this post to read the full article.: Oakland City Attorney John Russo said communities of color were very much a part of two issues his office handled lately: liability insurance rates tied to zip codes, and the city's agreement with Caltrans to remove blight. Russo said he supports a plan by Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi to ask insurance companies to stop relying on where persons live when rates are set for policies. And, he said, it took the city filing a lawsuit to get Caltrans to step up and agree to clean up its properties many of which were in minority communities in East and West Oakland. Dressed in a white shirt, blue slacks and sneakers, Russo was playing Dad as his two small sons played a Madden video game football in his City Hall office where there's a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. on a wall and a small figurine of another one of Russo's heroes: former New York Knicks star Willis Reed. A native of Brooklyn,
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