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According to the Oakland Post, several thousand people came to hear Tavis Smalley's presentation of The Covenant With Black America." Included were Oakland Mayora Candidate Ron Dellums. The report that over 3,000 people were turned away at the door should given one an idea of Black America's displeasure with current events. The question is will this translate into votes come election day. I think so.

Chabot hopes Oakland provides funding The Space and Science Center has made cuts but still faces a deficit in June By Eric Kurhi STAFF WRITER The Chabot Space and Science Center is hoping the city of Oakland will help it cope with a predicted financial shortfall caused by lackluster attendance and reduced federal funding. Alex Barnett, the center's executive director, said they have made some cuts and increased fund-raising efforts, but because of lagging box-office revenues they still might come up short at the end of the fiscal year this June. "Unless we dramatically increase the gate, there is a significant chance we may end the year a few hundred thousand dollars adrift," she said. Federal cuts have also hurt -- for example, cuts to NASA's budget meant the institution could not offer Chabot any assistance this year. The city, on the other hand, is looking at an $8.5 million budget surplus, mainly due to a booming real estate market. Barnett said she hopes some of

On March 27th and without ceremony, Oakland Tribune Columnist Peggy Stinnett wrote her last column for the newspaper. It was sad to read the last work of a person I've known and was a competitor too. It was even sadder to see her last day not given a special color. Oakland's lost its real chroniclers. It's not worth it to pick up a newspaper now, because it's so hard to discover the pulse of the city. It wasn't always this way. One could pick up The Trib or Montclarion and see what was going on. That was the time before the year 2000. It was a time when some people never heard of email, and called each other. It's a different world now. I like some aspects of it, but not this one. I'll miss ya Peggy.

I found this email in the Adams Point Yahoo Group. It shows Oakland Councilmember and Mayoral Candidate Nancy Nadel's view of the Oak To Ninth Waterfront Plan that's proposed by Signature Properties. I personally have no problem with the developer making money from the project -- that's what they do. I do agree that this "new town in town" needs to be well-studied before approval. Plus, I'd like to see a baseball stadium there as well. From: "Nadel, Nancy" wrote:From: "Nadel, > Nancy" > To: 'Nina Serrano' > Subject: RE: Fwd: [15X_NCPC] Oak-to-Ninth: Important City Council > meeting Tuesday night > Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:36:14 -0800 > > I think the city and the port approached this project backwards. We > should have done a specific plan and then found developers who > would do what we want. When I asked the planning director why that > wasn't the process as outlined in the Estuary Plan, she

This was a post on the Adams Point Message Board on Yahoo! I heard a woman screaming outside my window at approx. 1 a.m. in the morning on Sunday, April 9th. I live on Bellevue and I immediately sat up in bed and opened my window to see a man running away from a woman with a bag in his hand. She was almost directly across from my house and I called out to her to see if she was OK. She said she was but very shaken up and I directed her to come inside. We called the police but we were put on hold for at least 2 mins but after getting through the police arrived within 15 mins. They took a description and then radioed it in to another car to look around the neighbourhood. No luck finding the guy but this was the same style of mugging we have heard in the past. Single woman cruising through the neighbourhood looking for parking and once parked and out of the car she saw this man walking towards her and in a threatning voice told her to drop her bags (she had two and only dropped one which

I talked to a very good and well-placed friend of mine about why the Oakland City Council voted to give the right to create a restaurant to The Beach Chalet, a San Francisco Restaurant, versus any Oakland retauranteur. "They (the Council) looked at the deal points and frankly, The Beach Chalet was a better deal." My friend reported that the organzation which runs the very popular eatery on Ocean Beach came through with tenant improvements that were over $1 million more than, for example, Everett and Jones Restaurant. For those of you who don't understand what this means, $1 million in tenant improvements translates into a very nicely remodeled boathouse, sure to be a popular destination along the Lake. As to the allegations that Mayor Jerry Brown's aide Gil Duran tried to bribe Dorothy King of Everett and Jones, my friend said "Either one of them could be lying, given their track records." My take on this matter is that the City of Oakland should know h

Ignacio De La Fuente voted to bring in a San Francisco Restaurant, The Beach Chalet, to run the unused boathouse facility at Lake Merritt. Moreover, most of the Oakland City Council selected them and over locals like Everrett and Jones. With this, why should I buy my car at Broadway Auto Row? Why should I "Buy Oakland?" A good question. And one the Oakland City Council must answer.

This year Oaklanders who care have ran accross the name of a key aide to Jerry Brown. His name is Gil Duran. I most often see Duran with Mayor Brown at local bars, most notably Cafe Van Kleef. On one occasion, on a Wednesday of the week that President Bush's aide Karl Rove's involvement in the CIA Leak Scandal was being reported, I ran into Duran and Mayor Brown at Peter Van Kleef's establishment. I asked Jerry what he thought of the Karl Rove matter. Pointing at Gil, Jerry said "He's Karl Rove. Right there." After reading the story about Everett and Jones today, I think I understand.

Article Last Updated: 04/08/2006 3:16 AM PDT Restaurateur: Brown pledged lease for favor Mayor, who supported another eatery's boathouse bid, denies quid pro quo agreement By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE OAKLAND — The owner of Everett & Jones Barbeque said Friday that Mayor Jerry Brown promised her a lucrative lease for a new eatery at the Lake Merritt Boathouse if she defended him from charges of racism. Through a spokesman, Brown, whose term expires Jan. 1, called the allegation "crazy" and denied the existence of a quid pro quo agreement. Earlier this week, Brown broke a tie vote of the Oakland City Council in favor of the Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant in San Francisco, passing over the popular barbecue joint in Jack London Square. "I was devastated," Dorothy King said, adding she had no doubt that the decision was motivated by racism and politics. Brown, running for state attorney general, declined to directly address King'

When I served as Economic Advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris, the last thing I had time to do, and never took time to do, was comb the Internet looking for negative information about my boss. I especially didn't do this on City of Oakland time. What I did was meet with constituents, building developers, attend and run meetings, do research on and create ideas for development projects and meet with the press. I not only never had time to sit down at the computer to fire off hot emails at immagined "ememies of the mayor," I never used City of Oakland taxpayer money to do it. But that's certainly not true for some of Jerry Brown's staff. ' Every time they've visited the Oakland Focus site and attempted to leave a comment, my traffic recording system noted their IP adress and location: "City of Oakland." I was able to match that with the time and location of the comment. And in one case, a staffer emailed me because Jerry himself was picking on her

Lewis Cohen, the fomer aide to Oakland Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, cleared the air regarding his rant last October in The Daily Kos. In an email response to my question regarding the Daily Kos post, he wrote: "It's from me. It speaks for itself. nowhere does refer to any personal problem between me and Ignacio. It is about a disagreement over our views on development, police accountability and schools. There is nothing that refers to Elihu in any way shape or form. Administration refers to the school district." There you go.

Shortly after I posted a column reporting Former Oakland Council President Ignacio De La Fuente's Aide Lewis Cohen's Daily Kos rant, he emailed to say that what I wrote was not accurate, but would not say why. I responded that all people care about is the Daily Kos post. Cohen's had ample time to refute the Daily Kos, as he's been contacted about the posting before; he didn't return the phone calls placed by the East Bay Express. So what's up, Lewis?

I saw this comment buried deep under a post (which is linked to via the title of this post) on The Daily Kos, a popular blog: Sadly Ignacio stoppped being progressive (none / 1) some time ago. I was his top aide for 8 years. I have not been supporting him for Mayor, though I ran his first three campaigns and his last mayoral run. Ignacio is focused on power for power's sake. He is running as the developer's candidate and the candidate of the chamber of commerce. He abandoned progressives by opposing extension of Living Wage ordinance to the port even though he carried the City's ordinance before he decided that placating developers was the way tyo pay for his mayoral ambitions. He abandoned progressives by oppossing civillian oversight of police and along with Mayor Brown gave an explicit greenlight (I was in the room when this happened) to the police abuses that led to the Riders scandal. He and his pal Don Perata found it funny that Oakland cops fired non-lethal ammunitio

FEC Won't Regulate Internet Politics Mar 27 12:14 PM US/Eastern By DAVID PACE Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the Internet. In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person's Web site. The decision means that bloggers and online publications will not be covered by provisions of the new election law. Internet bloggers and individuals will therefore be able to use the Internet to attack or support federal candidates without running afoul of campaign spending and contribution limits. "It's a win, win, win," Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub said, adding that the rule would satisfy concerns of campaigns, individuals and the Internet community about whether the campaign finance law applies to Internet political activity. The commission was forced to act after a federal court ruled

I don't know how this matter has been resolved, but it's funny how the newspapers were slow to follow up on it. This is consistent with my contention that they protect Jerry, or at least try to. Click on the title to this post to see what I'm talking about.

For the better part of the last four years, SF Bay Area developers Signature Properties and Reynolds and Brown have been planning a new development for Oakland's Waterfront called "Oak To Ninth." It will sit on what is currently a vastly underused area that makes up much of Oakland's developable waterfront, as the first photo on the left shows. The plan consists of 3,100 units of housing and a combination of residential and retail in a kind of grid street system that will create a kind of new town in Oakland. For me, it's an exciting project, and what Oakland needs, but it lacks the real crowning land use: a baseball stadium for the Oakland A's. I personally believe A's Owner Lew Wolff was approached by Signature Properties representatives -- in fact, I know this happened. But I'll also assert that the deal may have fallen apart because of a lack of redevelopment revenue to assist in building the project. Even though it's Port of Oakland lan

This is the latest crime committed in the Adams Point area of Oakland near Lake Merritt. A stolen car. The car that was stolen was a 1996 Grey Saturn (don't know of the model). License plate 3RJJ827. Nothing to distinguish though. It was a Boys & Girls Clubs of SF vehicle so if you see any marketing materials around (the trunk was full of promotion materials), then let me know via this blog.

Ignacio De La Fuente and Nancy Nadel, both Oakland Councilmembers and candidates for Mayor, are suffering from terrible poll numbers which spell victory for their competitor, former-Congressman Ron Dellums. Not willing to try a more effective strategy, both Nadel and De La Fuente, both comfortable with political backstabbing techniques, dropped a news story that Dellums served as consultant to the U.S. Military. BIG DEAL. Anyone who knows and has followed Dellums is aware of his incredible knoweldge of the US Armed Forces and his constant calls for a more efficient military. Some -- including the two candidates -- have made the mistake of painting Dellums into a position of one who wants to dismantle the US defense. Not even close. Dellums is a military policy wonk and thus somewhat confusing to those who don't look at the details of life. All of this crying about his lobbying contract has the tinge of desparate campaigns on the wane.

Recent Earthquakes in California and Nevada - Website == PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT == California Integrated Seismic Net USGS/ Caltech/ CGS/ UCB/ UCSD/ UNR Version #2: This report supersedes any earlier reports of this event. This is a computer-generated message. This event has not yet been reviewed by a seismologist. A minor earthquake occurred at 1:41:42 PM (PST) on Tuesday, March 21, 2006. The magnitude 3.8 event occurred 6 km (4 miles) SE of Moraga, CA. The hypocentral depth is 13 km ( 8 miles). Magnitude 3.8 - local magnitude (ML) Time Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 1:41:42 PM (PST) Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 21:41:42 (UTC) Distance from Moraga, CA - 6 km (4 miles) SE (129 degrees) Alamo, CA - 6 km (4 miles) SW (215 degrees) Danville, CA - 9 km (5 miles) W (270 degrees) Oakland, CA - 14 km (8 miles) E (82 degrees) San Francisco City Hall, CA - 31 km (19 miles) E (82 degrees) Coordinates 37 deg. 48.7 min. N (37.812N), 122 deg. 4.4 min. W (122.074W) Depth 13.2 km (8.2 miles) Location

Well, no sparks here. But just wait Mayoral candidates look to city's future De La Fuente, Dellums, Nadel discuss schools, policing and revitalization By William Brand, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE OAKLAND — The three candidates for mayor offered differing visions of the future of the city Saturday at a well-attended town hall meeting at St. Lawrence O'Toole Catholic Church. Candidates Ignacio De La Fuente and Nancy Nadel emphasized their years of experience on the City Council to combat the star power of retired congressman Ron Dellums. Dellums, who retired from Congress in 1998 after serving the East Bay since 1971, said he would greatly augment Mayor Jerry Brown's plan to bring 10,000 new residents to downtown Oakland to revitalize the area. "Ten-thousand people doesn't get you there," Dellums said. "You've got to think big; there should be 100,000 people downtown; there should be new office buildings, with mixed-use commercial. With 100,000 peo