Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

You can vote early in the 2008 General Election with a visit to the Alameda County Courthouse at 12225 Fallon Street in Oakland from 10 am to 5 pm Sunday and 8:30 am to 5 PM Monday.  Click for the map here  :

I've not yet confirmed this with Robert Bobb himself, but two sources have explained to me today that former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb has resigned from his position as a consultant with  Public Financial Management Inc.  -- the assertion from one source is that he did so to become Oakland's next City Administrator, replacing former City Adminstrator Debra Edgerly, who was fired in July of this year.   Bobb has been going back and forth, in and out of Oakland as part of a consulting engagement that saw the public service veteran analyze various aspects of Oakland management and operations in an effort to determine why the government's not working as it should and why service delivery has been so poor.   The possibility of Bobb's return was a focus on a recent debate between the two At Large City Council candidates Rebecca Kaplan and Kerry Hamill.  Both were rather lukewarm to the idea of his possible return, with Hamill more along the commentary of "I

In the ongoing, but not well-progressing process of determining who killed Chauncey Bailey ( see my conversation with Paul Cobb of the Oakland Post  ) and why, The Chauncey Bailey Project has uncovered a problem: the alledged actions of Oakland Police Sargent   Derwin Longmire that are related to Yusuf Bey, the former CEO of Your Black Muslim Bakery.  The Oakland Tribune Reports: OAKLAND - Well before the August 2007 killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey, detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire twice interfered in felony investigations of former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, according to police documents obtained and interviews conducted during a yearlong investigation by the Chauncey Bailey Project. In both cases, Bey IV was charged with crimes despite Longmire's actions. In one, he continued to talk to Bey IV about one case after an investigator told him not to, according to police documents. In the other case, he tried to get evidence returned to the Bey family be

  Paul Cobb is a long-time Oakland, California writer, activist, community organizer and now publisher of the Oakand Post. I met Paul at his office in Downtown Oakland to talk about a wide range of subjects, but the two I was most interested in talking about were who killed Chauncey Bailey and what Paul thought about the current Mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums.   Bailey was an Oakland journalist who was supposedly murdered by people associated with Your Black Muslim Bakery (YBMB) on August 2, 2007.  But Cobb and others believe that the chain of events that led to someone, perhaps Devaughndre Broussard of YBMB,  murdering a journalist in the line of duty is more complicated and may lead to people and institutions one would not expect. Cobb's assertions regarding the relationship between Bailey and members of the Oakland Police Department would seem to match the concerns expressed in this website article by the Chauncey Bailey Project .  The person who shot Bailey was wearing a s

In the At-Large Oakland City Council race,  Kerry Hamill's switch from supporting to opposing Measure NN to establish a new tax for police may have been the nail in the coffin of her backing from some persons and news groups. That's certainly true for the East Bay Express, which backed Hamill in the primary but then switched to Kaplan for the general election.  The Express also backed Tom Bates for Mayor of Berkeley.   I will make my video explaining my endorsement choices on Saturday.   

This is an update of my first video on a clash between supporters of state Prop 8 and those opposing it. I went back to the same MacArthur and Lakeshore corner featured in the first video.  

Assemblyman Mark Leno lays out the case for supporting both state Proposition 8 and San Francisco Proposition H, the SF clean energy initiative on the ballot.  Leno, a former SF supervisor explains refutes many of the fears that PG&E will be "taken over."

Say, remember my post on how I was not supporting the state proposition 1A calling for High Speed Rail because the route did not come through Oakland as I worked to have done when I represented then-Mayor Elihu Harris?   Well, I waa able to partcipate in a debate on the matter at The Commonwealth Club's SF Debate program Tuesday night, and where the prop started out with more yes votes than no votes.  But after my insistance that it was not the right plan and that there were CalTrain plans that were rejected for no good reason , the initiative lost 10 to 7 with a number of undecided observers. The basic problem is that the plan is the plaything of politics -- whoever cries the loudest gets the route and that trumps a system that rightly serves the state in way where poor communities are represented. But what bothered me was the claim by a supporter involved in the project that Oakland's Ron Dellums and staff had done nothing to argue for Oakland. What the hell were

This video presents Day One of the case of Bowoto v. Chevron at U.S. District Court, Northern California, San Francisco. Here Larry Bowoto from Nigeria is accusing Chevron of harming him and his mates and violating their civil rights, and Chevron's counter is that Bowoto and his mates entered there oil production facility and attempted to kidnap Chevron employees. In calling the Nigerian Military police, a skermish unfolded where Bowoto and his mates were alledgely harmed. In this video Chevron's Don Campbell presents Chevron's side of the case; there was no spokesperson for Botwoto's side available.

In my video i observe that Ted Stevens conviction does not mean he was a bad elected official. I also say that America itself is socialist and explain why

The Oakland Raiders are a team in dire straits. There is no need to reproduce the win loss record that is haunting the Raider Nation. It is starting to seem like the losing is bothering the fans more than it is bothering the team, and that is a huge problem. read more | digg story

There was a protest at a Mormon temple yesterday, and I was hoping that the SF Chronicle would tell us about it! So that the GLBT community could see that we aren't letting religious legislation that will destroy families, be proposed and sponsored by a faith. We protested and they should have reported it. Instead they called DKos witch hunters. read more | digg story

I read about the stabbing of Elnora Caldwell today. This is such a horrible story. OAKLAND — An Oakland woman who was stabbed to death Saturday evening had taken out a restraining order against her estranged husband, who was arrested early Sunday on suspicion of her slaying, authorities said.... Read the full story here.

Why does PG&E oppose clean energy and Proposition H in San Francisco?  The SF Clean Energy Gal asks that very question.  See the many guises of Mary, the Clean Energy Gal here and support Clean Energy in San Francisco.

The elections fast approaching and the campaign to elect Senator Barack Obama for President is heating up with a great GOTV effort.  You can early vote and find an "early voting" rally near you with a click here:  http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/caearlyvote

  http://zennie62.com This is a video capturing two warring factions - Oaklanders in support of "Proposition 8" which would make Gay Marriage illegal, and those in opposition to the measure. On CNN iReport

Most people don't know that prostitution has only been criminalized in modern times. Selling sex is not a crime. Sex is sold everyday through corporate and independent mediums. Like drugs, legalizing it, allows you to control it, keep it safe, and free up law enforcement resources for more pertinent, non controversial criminal activities. Take the example of Nevada, where some prostitution is legal. It is controlled, reduces the need for pimping, and keeps the girls tested often. Furthermore, who the hell says you can't sell your body for money?? Bodies are sold all the time for money. Look at the porn industry, look at television. Sex is a sold product. Why cant we allow women to sell it for themselves for their own benefit. If corporate America could get between the prostitute and the sale they would. Market forces have no problem making money off sex. Let's understand and move closer to legalizing prostitution.

The question here is where should we put our tax dollars?? Do we put our money into reacting to a crime? Or making sure that crime doesn't happen in the first place? I think we should put our money into preventing crime from happening in the first place. For example, Oakland's new program; Green Jobs Corps. has the right idea. The aim is to offer these training programs in the inner city and in forgotten rural and once-industrial towns where idleness and crime have replaced factory work. There are many programs, not to mention our broken education system, where money is needed to stablize our community which in turn will reduce crime for the long hall. Yes, we need to tax and invest into Oakland but measure NN funnels our money into treatment and not a cure. So Vote 'NO' on Measure NN.

Just a few days removed from beating the New York Jets 16-13 on Sebastian Janikowski's 57-yard field goal in overtime, the Raiders turn their attention to the Baltimore Ravens and their vaunted defense. Oakland will travel cross country to face the top ranked D at M&T Stadium on Sunday as they look to inch closer to first place in the AFC... read more | digg story

Police Preparing For Election Day Unrest "Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes," said Oakland Police Department spokesman Jeff Thomason.Wednesday, October 22, 2008 read more | digg story