Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Oakland police chief resigns, blasts City Council - Inside Bay Area : “Criticizing the Oakland City Council for paying only "lip service" to resources for public safety, embattled Police Chief Wayne Tucker announced his resignation this morning. Tucker, at a press conference, spoke for about 10 minutes and then handed the podium to Mayor Ron Dellums. "Quite frankly I've lost faith in the City Council," Tucker said. "They've given lip service to public safety in the city." Oakland City Council members on Monday said that Tucker should resign or be fired because of scandals plaguing his department -- a position they planned to announce at a news conference today while calling for a vote of no-confidence.” -- I don't think Chief Tucker understands how to run a police force in a 21st Century urban environment like Oakland, especially in the wake of the Oscar Grant murder.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums gave a great 2009 State of The City Address but it was twice interrupted by Oaklanders concerned about the matter of police brutality in the wake of the murder of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle two weeks ago. The Mayor responded to them well. Later, I talked with new At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan and Brother Keith Muhammed on their views of Dellums' speech.

I talked to Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele at the community meeting held on Sunday, January 8th 2009 at Joe Bort MetroCenter in Oakland. Steele gave me her view before the meeting, and as she was leaving it.

More at JohnMalloy's DB : “Go to http://twitter.com/walkforlife to follow along live as the good Reverend Walter Hoye leads us in defense of the unborn! UPDATE: It was great! Good Reverend Walter Hoye led us, we had great speeches by Karen Shablin, Craig Deluz, and Pastor Clenard Childress was on fire! Jocelyn Golden was there too and led us in song throughout the march. God bless them all and all who came.” -- Wild. There are pro-lifers in my liberal Oakland? Proves Oakland has a diversity of opinions, not just ethnic groups.

More at The Eaten Path : “No well meaning trip to the reality resistant bubble of Berkeley is complete without a visit to one of its three major restaurant rows. In the city’s southeast corner, bordering the upscale settlements of North Oakland, is Elmwood, home to such neighborhood favorites as Trattoria La Siciliana and Ici. On the northern edge of the city is Solano Ave, where university and downtown dwellers can escape central Berkeley to a sunny afternoon of brunch and shopping. Between the two upper crusts of Berkeley stands the Gourmet Ghetto, the foundation of Berkeley’s reputation for delicious food in every form. Anchored by Alice Waters’ universally acclaimed Chez Panisse, the world’s first Peet’s Coffee and a collection of other culinary offshoots and institutions, this is where organic, locally grown ingredients are granted full license to gratify the taste buds of hundreds on a daily basis.”

More at Today in Montclair : “In Oakland, the best-known White Elephant Sale is about to celebrate its 50th birthday!  There’s a preview sale tomorrow, followed by the full event in March. The Oakland Museum Women’s Board (OMWB) organizes this annual extravaganza to raise funds for the museum.  They raised only $500 back in 1959, the first year the sale was held.  Fast forward, and the OMWB hauled in a whopping $1.28 million last year.”

Tony West, who you've frequently seen if you're a visitor to the Oakland Focus Blog , and my YouTube channel Zennie62 , was appointed Assistant Attorney General by President Barack Obama. Congratulations, Tony! I just interviewed Tony , who became a friend during the campaign, on November 12th here and in a talk where one can learn more about the man and his vast background (for example, he's worked in some way for six presidents and now seven) who was just appointed on Friday of this week: But that was not the first time I talked with Tony. Here's the other videos: This one last year at the California State Democratic Convention: And this one when then-Senator Obama visited San Francisco for a large fundraising event:

More at Inside Bay Area : “BERKELEY — About 40 UC Berkeley students braved a steady drizzle Friday for a protest march to call attention to the killing of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer on New Year's Day. The group picked up a few more protesters on its way from Sproul Plaza at the university to the downtown Berkeley BART station. A small group of King Middle School students from Berkeley was set to join them for a walk from the downtown station to the Ashby BART station. The protesters, shadowed by UC Berkeley police, BART police and Berkeley police, passed out petitions that demanded prison for officer Johannes Mehserle and other BART police present at Grant's killing, an open investigation of the incident, disarming the BART police and dropping charges against people involved in previous protests in Oakland. The protest, sponsored by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, was peaceful

Oaklander and YouTuber rubymsw created this very cool video where people around Lake Merritt were asked to give their own recital of the words that President Obama said when he took the Oath of Office.

I was in the middle of finishing an interview in front of the Capital on the night before the Inauguration, when this man came up and said "Hey. You're Zennie. I read yout blog." It turned out he was from Oaklland, and is active in the North Oakland political scene. That led to this video conversation I recorded with Jeff from Oakland.

According to The Huffington Post, MSNBC's Chris Matthews tried to make "Bloggers" a perjorative on his show when he denounced Bloggers as a source for news. This is what was written: Earlier in the segment Matthews speculated that the 'personal problem' that was given as Kennedy's reason for withdrawing was her marriage to Edwin Schlossberg. But when Benjamin said that the "affair question" was surfacing on blogs, Matthews abruptly cut her off: "Let's stick to journalism. I don't do that here. If it's just blogging let's drop it." Chris does not understand the term "Blogging" or that journalists can blog to, thus my video:

Major Oakland developments default on loans - Inside Bay Area : “OAKLAND — At least three major residential-retail projects deemed to be important catalysts for the downtown's revival have toppled into separate mortgage defaults that together total $140 million. The loan defaults have jolted the financial prospects for the downtown Oakland projects that, combined, would bring nearly 300 residential units to the city's urban center. The projects were all originally devised as for-sale condominium developments. "Clearly Oakland is not immune to the soft economy, the problems with the credit markets and the slow housing sector," said Ken Meyersieck, managing partner with the Oakland office of commercial realty brokerage Colliers International.”

Well, after another big large air traffic event, here I am stuck at another airport wating standby -- the byproduct of last-minute travel. This time Dulles Airport. But I'm not alone as I see the same people from flight to flight, trying to return to the SF Bay Area.