Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

New York, NY - On Tuesday night, the Oakland, California City Council passed a resolution to study configurations for, but not build, an AC Transit Bus Rapid Transit system through Oakland's spine from Telegraph Avenue to along International Blvd. Even though the resolution was supported by the Oakland City Council, it was not without a fire-breathing argument from legendary Oakland City Councilmember Larry Reid. Reid and his constituents feared that a dedicated bus transit lane set would turn International into a kind of "freeway" that divided East Oakland. Reid said that people from North Oakland would not travel down to East Oakland to spend money anyway. I watched the City Council hearing from a distance back east and with sadness because it looked like a terrible racial issue, with older African Americans arguing that their neighborhood was essentially being invaded and destroyed by AC Transit. This blogger completely understands Larry Reid's fears, but

This NFL Draft installment (thanks to the Inn at Irving Place, part of the Small Luxury Hotels of The World brand) comes from New York, Radio City Music Hall - Former Cal-Berkeley and now Detroit Lions 2010 NFL Draft 1st round pick Running Back Jahvid Best sat down with the media for the first time after he was selected by the Lions as the 30th pick in the first round. Jahvid Best seemed relieved to have gotten over with the whole thing. Plus, note Cal Alums that Best was wearing a RED TIE! More on that below, because I got after him about it. Here's the transcript of the interview, with some corrections to match the video above that the FastScripts people missed: JAHVID BEST: I feel great. This is a dream I've had since I was a little kid growing up just to play in the NFL. So this moment here, just experiencing it with my family and my friends and just getting selected is just amazing. Q. What about (Cal Defensive Tackle) Tyson (Alualu) going ahead of you?

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums made a rare visit to the Oakland City Council tonight, Tuesday, and for the purpose of breaking a tie vote on an alternative created by Councilmember Jean Quan to a resolution that if passed would have taken money from the Oakland public campaign financing program and put it into a plan for educating voters on the new Instant Run-Off Voting system. Quan's alternative split money $100,000 for campaigns, and $100,000 for IRV education. The current City of Oakland program provides just over $200,000 for public campaign financing. In other words, the city helps you by providing matching funds. The Mayor stepped forward after a lively but brutally nasty two-minute statement by Oakland's number one gadfly Sanjiv Handa. Sanjiv accused the City of Oakland and its City Council of being "greedy" because incumbent councilmembers running for reelection didn't want to have competition. While this space agrees with Sanjiv in principle, Handa&

The terrible death of 59-year-old Tiansheng Yu one again sheds light on a problem that has plagued Oakland for some time, yet many don't want to talk openly about it. This space has, and will continue to do so. The City of Oakland has a problem with young black men who just walk around picking people who they think are welcome targets for violence. I blogged about this problem many times. In the case of the " mugging over at Wayne Avenue in 2007 ,"a man who lived on the 300 block of Wayne Avenue in Adams Point was mugged at gunpoint. Someone in the area two black men do the crime in what was described as an "underlit driveway." In 2006, a young woman walked around China Hill, Haddon Hill, and Grand Lake posting a letter called Muggings on Athol . The letter, as I wrote then in Oakland Focus , stated a painful fact: that whites are the targets of assault and theft crimes committed by African Americans in the area. She wrote: We are faced with two d

Susan Mernit, Oakland Local Founder and Executive Editor, was kind enough to post her interview with Oakland's At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan at Zennie62.com and at SFGate.com, and here at Oakland Focus. The Rebecca Kaplan interview's a to-the-point discussion of her reasons behind her decision to run. (A bit of disclosure: Rebecca Kaplan's communications director is a blogger and editor at Oakland Local.) Before the text is presented, this blogger has to make one observation: Councilmember Kaplan said she's thought "for months" about running for Mayor. Given that she's barely two years into her time as Councilmember, it seems safe to say Kaplan was not happy being Oakland's At Large elected official and wanted to be Mayor of Oakland as far back as after the first year of her term. But that's this blogger's observation: I yield the floor to Susan Mernit: When Rebecca Kaplan announced last week she had formed a committee to ex

See: city of oakland, mayor of oakland, ron dellums, jean quan, don macLeay, jean quan, greg harland, maya dillard smith, terrance candell The City of Oakland, California Mayor's race is more crowded than you think. It's not just Don Perata, Don MacLeay, Oakland District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan, and Rebecca Kaplan. The Oakland Mayor's Race has ten candidates, nine of them fully known and the last one still largely "under the radar." The full list of Oakland Mayor's Race candidates consists of incumbent Ron Dellums, Don Perata, Don MacLeay, Jean Quan, Greg Harland, Maya Dillard Smith, Terrance Candell, and an tenth person who's still not ready for prime time, but will be. Ten choices for Mayor of Oakland, California. This blogger just got off the phone with Greg Hatland, who's an Oaklander who graduated from Oakland High School in 1964 and lives close to California Attorney General Jerry Brown in the Oakland Hills. Hartland, who's we