Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

On Friday, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums will announce his intentions regarding running for a second term as Mayor of Oakland. Will he or won't he? Frankly, the simple fact he's waited until the last possible day says that he's going to run for reelection. That's the solid prediction here. Moreover, the Joe Tuman for Mayor Campaign seems to know this, as they're working to make sure you know Joe's your other choice for Oakland's next mayor. I conducted two interviews with Tuman, but one of them, the long one, was done on a new HD camera I'm having tech issues with, and so there's the delay. Fortunately, I'm camcorder-rich now, but it's the high dollar ones that always give you the headache. A bigger headache is the Oakland Mayor's race. The Tuman campaign wants me to post that interview - a good one - on Friday, and just to let you know Joe's out there.  Problem is the video won't be ready by then.    But Oaklanders know

On Friday, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums will announce his intentions regarding running for a second term as Mayor of Oakland. Will he or won't he. Frankly, the simple fact he's waited until the last possible day says that he's going to run for reelection. That's the solid prediction here. Moreover, the Joe Tuman for Mayor Campaign seems to know this, as they're working to make sure you know Joe's your other choice for Oakland's next mayor. I conducted two interviews with Tuman, but one of them, the long one, was done on a new HD camera I'm having tech issues with, and so there's the delay. Fortunately, I'm camcorder-rich now, but it's the high dollar ones that always give you the headache. A bigger headache is the Oakland Mayor's race. The Tuman campaign wants me to post that interview - a good one - on Friday, and just to let you know Joe's out there.  Problem is the video won't be ready by then.    But Oaklanders know J

According to The Hartford Courant in Hartford, Connecticut, Omar Thornton, who faced disciplinary action at Hartford Distributors, Inc., opened fire and killed what is now said to be nine people in Manchester, Connecticut, then was shot by police. Earlier reports were that Omar Thornton shot himself; he did not. It was called a "cop shooting" because Omar Thornton did not put his gun down, so police opened fire. According to Fox CT News video on the Hartford Courant page , and via the mother of a woman, Kristi Hannah, who dated him for eight months, the shooter, 34-year old Omar Thornton, who's African American, complained of racism to his employers, but they did nothing. John Hollis, a Teamsters Union official said that Omar Thornton, who was a driver with Hartford Distributors, was a "discipline problem" and the union was bringing Thornton in to "remedy" the problem. Thornton shot a number of people, and as of this writing, it's not

On Saturday, this space reported that the Oakland Lakeshore / Lake Park campaign office for Meg Whitman, the former eBay Chairman and CEO running for California Governor against Jerry Brown, had a warning sign "surveillance" sign in not one but three places on the front window, and that the word "surveillance" was misspelled. It looked like Meg Whitman was expressing how afraid she was of Oakland. Here's the Meg Whitman Oakland Office video : Well, as of Sunday, the Meg Whitman campaign reps came in and took down the signs. However the action doesn't erase the fact that they did it. The office has to go beyond just taking down the signs, they have to embrace the Oakland neighborhood they're in. That means being more open and not just hiding behind a card table. Stay tuned.

In the "now we've seen everything" department, we have former eBay Chairman and CEO Meg Whitman, running for California Governor against Jerry Brown, opening a campaign office in Oakland that shows she and her staff are passive-agressive in their approach to this heavily minority city. The Meg Whitman Oakland campaign office, located near the intersection of Lakeshore and Lake Park and not far from Lake Merritt, is staffed by two young white men; I've not seen anyone of color as of this writing. The gentlemen are nice, but very careful in their communications, almost neurotically so. This reflects Meg Whitman's message to Oaklanders, but even more so is a sign that is placed in three parts of the large bay window. It reads: "SMILE. YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA! 24-HOUR VIDEO SURVELLAINCE" Yep. They misspelled "surveillance." So, not only is Meg Whitman afraid of Oakland, she's so fearful she can't even spell "su

OK, Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin just can't resist putting her foot in her mouth regarding President Obama. She should just admit he's doing a great job and she's got the hots for him. Instead, Palin, who's known for creating new words like "refudiate," had to talk before she realized where she was. According to The Huffington Post , Palin said Obama had no time to be at the U.S. Mexico boarder but was on ABC's The View instead . Now, was Sarah Palin at the U.S. Mexico boarder ? No. She was in Alaska. Alaska. Great. I guess Sarah Palin's going to tell us she can see the U.S. Mexico boarder from her window, right? If Palin were serious, she'd have made her statement from, yep, the U.S. Mexico boarder, but its too late for that. Anyway, going down there is the political kiss of death for any elected official or person running for office. If Sarah Palin is, well, frankly, stupid enough to go down there, she can kiss any idea

Children's Fairyland and Don Macleay in the Oakland Mayor's Race, have urgent announcements in today's Oakland news. Don Macleay, the Green Party candidate running for for Mayor of Oakland, sent out this email for 100 signatures he needs from you this Saturday: Nomination signatures needed. Sat. July 31 10AM Friends, For the campaign to take the next step I need 100 Oakland voters to sign for me. We are collecting signatures all this week. You can contact me, Jan, Greg or Michael. To make it easy we are going to meet at Cafe Dejena on Saturday July 31st at 10 AM. It is at 3939 MLK corner of 40th right near the MacArthur BART EASY to get to on bike, foot and car and easy to park. http://www.cafedejena.com We will have nomination petitions to sign and voter registration cards if you need them. And, now is a good time to donate because the campaign is now finally officially under way. http://macleay4mayor.org/donate.html Don Macleay Children's F