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Jenn Pae A slowly developing challenge to Oakland City Council District Two Councilmember Patricia Kernighan now has the magical look of an upset effort. Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson has announced he's backing Jennifer Pae as the next District Two Councilmember for Oakland. "I am honored to have the support of Supervisor Keith Carson," said Pae. "Supervisor Carson has a long history of protecting working families and I look forward to working with him on ways we can invest in Oakland." Jennifer Pae is a 28-year-old Korean American community organizer who has been involved in a number of grassroots political efforts in Oakland. Pat Kernighan It's not the only bit of news from Jenn's campaign: she's also out-raised the incumbent Councilmember Kernighan by (according to the last reporting period) over $10,000, or $36,638 versus $20,393. While Pat reportedly has raised $47,000 overall, and before her last cocktail-oriented

Don, are you out polling? For some time candidates in the Oakland Mayor's Race, let alone Oaklanders, have not had a handle on who the real front-runner in the Oakland Mayor's Race was. And no wonder; no one had done a poll. Well, as of this writing, that's changed. Someone's conducting a poll of Oaklanders, but what's n not known by this space is who's doing the poll. The only clue available that a poll is in the works is this Tweet: davidcolburn - I've been polled twice on the Oakland mayor's race in past 48 hours. Is everyone getting calls, or am I just lucky? about 6 hours ago via TweetCaster The concern here is for the design of the poll. Does it mention each of the ten candidates for Mayor to determine awareness? Is it done by one of the candidates, or another group or organization? How many people are being contacted? Whatever the case, a poll of the Oakland Mayor's Race is being conducted. A fair speculation is that it

Joe Tuman  When this blogger got an email from a person who was concerned that Joe Tuman's campaign was placing lawn signs where they should not be, and wanted to know where to file a complaint, it was discounted because there was no photo or video to go with the email.  No proof. Instead, it seemed logical to connect the person who sent the email directly with the Joe Tuman campaign; they followed up with the complainer, copying this blogger in the process. But what seemed to be a small issue's slowly turning into a bigger one. Here's the latest two Tweets from Joe Tuman's Twitter account: Our Yard Signs seem to be disappearing....? Someone is not happy about Oakland changing for the better! about 5 hours ago via Facebook Are Yard Signs seem to be disappearing? Keep an eye out as someone is not happy about changing Oakland for the better. And to be fair, here's the email sent that I wasn't going to post at first. Since the Tuman campaign's compl

EBYD.  Greg Harrland's running... Yep. Another forum is coming up for the Oakland Mayor's Race. It's the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club Forum on September 10th. Held at Everett and Jones Restaurant in Jack London Square at 12 Noon that day, every mayoral candidate has been invited to what's both a forum and an endorsement meeting. East Bay Young Democrats (EBYD) Behind Current Events On its website on the Oakland Mayor's Race , the East Bay Young Democrats explain that "there are three main contenders for the cities top position, and goes on to mention Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, Former Senator Don Perata, and Councilmember Jean Quan, and that's it. The web page was created before the June 10th mayoral forum at First Unitarian Church and never updated. Here's an assist. There are 10 candidates for Mayor of Oakland: Terrance Candell, Arnold Fields, Greg Harland, Marcie Hodge, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, Don Macleay,

Mayor Goodman Just when it seemed San Jose was the only city that wants the Oakland Athletics to leave Oakland and move to a planned new stadium there, enter Las Vegas. According to Ballpark Digest , Oscar Goodman, the Mayor of Las Vegas, said his city has entered talks about building a 45,000 seat domed ballpark for an American League team and representatives of that team are involved. While Mayor Goodman did not mention the Oakland A's by name, it's widely known in the media that Las Vegas has been a favored option for A's managing owner Lew Wolff, and as recently as last year. Also, according to the Sports Business Daily , MLB Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig reportedly met with Mayor Goodman and "A's Execs" as recently as last year, a rumor that neither MLB or the Oakland A's would confirm. Las Vegas Mayor Goodman said that the talks were in "the early stages" and that they may not go anywhere, saying "I’m not going to tell y

This is a quick supplemental and update to this blogger's last Oakland Mayor's Race blog post on Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan's call to the Oakland Sierra Club Chapter's Volunteer Chairman Kent Lewandowski, asking if he and the organization would open the scheduled Wednesday, August 25th Oakland Green Mayoral Forum (from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM) at East Bay Community Foundation 353 Frank Ogawa Plaza Oakland, CA) to all candidates. Well, after all of that, The Sierra Club cleaned it's own air and made it fresh-smelling again , well, to everyone except the Oakland Climate Action Coalition. (Geez, how many non-profits do we have!?) A email was just received from Kent Lewandowski, which reads as follows: Zennie, We are proceeding with the forum and are inviting all the candidates. I have the following candidates listed on the registrar of voters filing report (see page 22): 1. ARNOLD FIELDS 2. DON MACLEAY 3. DON PERATA 4. GREG HARLAND 5. JEAN QUAN 6. JOE

As this blogger has written, The (yeah, capital "T") Oakland Mayor's Race is going to get even more interesting and today, Thursday, is proof. Pay attention to this blog post if you enjoy laughter and guffaws, and you know you do. First, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan phoned to say she called Kent Lewandowski, volunteer Chairperson for the Northern Alameda County Group of the Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter, and the author of what's still the most awful email in Oakland Politics ever seen by this blogger, to ask him to include all of the candidates. I must admit, this is funny If you're just getting wind of this fart the Sierra Club broke, Kent Lewandowski sent an email to almost every candidate in the Oakland Mayor's Race (except Arnie Fields), to inform them and by "cc" this blogger that because they were not "viable" candidates, they would not be part of the Wednesday, August 25th "Oakland Green Mayoral Forum."