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Regular readers of this space know this blogger travels to Atlanta, Georgia to help Mom and just keep her company almost every month. My mother lost her husband and my stepfather in 2005 and to prostate cancer. (In fact, my Mom had breast cancer, and my father and stepfather passed away from prostate cancer in 2005, so that was a hard year.) Fortunately between good friends nearby and my aunts and uncles just four hours by drive in Tennessee, and then me, she's not without company. Even though it's hard on me as an only child, and I'll explain why later in this post, I do enjoy my company with my Mother and for several reasons. First, she knows who I am as a person. Second, I don't know how much life I have to share with her, she's a breast cancer survivor, so things she may said or done that have bothered me in the past, don't impact me anymore. Third, she's my only family member. And finally, my stress goes away when I'm here. We're out in

 Berkeley Prof. Michael O'Hare  The UC Berkeley Letter To Students On California by Berkeley Professor Michael O'Hare is one that California Gubernatorial Candidates Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman should see because both are part of the generations that Michael O'Hare points to as essentially responsible for the decline of California, but for different reasons. Jerry Brown was Governor of California when Prop 13 (also called AB 8), the legislation reducing property taxes to 1 percent, was passed in 1978. Prop 13 us widely pointed to as the legislative device that robbed California of the tax revenue is used to provide the public services it was known for. Meg Whitman never voted or bothered to register to vote, or participated in California Government and politics , but now thinks she can run the state.  The idea of running for governor somehow entered her head 26 months ago. Who Is Michael O'Hare? Michael O'Hare is Professor of Public Policy At The UC

20-year-old 5 feet 7 inch, 240 pound, brown eyed and black haired Andrew Barrientos is armed, dangerous, and on the run after shooting a Fremont police officer who was trying to serve a search warrant at an East Oakland house at 2009 Auseon Ave, according to Oakland Police Spokesperson Jeff Thomason. Fortunately, the unnamed Fremont Officers's injuries are not life threatening. He's being treated for a leg wound at Highland Hospital. Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums issued this statement: Our hearts and prayers are with the Fremont police officer shot this afternoon, his loved ones, his fellow law enforcement officers and the City of Fremont family as they cope with this latest incident of senseless violence. On behalf of the Oakland community, I thank him for his law enforcement service and express my deep regret that this dedication has resulted in injury on our streets. I support Chief Batts and the men and women of the Oakland Police Department in pursuing every lead to

According to an email from Richard Lieberman, KPIX Channel Five in San Francisco has suffered a rash of departures due to the terrible economy. Richard's become the recorder of change in San Francisco Bay Area Media via his blog Rich Lieberman Report . In fact, Rich's so good some of the local newspapers and news websites quote his scoops without crediting him . Not here. Anna Duckworth  Here's Richard's info: Jeffrey Schaub sent me a list of the prime talent that have left or were removed from KPIX these past two years-- Manny Ramos Tony Russomanno Bill Schechner John Lobertini Rick Quan Barbara Rodgers Jeffrey Schaub Hank Plante Anna Werner Lisa Chan Sue Quan Anna Duckworth John Kessler Sydnie Kohara? Wendy Tokuda as anchor Wow, I wasn't aware so many people left, especially Anna Duckworth and John Kessler? But that's what I get for being on planes back and forth to Atlanta and New York City so much. Also sad to read of the pa

In an effort to keep you as consistently informed about the Oakland Mayor's Race as possible, this blogger assembled the first playlist of interviews of Oaklanders running for Mayor. Don MacLeay  This playlist, however, is not complete and but it will be, and soon. As of this writing, it contains 8 videos of seven of the 10 candidates, totaling approximately 140 minutes, and 6,051 views (and counting). So far, Terrance Candell, Greg Harland, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, Don MacLeay, Councilmember Jean Quan, and Joe Tuman (with an asterisk), have been interviewed. Kaplan represents two videos with one more to be added. Tuman and Harland both have one more video each coming to the set, and in Tuman's case a full 30 minute conversation. And I have to talk to Marcie Hodge, Arnie Fields, and Larry Lionel Young. The playlists do not include forum videos or Oaklanders impressions of the candidates, or the race itself. That will be in a separate playlist. As to h

Senator Don Perata Seeking to help define The Oakland Mayor's Race, KPIX Channel Five elected to conduct a poll of 591 "likely voters" in Oakland. The poll, of which this blogger has not seen the actual questions but may square with anecdotal reports, says that Former Senator Don Perata got 41 percent of 1st choice votes, Oakland City Councilmember Jean Quan got 26 percent of 1st choice votes, and Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan got 14 percent of 1st choice votes. The other candidates combined earned 12 percent of 1st choice votes. When asked for a second choice those who picked Kaplan went Perata, and those who went for Quan picked Kaplan. But the CBS report never mentioned the 3rd choice results. What this means is that CBS has some weird interest in not mentioning the names of the other candidates. In other words, their poll reporting is either sloppy, lazy or fixed. Why in hell would Channel Five have any interest in the Oakland Mayors race to the degre

Councilmemer Pat Kernighan  Just about an hour ago this blogger posted the news of Oakland City Council District Two  (Glenview, Chinatown) Candidate Jennifer Pae picking up a valuable endorsement in the form of Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. In the blog post, I offered the view that perhaps the backing of Carson "may be the beginning of the end." May. Even with that, and with the overall tone of communicating that Pat was in a battle, I got this hot email from Councilmember Kernighan: Zennie, Perhaps you are jumping to conclusions about the "beginning of the end" for moi. Would you like to report the facts that I have the endorsements of Attorney General Jerry Brown, Supervisor-elect Wilma Chan, Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker and Council President Jane Brunner, among others? Do you know that the leader of every NCPC and neighborhood group in my district supports me because I have worked hard every day for the past five years advocating for

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