Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Well, with former Oakland City Attorney and Alameda County City Manager John Russo's blessing, Barbara Parker, who Russo mentioned in my video interview with him as one of his lieutenants who "handles the (Oakland City) council's agenda," now has the title of "Acting City Attorney." Here's the press release from the City of Oakland: OAKLAND, CA - Chief Assistant City Attorney Barbara J. Parker, a longtime Oakland resident and second in command of the City Attorney's Office, will take over as Acting City Attorney effective 11:30 a.m. today. In a letter sent Friday to the Mayor and City Council, outgoing City Attorney John Russo wrote that Parker will serve as Acting City Attorney "to assure a seamless transition with an experienced, eminently qualified attorney in charge of the Office until the Council makes its appointment decision." The City Council passed a resolution declaring the Office of City Attorney vacant as of June 13. &q

The person in this video above reportedly broke into a 28-year old woman's home in Oakland, and was allegedly in the process of stealing a box of "electronics" when she caught him via cellphone camera. Here's the full video: He's described as "a black man in his early 40s, five feet nine, 160 pounds, with a bald head," but as you can tell he's more light-skinned black or a person of color, who may be black or Latino. According to reports, the woman didn't scream or call 911. And after the man left her home at her request, then he reportedly returned and sexually assaulted her. She was sent to the hospital for treatment, then released. What I can't help asking is why didn't she call, or try to call, the police when the dude left the house the first time? Also, in the video she sounds rather calm for someone who was supposedly taken by surprise by the man. She says "can you please leave. How did you get in here?&q

UPDATE: Joel Young Issues Must Read Statement - Click Here. According to Indy Bay, which is all over this story, AC Transit Board Of Director's member Joel Young , who had a promising political career and filed to run for the California State Assembly (District 16) against the incumbent Sandre Swanson in 2012, is seeing it go off the rails in a sex scandal.  Young is accused of domestic violence by his ex-girlfriend, who was granted a restraining order against him, that was filed on March 16th, 2011 and became active April 5th. A hearing on the domestic violence complaint is set for August. Reportedly, Young's ex-girlfriend found him in bed with another woman in March. The woman confronted Mr. Young, who allegedly attacked her, and she was hospitalized. Later, she called the police to file a report, but it's not clear from Indy Bay that an arrest was made. Meanwhile, Young filed his own restraining order against his ex-girlfriend on April 14th, and said that

If you are on Grand Avenue and Mac Arthur in Oakland, California, during the rush hour and school mornings and afternoons, you've seen Lloyd. For 13 years, the man, 76 years old and turning 77 July 10th, served as the official crossing guard for that corner for 13 years. Over that time, Lloyd has always worn a big smile and had a greeting for everyone, without fail. He says that by smiling he makes others happy in a kind of "pay-it forward" way. As to what's changed about Oakland from his vantage point, Lloyd gave me a surprising answer: that everyone's in a hurry, "Nobody got time for nothing. People just rush by." So, let's pay it forward, and back to Lloyd - give him not just a smile, but a greeting. Stop and talk to him for a spell. It's a great way to pay back someone' who's given so much to so many with his time on that busy corner of Oakland.

The new Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe finishes a buildout of the front store spaces of The Fox Theater in Oakland, and is enjoying its first week of operation, this week. The deal to get Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe at the Fox Theater started just over two years ago, and while it was delayed in fits and starts of deal-making, the end result was well worth the wait. This blogger walked in on just plain impulse and, possessing a craving for breakfast at night, changed mind and ordered the Monday Blue Plate Special: The Meatloaf. A full, hearty meal of the kind not seen during the whole California Cuisine craze (which I'm somewhat happy has been altered to encourage larger portions), the meatloaf was almost as good as my Mom's at home, and overall I'd give it a B. The atmosphere at Rudy's was incredible. Bright and airy, it's a great place to hang out and talk or people watch over a great meal. The added plus is a kind of dining car in the rear of t

In this tech news, the first annual (hopefully) Code For Oakland hackathon is history. The event drew 102 people, complete with Oakland and San Francisco geeks, and notable non-geeks like AC Transit Board Member and long-time Oakland Piedmont Avenue Activist Chris Peeples, resulted in a number of fascinating and promising applications, all designed with the needs of Oakland's low-income residents and those who aren't well "connected" in mind. The Saturday, June 4th meetup at Kaiser Center was sparked via the efforts of Oakland Local Founder and Editor Susan Mernitt, and "about 20 people," as Susan explained in the video, who contributed to getting Code For Oakland off the ground. What's Code For Oakland? Code For Oakland's mission was simply to have a "one day workshop to build an awesome mobile app." As one of the judges involved in the selection of the winning teams, I can share the criteria we were given to work under, a

View Larger Map The loss of my T-Mobile Samgung Galaxy Variant in a taxi cab has led to bad service encounters at T-Mobile's Oakland, California store at 3201 Lakeshore Avenue. The obvious point aside, which is specifically to watch what pocket you place your phone in, that's no reason this blogger should get the minimum level of service at a T-Mobile story. Three visits to the T-Mobile Oakland Lakeshore store this week have resulted in being told that the store did not have a hotspot-capable (even with a file download) 3G phone, when I knew damn well it did. And who told me that? A T-Mobile sales person by the name of Grace. And that was just the highlight of a period of bad treatment.  Grace simply did not want to help me. She basically told me that the 4G phone I wanted to buy was $500, but in a way that implied I could not afford it because I didn't want to pay that amount all at once. Then, she failed to even try to call T-Mobile and arrange for a di

Last night this vlogger trekked down over to the Uptown District in Oakland to just check out how the scene was changing. The result? The video you see above. It started with a walk over to the Fox Theater, with a look at how the much-anticipated Oakland version of Emeryville's Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe was coming along. As it turns out the owners were hosting what California Capital Group's Mark McClure called a "soft launch," but considering the tweets we've exchanged, like this one ... @RudyCantFailCaf Rudy'sCan'tFailCafe @zennie62 not quite yet...a couple more weeks...we'll keep you posted! Check out the RCFC-Oakland FB page for the deets!!! You figure they'd have invited me to the damn thing, right? Oh well. Maybe they will have this kid dancing at the opening: But that aside, the Oakland Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, which occupies a space that was once an adult book store, officially opens this coming Monday from

On May 17th, this blogger interviewed now former Oakland City Attorney John Russo on video, as you can see. There have been three blog post written in this space, referring to that 38-minute interview. But even with that, comes the usual San Francisco Bay Area journalist that has to tell you they got an "exclusive" with Mr. Russo, and after the interview. Enter the website Oakland North this week. So, the initial plan was to run this new blog post next week, but considering Oakland North's hubris or error in claiming they had an "exclusive" interview, I figured "Why not today," so here it is. John Russo Recaps Sports In Oakland When John Russo gave his video interview for this blogger, he talked about how proud he was that he settled a number of legal issues with Oakland's sports teams, the Oakland A's, Golden State Warriors, and the Oakland Raiders. But, as John leaves for Alameda to become its new city manager, he says there are

Unless you've had some doubt, let this blog post put to rest the idea that the Oakland Sideshow is dead. It's not. It's alive and well on International Boulevard, as this video, made during the East Bay Dragons event, and uploaded today on YouTube by wbr510 , shows: The East Bay Dragons are the same group linked to sideshow activity, and were the focus of the murder of a San Leandro man on Sunday night. But But Phil Baker, the East Bay Dragons vice president, told the San Jose Mercury News that "the clubhouse was closed early in the evening and all their members had gone home or elsewhere." That would seem to exonerate the Dragons from the Sunday night shooting, but the video above points to the Dragons as the producer of this sideshow.  And care must be taken not to associate that video with that incident simply because the SJ Mercury News account points to a night-time sideshow - the one captured in this video below. Second Video Shows Dragons Sid

In a Sunday evening interview with Lawrence Scott of KNTV NBC Bay Area Channel 11, San Francisco, Golden State (Oakland) Warriors new "executive board member," NBA Legend Jerry West, said the one set of words this blogger has wanted to hear for years: the Warriors "need to get bigger." The Golden State (Oakland) Warriors of owner Chris Cohan and Team President Robert Rowell were known as a small, fast team without the "towers" necessary to compete in tough games down the stretch. And in much of their history since the late 80s, the Warriors were never known for that 'big guy in the middle.' The last person with the ability required to wear that tag was "The Chief," Center Robert Parish, who left in what was described as a trade that cemented Celtics President, the legendary Red Auerbach's " reputation for thievery ," at the expense of The Warriors. Auerbach dealt the first and 13th picks in the 1980 NBA Draft to The

While open for about a month now, the official grand opening of the new Kwik Way on Lake Park Avenue, just five doors down from the Grand Lake Theater, happened last Sunday. A small group of people consisting of friends of the restaurant's owner Gary Rizzo, people from the neighborhood, and Oakland's District Two Councilmember Pat Kernighan, and this blogger, lined up to order everything from burgers and fries to chicken. As I approached the eatery, I saw Lakeshore Business Improvement District Executive Director and friend Pam Drake, who explained that Rizzo received a great deal of help from the City of Oakland, and specifically Kernighan's office. No, the City of Oakland didn't provide money, but did provide help in the way of expediting the permit process for Rizzo. And why not? The Kwik Way is a long dead landmark brought back to economic life. And already has become a place to hang over a decent, old-fashioned bag of fries. Well, not too old-fashion

In my last blog posts, I introduced the new drug INCIVEK by Vertex as a way to help people suffering from Hepatitis C. As I reported, Hepatitis C is a virus, particularly common among African Americans, and that causes inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C effects an estimated 270 million to 300 million people Worldwide, 30,000 people in Santa Clara County, 12,000 people in San Francisco City and County, and 2,400 new cases were reported in 2010. For this blog post, and as promised, I interviewed the main advocate for the use of INCIVEK. His name is Steve Goodwin. Steve Goodwin is a chief engineer and a one-person band, talking to anyone who will listen about INCIVEK. In the video, below, Goodwin eloquently explains how he came to find out about INCIVEK via the use of the website Clinical Trials, at clinicaltrials.gov , and how it's helped him to a more normal path of life. Steve also wrote a paper of INCIVEK and how it's helped him, and all of this has been hi