Oakland's Tiki Tom's Restaurant - The Last Video - Part One

On October 7th, 2010, Oakland's Tiki Tom's Restaurant burned down in a blaze of fire that rang up an estimated $750,000 worth of building damage. There was, and still as of this writing, no known cause of the fire. According to several sources, the building was chain locked, and while the power had been turned off, PG&E reported it wasn't their doing.

The fire was officially labeled "suspicious."

Everything was burned, including the boat, a Tampa 66 Chris Craft according to Tom Davies AKA "Tiki Tom", docked on the Oakland Estuary, and in back of the eatery.

The restaurant that was located at 329 29th Avenue with the frog on top was at the center of what it's owner, "Tiki Tom" called "The Oakland Riviera" during a video tour.

This blogger was taken there the day before my 48th birthday on August 4th, and by long-time friends Bob and Barbara Schock, who are new Oakland District Four Councilmember Libby Schaaf's parents.

As I taken with the atmostphere, food, and cocktails of the place, I asked for the owner's permission to make a full video of Tiki Tom's, and out came Tiki Tom himself. (Who looks a lot like my long-time friend Lars Frykman, but without the beard.) The result was one of the wackiest tours I've ever taken of anyplace in my life.

The video - the last one of the entire restaurant and perhaps the only one that includes the boat in its interior - reflects that.

On the day we visited, there was almost no one in the place.  Save for one guy at the bar and four of what turned out to be Tom's friends near the water-side and rear of the facility, and the wait staff, Tiki Tom's was empty.  They were happy to be able to serve us.

But once I turned on the Flip Video Camcorder (one the CNN iReport staff gave me for being an iReport beta contributor in 2007 and that Flip created especially for CNN) man his eyes lit up, and off we went, starting with a talk about the frog on the top of the building.  (I didn't say he was going to be on CNN, or anything like that, but hey having that specially-made camcorder works.)

I asked him about the frog, and he went into a hilarious wild-man rant, saying it's at the top of the place because "people can't find it without the frog. They go round-and-round like they're in Mexico, man!" Then Tom went on a rant about how he got it that was so fast and funny it was hard to understand.  What he was saying was that his buddy who owned it paid $10,000 for it, and he paid $500 worth of drinks for it, "now leave my frog alone!"

Too funny.

He recommended I order their signature dish, the coconut prawns.  I did, and they were excellent, along with the oysters and sanddabs.  Then the Tiki Tom tour started.

Tom said that Tiki Tom's has, or now had surfboards dating back as far as 1930 with the youngest one made in 2002, making his place the only West Coast, California, all exclusive surfboard collection, handcrafted and ridden by Tom himself at every beach along the California coast."   Tom even shared his scar from being bitten by an "albino alligator."

Then, with belly full of a lot of seafood, and Michael Jackson's Beat It blaring through the place, Tom took me on a quick tour that ended on his boat, the Tampa 66 Chris Craft.

We got on the boat via a ladder that's not directly connected to it, so you really have to watch your step.  But once you're on it, it's part time.  Or was.

Tom said he had a lot of parties on the boat; I got the impression that if the boat could talk, a best-selling book and movie would result.  At the very least.

Richard Branson's Surfboard?

On the way back to the table where I left Bob and Barbara, Tom pointed to a surfboard on the ceiling he said was once owned by Virgin Billionaire Richard Branson.   More on that, later.

Tiki Tom, The Oakland Character

Since the fire, Tom Davies has not been officially seen.  I don't know what happened to him.  But, given all that I've seen and heard, and nothing not online or in this video or blog, I think Tom may have been cash-strapped and figured that burning the place down was the only way to recover some money and help his staff.



Just a guess.

We asked the waitress where everyone was and she said they were a little lean on patrons, or words to that effect. It's no secret the weak economy has been hard on Oakland, as it's near 20 percent unemployment rate has shown.   But it's really, really sad that Tom lost his beloved business and boat.  It's also sad that Oakland's lost such a wonderful place.

From the video below, it looks like he had a lot of friends and had a lot of fun:



Stay tuned.

NORAD Santa Tracker - Christmas Eve Santa Tracking

This year, 2010, once again this blogger is following (kinda) the Santa Tracker, but while tree trimming, wine drinking, and talking, and listening to Nat and Frank (Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra).

 But here's my NORAD Santa Tracker Video, because I just had to!



This business of going to the NORAD website to track Santa Claus' trip around the World is rather cool, but I'm in the middle of watching It's A Wonderful Life, so I decided to embed the tracker right here in my blog:



As of 6 PM PST / 9 PM EST, Santa Claus is , well, he's moving really fast! (If the embed doesn't work in your browser, click on the NORAD link.)

Merry Christmas!

Oakland News: Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente Gets DUI Arrest

Sad news. According to the San Jose Mercury News, veteran Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente (pictured) was arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Thursday night at 7:30 PM.

Nacho was arrested, booked, released, and given a future court date to appear.

The CHP (California Highway Patrol) Officer said something that can and should do him in, in court: that "he believed De La Fuente was speeding" and that the officer "noticed impairment."

So, let's see here.

First, the CHP officer didn't have a speed gun to have evidence to back his claim of speeding. Second, the officer didn't have a Breathalyzer to record Ignacio's blood - alcohol level to back his claim that Ignacio was "impaired."

What the hell was this CHP officer doing?  No speed gun.  No Breathalyzer.  And he just hauls Ignacio in, anyway.  Near Christmas.  

Nuts.

I don't care - not a big rats butt - if it happens to everyone; it's not supposed to happen to anyone. So, for those of you who applaud this news, don't.  Stop supporting a screwed up system just because you love to see bad things happen to good people.

If the Alameda County Superior Court judges are worth the votes it took to get them into office, this case should be dismissed.  It damn well better be.

It should be against the law for any officer to make a DUI arrest without instrument record to back his or her claim.   That's just wrong.

Maybe now that Ignacio's got a taste for this crap, as I do, he'll become an advocate for a better system. The one California has in place is nothing more than a money-mill to maintain a California prison-industrial system.

Merry Christmas and don't drink and drive.  Let's have a weekend where the cops have a ZERO arrest record.  Don't give any CHP officer an excuse to arrest you.   Oakland police have better things to do.

Get a limo, like I did in this video:

Oakland News: Top 21 Oakland Christmas Gifts

Merry Christmas Oakland!

Normally, this would be a "top 10" list, but we have so many well deserving Oaklanders, and people who do business in Oakland, that I expanded it to 21.

Why 21?

Because once I started thinking about who deserves an Oakland Christmas Gift, the list just kept going on and on.

It's the by-product of knowing a lot of people in this town. A lot of people who deserve positive recognition. I could have gone on to 40, but had to cut it off at some point.

Here's the list!

1. For former Oakland Mayor and now California Governor-Elect Jerry Brown: patience and focus. He's going to need both.
2. For Oakland Teachers: $500 more per teacher, per month. That would help many, many well-deserving and hard working teachers in Oakland.
3. For Mayor-Elect Jean Quan: A Green Oakland Mayor's Bus so she can travel free of parking ticket worry, and get around in a socially-responsible way!
4. For Al Davis and The Oakland Raiders: A NEW STADIUM. The Coliseum was only refurbished to bring the Raiders back to Oakland, not to give the Raiders a state of the art stadium. I told this to the Oakland City Council in 1997, when I was Elihu Harris' Economic Advisor. Then-Oakland Councilmember and now Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley wanted to choke me. "We just spent $197 million and you're telling me it's not state-of-the-art?," he asked. Yep. It's wasn't then, and it's not now. The corridors are too narrow by five feet. The suites at the west side of the Coliseum need a big upgrade. And the places where slip-and-falls can and do happen are still abundant. The lights are not bright enough to be completely effective for night games. There's no after-game restaurant or hotel to take in patrons waiting for BART when they leave the games, let alone gain revenue. In short, and I could go on, and we're just getting by.
5. For The Oakland A's: An owner who cares about Oakland. It's hard to get anyone behind you in Oakland, when you're always trying to get out of it. The drive for a new stadium has nothing to do with any civic love for A's Managing Owner Lew Wolff, and everything to do with Oakland's love for the A's. Mr. Wolff can treat Oakland much better than he has to date. He's tried to leave Oakland almost since he took ownership of the organization; that has to stop.
6. For Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts: 100 new police officer positions and the money to keep them.
7. For Oaklanders who's cars were towed because of the trollish parking enforcement system: $2,000 each toward a new car. Considering that you have to wait one year for Oakland to pay you back for its parking errors, you (er, we) deserve it.
8. For the 10 Candidates in The Oakland Mayor's Race: a bottle of wine each for making Oakland politics fun again!
9. For Rod Dibble at The Alley: a $100 tip for being an Oakland treasure at the piano!
10. For Lara and Gar Truppelli, owners of The Lake Chalet Restaurant: the Oakland Foodies Change Award for having the courage to completely alter their menu and staff in just one year, and for opening up the Lake Chalet to fun events. That's a huge facility on Lake Merritt. A jewel nonetheless.
11. For Oakland Rapper Too Short: A "Too Short Day" by the Oakland City Council. Too Short put Oakland on the map as much as the Oakland Raiders have. He deserves it.
12. For East Oakland: A battery manufacturing plant. That area needs jobs as the unemployment rate is over 20 percent,and more. Such plants are springing up around America. Oakland needs one.
13. For Oakland City Attorney John Russo: an Oakland City Council that won't screw with his already tight budget.
14. For Oakland Gang Members: EMPATHY, in large doses.
15. For outgoing Mayor Ron Dellums and Former Oakland-Mayor Elihu Harris:  Legacy Videos. Because their final years in politics - for Dellums as The Mayor of Oakland and Harris as Peralta Community College Chancellor - have marred their incredible political careers, the videos are a reminder of the great works they have done.
16. For Oakland's Media: ad revenue, from some source.
17. For Oakland Former City Manager and Legends Henry Gardner, Dick Spees, and Richard Winnie: Days for each of them by The Oakland City Council.
18. For New Oakland District 4 Councilmember and friend Libby Schaaf: Big Army Boots! To make sure she remains grounded, focused, and humble in her new and deservedly lofty position.
19. To Russ and the staff at Gaylord's Cafe on 41st and Piedmont: A Certificate Of Excellence In Late Night Cafe Operation! Gaylord's stays open until 12 midnight, and has become a focal point for Oakland's Internet-Based Workforce.
20. To Oscar Grant and His Family: An "Oscar Grant Day" by the Oakland City Council, to remind us of the need for a police force that's a friend to, and not an adversary of, the community.
21. To Grand Lake Theater Owner Alan Michaan: An all-day free-parking area of 40 cars and only for patrons of the Grand Lake Theater.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa Baby 99ers Christmas Unemployment Song

Presenting the Santa Baby 99ers Christmas Unemployment Song, or The Santa Baby 99ers Song, on Christmas Eve.

Donalee King (in photo from Zennie62.com), who goes by Paladinette, at Zennie62.com, created this variation of the classic Christmas Song Santa Baby.

King, a blogger who also has her own blog called Jobless Unite,  is one of the so-called "99ers," those who's unemployment benefits have ran out after the 99-week limit, and seek an extension of benefits, or better yet, a job.

In seeking both, the San Diego resident has become a tireless advocate for the jobless. Her work on this song landed her notice by the LA Times.

The video is below, followed by the lyrics, which are graphic but worth reading and singing...if you dare!

(In fact, if you're in Oakland, California, print out the lyrics, take them down to The Alley at 3325 Grand Avenue, present them to Rod Dibble at the piano, and ask he would accompany you in song. Santa Baby is a song he knows how to play.)




Lyrics to video song Santa Baby - 99ers Style 2010

Congress Baby, the 99ers need a tier 5......to survive

I know you’re HEARTLESS P@#*s But....so what?

My children need some dinner tonight!

The car got repo’d and the rent is awfully late...but wait

You only care for the rich that’s a B*@#H

there’s millions of us dying out here

We can’t afford a Christmas tree

While you’re all buying Cartier at Tiffany

You bailed out banks Greece and Haiti too

I think it’s time the 99ers heard from you

Obama baby, just help the 99ers please

and... don’t tease

Been a really tough year

Out here

I Hope Your change is comin’ tonight

Obama honey, you sold 99ers flat out

no doubt

and now it’s snowing out,

My stomach’s growling

I need some food and shelter tonight

Sherrod honey, Schumer and that Stabenow too

Were through we all trusted you

but senate baby your lies have left us hurtn’ out here

We’re not rich - guess we don’t count

The dirty little secret you won’t talk about

There’ll be no jobs again next Year

It’s time you kicked your senate’s butts into high gear

Congress baby just pretend to care for us poor

once more - come on it’s just a check - so what the heck?

there’s millions of us dying out here!

That’s right I’d rather work than fight

Hurry Congress there’s 99ers dying TONIGHT

Merry Christmas!

Festivus 2010: No Mediaite Festivus? What Gives?

Festivus, that annual celebration for the rest of us, is upon us, once again. But in 2010 Festivus just don't feel like, well, Festivus.

The idea was first introduced in Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld's long-running television comedy, as an alternative to what some perceive as the commericialization of Christmas.

But this time, Festivus doesn't feel like Festivus, and maybe that's because the idea was started by a long-cancelled TV show, rather than a religious event?

At any rate, I know Festivus isn't as huge this year, because Mediaite's not mentioning it at all. Last year, the online media watchdog publication had a Mediaite Festivus of the top 50 media influencers in 2009, and that I talked about in my vlog here:



This year, zip.  Nada.

And while Festivus is a Google Trend, some of the blogs and articles don't seem to be focused on it in the title heading.  Festivus is more the day that, say, an NFL football game is being played.

I think AOL's David Knowles got it right when he observed that Festivus lived on, although Seinfeld reruns were "dated."  I think Festivus is headed in the same direction.  But there's still Christmas, and always will be.

Now, for this blogger, Christmas is about giving, not necessarily buying. It's also a celebration of the time of Christ's birth.

That's forgotten.

An aside.

For some reason there are people who just want to be mean. They want to be mean 24 and 7, and so they hate Christmas. Can't stand it. Those people are sad sacks. There's nothing wrong with being nice to people and giving to them in honor of the birth of Christ, and because it's just a plain nice thing to do.

As I said to someone who explained the common rationale for not celebrating Christmas, in other words, it's commericialized, "Christmas is something you do with society. Why does it have to be about you?"

Don't be selfish. Get into the sprit. Give of yourself.

Happy Festivus and Merry Christmas!

Oakland Twitter Tweets For Wednesday, December 23rd 2010

There's so much going on in Oakland, it's hard to represent it all in just one blog post.  The Oakland City Council approves use of up to $750,000 for an environmental study for a baseball stadium for The Oakland A's.  The City of Oakland sues three sub-standard hotels said to be prostitution dens.   The Oakland Raiders get ready to host The Indianapolis Colts.  It's all here, and more.  

A newsletter is just a static report, too. So how does one best capture all that's happening in Oakland? A Twitter Tweet stream like the one below.

What's neat is you can see the changing news scene in Oakland, as well as what's happening off the mainstream media path. Check it out:



Read more: http://www.technixupdate.com/add-display-twitter-tweets-stream-to-website-or-blog/#ixzz18tKNeew3

Rosati's Is One Of The Best Pizzas In The World, Next To Zachary's

Ok, Rosati's Pizza is the best in my World, but what's the difference between it and Zachary's Pizza?

As this blogger writes this post, it's Tuesday morning at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near O'Hare Airport. It's snowing outside. And I'm looking at the remains of a Rosati's Deep Dish Pizza I ordered last night.

I grew up in Chicago, so Zachary's Pizza in Oakland's a welcome reminder of Chicago-style pizza. That is, until you've had Chicago-style pizza.

The difference between the Rosati's Pizza and Zachary's Pizza? The sausage. The Rosati's Deep Dish Pizza has that insanely great Italian sausage and a lot of it and in large portions. That's it.

Really. That's it.   Other than that,

So, come on Zachary's Pizza in Oakland, up that Italian sausage count!

Christmas Travel: Stuck At O'Hare At A Crowne Plaza Where The Phone Failed

Well, here's another blog post in the annals of Zennie's air travels: stuck at O'Hare Airport (again), but this time in a Crowne Plaza where the room phone doesn't work. That's right: this blogger can't call out or in. Thankfully cell phone and Twitter make up for the phone fail.

What happened was United Airlines flight UA 102 made it to Chicago from San Francisco and landed in what at first was a relatively typical snow for Chicagoland. That was 6:12 PM CST; as the night got older the snow got worse, and eventually O'Hare took on the look of The North Pole, complete with sightings of Santa Claus outside.

And, yes, the weather outside was somewhat frightful. A good 24 degrees. Yes, it's been colder than that with the wind-chill, but the snow's snarling travel. And as is my generally bad luck, the connecting flight I was to get on to Atlanta was delayed.

And then delayed.

And then the United gate reps explained the airplane we were to board had landed. To that end, this standby passenger got seat 12 F and waited.

And waited.

And waited and talked with a woman from Vancover BC and a brother from LA.

And then had a hunch that something was wrong with the flight, so went online to check its status. Sure enough, just seconds before United told the passengers at the gate, the flight was cancelled.

Well, I'm used to that, and I know the drill. Hey, it happened to me after this 767 flight a few weeks ago for Thanksgiving:



But I digress...

There's a service you can use at United's Customer Service Desk that provides pink vouchers where you can get deep hotel discounts if you're stuck at O'Hare and don't want to sleep there overnight. The place I stay at is the Hilton at O'Hare Aiport, only this time, the freaking hotel was booked two hours before my flight was cancelled.

So, the service person gave me the next choice: the Crowne Plaza Hotel at O'Hare. The room rate was just $69. That's it.

But, man you should see the long line for United's Customer Service Desk; it must be a good quarter-mile long.  My friend from Canada was told to stand in the line to get a boarding pass for another flight.  Frankly, I'm surprised they could not have had her self-print a pass, rather than stand with the huddled masses yearning to get a boarding pass from the humans manning the desk.  But that's what happened.

Lots of people.  Lots of kids.  It's Christmas week, and they're all sleeping at O'Hare.

Except me and a few others.

So, as this blog post is being written, I'm impatiently waiting for a deep-dish pizza from a place called Rozatti's. They're going to deliver it in the snow.  I planned to take the 6 AM flight to Atlanta, but there's are going to be so many standbys my Mom think's it's nuts to try it.

You know. I'm gonna listen to her.

TRON Movie Review At The Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, CA.

The first review of TRON from this space was more about its similarities with 2001 A Space Odyssey, and called Tron Legacy: 2010: A Digital Odyssey, and why it was disturbing to this blogger.  

But this is to explain that TRON is a good movie, not a great one, but good, and that you should see it at The Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, CA.

The Grand Lake Theater, at Grand Avenue and Lake Park Ave near Oakland's Lake Merritt, has existed since 1926 and features an enormous main viewing room that represents the best of the old theaters.

The friends I saw it with thought TRON was outstanding and, as the video shows, would definitely see it again. However, the 3D element was disappointing. Again, converting a 2D movie to 3D is something that should be done with care and consideration. It had to add something to the film experience.

The TRON 3D effects don't add much to the film. I was constantly moving my 3D glasses up and off and back over my eyes again to tell the difference; it was negligible.

TRON could have done just as well without the 3D element. Unfortunately, because of the box office success of Avatar and new televisions and broadcasting systems, we're going to see more, not less of movies with poor 3D effects, like TRON.

John Russo On Oakland Gang Injunction and Gangs in Oakland

This video blogger talked with Oakland City Attorney John Russo about his response to a video featuring Michael Siegel of the Oakland civil rights law firm Siegel and Lee, and the focus of a blog entry of last week. One that got under the skin of Russo and his assistant Alex Katz.

Within two days, John and Alex called to ask for this blogger to come and conduct a video interview to get their side of the Oakland Gang Injunction issue. The result is the 20 minute video.

In 2010 Oakland became the third city in the San Francisco Bay Area to implement injunctions against a specific set of street gangs, the North Oakland Crime Organization and another called The , which, according to Russo, is a terribly violent gang.

What Is A Gang Injunction?

To start, we got out of the way just what a gang injunction is. "A gang injunction is a civil court order that the city pursues against a uh, known criminal enterprise," Russo said. "It's defined, the term "gang" is used - a street gang is the state law. It's a law that was passed in the 1980s by the California Legislature." Russo - who's level of understanding of the details of the history of the gang injunction "tool" shows how involved he's been in the issue - explains that the law was upheld as constitutional by the California Supreme Court in 1997. "It is a civil order in the manner of a restraining order," he says, "It allows a city attorney or a district attorney to bring an injunction against a group of individuals who have conspired to commit crimes or otherwise terrorize innocent people in a community." (Photo by CBS Channel 5, San Francisco.)

Russo says Oakland has had two such injunctions, one approved by the Alameda Superior Court in June after being created in February and is called The North Side Oakland Injunction.

The second injunction request filed in October impacts Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood and involves a gang called The Nortenos.

Oakland's Better Injunction

Russo asserts that Oakland's injunctions are formed with a concern for due process and civil rights, a bit of a slap at the injunctions of other cities. "The others are constitutional. A city can go to a court and say 'We're going to prove this gang exists,' and leave it to the police to determine on the street, who's part of the gang. By contrast, Oakland uses the court system and what Russo says is "clear and convincing evidence" to say that a person's part of a gang. That, at least is supposed to, eliminate the possibility of racial profiling or at least reduce the chance of such habits working in this case.

In Oakland's system, the objective is to prove that the individual is part of the criminal organization. John says that in many cases the persons of interest self identify via Facebook, YouTube, and other ways.

Are Federal Dollars The Objective?

Michael Siegel contends that the gang injunction is a way to sweep more people of color up into the police prison system and gain Federal dollars in the process. Russo says that the idea that's true springs from Siegel's head. Russo says they don't get Federal or State dollars from using the gang injunctions. Russo blasts both Michael and his dad Dan Siegel for deliberately mis-reporting what the law says.

An Open Door To The Riders Case?

Russo says that the gang injunction is not an open door for another "Riders" case. In that unfortunate year 2000 episode in Oakland's history, four officers - Frank Vazquez, Clarence Mabanag, Jude Siapno and Matt Hornung - were accused of beating gang and crime suspects in West Oakland, and planting evidence on them.

Called "The Riders," their actions were revealed by a whistle-blower Oakland Police Officer, Keith Batt,  (who is that no more) and resulted in a $10.5 million payout by the City of Oakland to West Oaklanders who were terrorized by the cops, and a Federal consent decree governing the Police Department that was to remain to 2010.

Again, Russo says that because Oakland's Gang Injunction System calls for in-court identification of suspects using judge, jury, and law, it takes the issue of determining who's part of a gang our of the hands of the Oakland Police on the street.

Injunctions Working?

Russo says the Oakland injunction's will be successful because they're focused on the individual. But the basic point is it's too early to tell if the injunctions are totally successul or not. It's in the process of being applied and is new. Russo says "It's not a be all end all. It's a tool." He says it comes up via the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils which are neighborhood watch groups like the one for Lake Merritt's Adams Point we call 14x. That group uses a Yahoo Group to share crime information with the Oakland Police representative for that area.

Gang Injunctions Racist?

On the idea that the Oakland Gang Injunction is racist, focusing on black and brown in poor Oakland neighborhoods, Russo gets pissed. "It's racist," he charges," to allow innocent people to be terrorized," by criminals in the areas that happen to be black and brown, and do nothing about it for fear of being called racist for taking action.

But Russo saves his greatest venom for the Siegels Dan and Michael and their law firm Siegel and Lee, who he says are going to Oakland Schools with bullhorns and openly lying to teenagers about the Oakland Gang Injunction saying that it's directed at them. "There's no one under 18 on the injunction list, and there never will be anyone under 18 on the injunction list," Russo blasts.

A Better Way

To this blogger, the real problem is that Oakland lacks a systems approach to deal with this problem. A crime is more than a police issue, it's an economic development and housing issue too. We should know if the people involved had jobs and if not, why not. Then work to get them employed. Instead, all we do is lock people up. It's massively stupid and only temporarily effective at best. The Oakland Gang Injunction is but one tool, the problem is the City of Oakland doesn't know how to use the other tools at its disposal, like Redevelopment, together with it. And by Redevelopment, I do not mean population removal, but population resource improvement.

Stay tuned.

Yelp Hammers Oakland Parking Service

Yelp has become the go-to site for ratings on businesses of all types, including the "City of Oakland Parking Service System." That's everything from the Parking Department Office at City Hall Plaza, to the parking enforcement employees on the street, and everyone in between. The collective gets a nice "one-star" rating on Yelp. And the comments are something to read. Here's a sample:

Several weeks ago I received a parking ticket for parking at an expired meter in Oakland. When I went to pay it today, I was surprised to see another citation that was past due associated with my license number... Then I remembered: many months ago, I found a parking ticket on my car when I failed to move it for street sweeping. The next day, I tried to pay for said ticket, both online, and using the over-the-phone method. Neither worked. Several days later, I tried once more to pay the ticket, again to no avail. I was told several times that no such ticket existed in the system.


Now, I don't mind paying for the tickets, but I think it's ridiculous that a ticket would take more than a week to show up in the system and furthermore, I do not appreciate having to pay additional charges associated with "late" payment for a ticket that I tried in good faith to pay the day after I received it. I know other people who have experienced the same problem and I think it's time that Oakland stop jerking us around with opaque and vague parking policy.

Did I mention there are 97 Yelp reviews and 96 of them are bad? Here's another:

If I can, I would give them negative stars.
They are thugs, cheats, and this is proof of injustice of the highest kind in the most advanced country in the world - even in India things would not be this bad, and that's saying a lot since India is super corrupt.
Anyways, ticket was invalid, so I contested via US mail. Got another reminder, so contested via email. Got an automated response so I waited. Next thing I know I get a DMV hold letter from them. Also now the fine is doubled.
At this point, I am spending so much effort in this that it's not worth it, and I feel I should pay, but there's a voice inside me saying I should fight for justice and my rights.
Lesson learned - Oakland, I will NEVER eat in your city by choice, and if I do end up going there for my work related events I will park in a parking structure or take the BART.
You are an awful city - I feel for the people - they are stuck with an awful ,awful bureaucracy.
I am going to write letters to whomever I can.
You lost my business, Oakland. Big Time.

The Yelp Oakland hit parade continues:

I just got my registration renewal in the mail, and there is an unpaid parking ticket on it from april 09, lets not get into why it did not show up on october 09's renewal...in any case, I paid this ticket via check 24 hours after I received it. My bank printed out proof (for $5) that the city of Oakland did indeed cash this $30 check, way back in April 09. Nevertheless, it now shows up unpaid, and at triple value. DMV will not let me pay for my renewal until I either pay the $100 citation, or get it cleared by the Oakland Parking Assistance Center.


I have tried three times to reach them by phone, each call was an endless phonetree with no correct option, and in all attempts I ended up being on hold for 15 minutes plus before I gave up OR got disconnected on their end.


I cannot afford to take a day off from work to deal with this, I am poor and on a limited budget.


The DMV cannot help me...
I cannot figure out if there is a way to make an appointment...
There is nothing helpful online....
I am convinced if I go in person the wait time will exceed the metered parking nearby...


Does anyone have any answers for me?

This Yelper's claiming that the City of Oakland's not following a rule posted on its metered parking tickets.  You know.  The ones you get from the machines.  The Yelper reports:

Mark my words, this is not an opinion it is a fact. Those new permit machines, you know where you get a little paper permit and put it on your dashboard. Every one of them has a bright green sticker that says "For you convenience, unexpired permits for this machine can be used at (underlined) *any* metered space in Oakland."


If you buy an hour. Use ten minutes, then drive to another part of Oakland and park near an old sidewalk meter that is working, DO NOT USE YOUR UNEXPIRED PERMIT. Yes it is a metered space, yes, logically it counts as a member of the set that is designated by "any metered space in Oakland", but if you use your unexpired paper permit and don't feed the meter with coins, you will get a ticket.


If a lawyer is reading this. Please think about suing the city for this misleading information. They are obviously desperate for the money but they shouldn't use their position in power to bait and switch, it is deceptive.

And this Yelper called Alix Rosenthal at the Oakland City Attorney's Office and got the ticket dismissed:

I don't live in Oakland.


I almost never go to Oakland.


I especially don't go to Oakland in the middle of the night.


Yet over the course of the last two years I have received four parking tickets for parking in Oakland in the middle of the night. Tickets for my license plate, but with "Ford" listed as the make (I drive a Honda).


Their tickets say you can contest them via e-mail. However they just ignore the e-mails.


I'm getting tired of this BS. Getting ready to sue the City.


Update:


If you have a legitimate complaint I suggest calling the city attorney's office to try to get it straightened out. I spoke with Alex Rosenthal (city attorney's assistant) yesterday and I received a call from parking enforcement today to let me know that my ticket was dismissed.


The number is 510-238-3601.

Ok, Alex. Get ready for a flood of phone calls from irate Oakland Parking Enforcement victims!

Stay tuned.

Oakland, CA Parking: Still Predatory, Getting Worse

This is yet another email sent to this blogger about the Oakland Parking problem. From the way it reads, Oakland, CA's predatory parking practice (say that three times fast), where the city aggressively tickets and tows cars, is still with us.

Hello,
I am speaking out because this just started this past Tuesday.
Please see all the pictures and my letter to the Parking Citation place. thank you.There are 6 - 12 cars parked here 7 days per week. i have lived here for 6.5 years and NEVER gotten a ticket here until NOW. we all are getting tickets daily. Double Parking in a Culdesac? this is unjust. how do we fight this now? How sad that the City Of Oakland would stoop this low to get money. and calling the number to get help is a waste of time. Please let me know if you can help or what we can do. There are a few of us here in the neighborhood that are disabled. AND people who work and visit people at Highland Hospital park here. they also get tickets. hmm.. the parking people ONLY come once per day. WE ARE A NEWLY TARGETED NEIGHBORHOOD.

This is the letter of protest that was sent to the Oakland Parking Department. The name of the person was removed and the adress slightly altered to protect her identity.

Good day,


I am contesting the two tickets that I received December 8th and 9th, 2010


At the address: 1472 East 33rd street Oakland, California 94602


The area I live in is a Cull de sac; I and my neighbors park here.


I have never received a ticket for parking in the Cull de sac UNTIL


As of December 8th, 2010,


I have been parking in the Cull De Sac for 6.5 years and


never gotten a ticket here for anything including


"Double Parking “as of the above date, I received a $75 ticket for "double parking" @ 11:42am. December 9th, 2010,


I received yet another ticket for $75"Double Parking" @ 9:24am.


I am disabled and on crutches pending a knee replacement. ALL of us who park here received tickets! This just started. I called the number I was given on the ticket and I never spoke to anyone the first call I was on hold for 11 minutes. The second call..., I waited more than 30 minutes I spoke to a Cheryl who told me that there was nothing she could do and that I would need to write a letter and be very detailed and include pictures. I took pictures of the area and nothing is marked here at all. It's a Cull de sac.
Please see the included pictures of this area I am referring to with regard to this being a Cull de sac.


Thank you

With all of the yelling,...



...parking enforcement time rolled back from 8 PM to 6 PM, and threats of voting Oakland elected officials out of office, Oakland still has the same parking enforcement problem. The saying "If you like what you're getting, keep on doing what you're doing," applies here.

A's Stadium San Jose vs. Oakland update: SJ Council approves Gen Plan

ALERT! A's Stadium San Jose vs. Oakland update.

A quick follow-up on yesterday's post regarding opposition to the San Jose effort to build a stadium for the Oakland A's (Athletics): the San Jose City Council passed it's much discussed amendment to its General Plan.

What that means is more housing where industrial property is currently situated, and more urban costs and less tax increment revenue generation from a tax base that some San Joseans feel has already suffered a "death by a thousand cuts."

This decision is a major blow to the city's ability to afford a stadium for the Oakland A's. That is, of course, assuming San Jose withstands a court challenge from both the San Francisco Giants and The City of San Francisco, as well as The City of Oakland.

Stay tuned.

A's Stadium has opposition in San Jose: Better Sense San Jose

Over all of the talk about an Oakland A's baseball stadium in San Jose instead of Oakland, the San Jose Murky News failed to mention the organized opponents in the form of Better Sense San Jose.  

Better Sense San Jose describes itself as:

a community based all volunteer organization founded to promote open and transparent government, and sensible, prioritized spending in the City of San Jose.

It has a simple position on the Lew Wolff proposal, stating that San Jose can't afford it, and that it's a "poor economic deal" for the city and a lousy investment. Here are the reasons Better Sense San Jose gives:

- land purchases and infrastructure improvements for a stadium will cost San Jose an estimated $100M in present value initially, plus a loss of roughly $1M a year from foregone property taxes.
- the net ROI (Return on Investment) for San Jose is 2% or less, while the Redevelopment Agency bonds supplying the capital cost 5% or more per year. A bad deal.
- a stadium will create just 138 new, seasonal, mostly low wage jobs at stadium; with $100M in public costs for the stadium, the cost for the 138 new stadium jobs is almost $725,000 per job. That's a terrible value.
- a stadium will not by itself create new businesses, and will not increase property values (according to San Jose Neighborhood Economic Impacts of the Proposed San Jose Stadium.

While this blogger would quibble with the stadium jobs estimates, the point is, there's an organized opposition to it.  The website is just part of their efforts to kill the proposal, but some members claim the San Jose City Council is trying to ram it down the collective throats of the people of the city.

There's also opposition to the stadium from the perspective of those who say San Jose's redevelopment tax increment revenue production ability is being harmed by "tax base erosion," which is caused when industrial land uses are converted to residential uses.

In fact, there's a meeting tonight on that issue at 7:30 PM, according to San Jose District 6 Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio, who calls it Tax Base Erosion Night in his blog, San Jose Inside. The SJ 6 Council Dude says that San Jose's suffering a "death of a thousand cuts" with so many requests to change land use to fit residential plans.

That includes A's Owner / Manager Lew Wolff's proposal to convert industrial land to housing in the case of land owned by something called iStar Financial, a commercial mortgage Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that's not doing well, with $3.5 billion in non-performing assets it reports.

Wolff tried, and failed, to get San Jose to pay him for a soccer stadium, but the City Council balked at the land use.  But from SJ 6 Council Dude Oliverio, it looks like the proposals coming back to them, but with a baseball stadium instead of soccer.

This is what Oliverio wrote:

iStar-

was proposed as a conversion from industrial to housing so as to give a higher land value and therefore money to the developer to pay for soccer stadium however that did not go forward since it is not really appropriate. However I would not be surprised if it resurfaced

This is why Oakland must makes sure it has all hands on deck, and that its baseball effort has a clear leader in the form of the Mayor of Oakland.   San Jose has three major problems in the pursuit of an A's stadium: the Major League Agreement being against them and for Oakland, the opposition, and the San Francisco Giants.

(Oh. If I see one more article in either the San Jose Murky or the San Francisco Chron that fails to mention the Giants fan base in San Jose, I'll scream.)

Got an issue?  Don't get stadium and baseball business dynamics?  Ask this blogger and play his game.

Oakland News Coalition Against the Gang Injunctions video interview

The interview with Maisha Quint of the East Side Arts Alliance and Michael Siegel of the Law Firm of Siegel and Yee (Where his father, Dan Siegel and Oakland Council President Jane Brunner are partners), was not conducted by this blogger, but by someone named Kali Akuno who has a series of videos he calls "The Black Agenda Morning Shot."

The videos, totaling about 19 minutes of run-time, were not brought to my attention by anyone; I found them on YouTube. I've never met Maisha, and Michael I met for the first time and just after interviewing now-Mayor-Elect Jean Quan at Siegel and Lee during The Oakland Mayor's Race.

While I'm personally opposed to the idea of a "black agenda" - because I think a separatist view doesn't help the cause for diversity, and because more often than not, it's not my agenda, and I just don't like being dictated to by the masses, regardless of color - their point of view on how the Oakland Gang Injunction contributes to the overall climate of law enforcement racial profiling is worth viewing.

In the video, Michael explains that if you have a certain color of shirt and happen to be next to someone profiled as a gang member, you could be placed into a database of gang members even though you've got nothing to do with the people you happened to be standing next to. Say, at a bus stop.

Siegel and Quint also charge that the Gang Injunction Program is a way for Oakland to get Federal dollars in a poor economy.  For every person identified in the program, the City of Oakland is compensated.  Quint charges that the program is a way for Oakland City Attorney John Russo and for Jerry Brown to advance their political careers.   (That's something I'll have to ask John about, as I don't think with him that's the case at all and for a list of complex reasons. )

But that aside, the video does raise a lot of questions about the Gang Injunction Program. My question is do we really need this sort of program, as opposed to neighborhood improvement programs the Obama Administration is touting. (More on that later.)

The video is in two video parts, below:



Part II:

Attacks on Oakland Councilmember Desley Brooks unwarranted

Councilmember Brooks

A couple of bloggers on Twitter cyber-approached me in an effort to start what, from a bird's eye view looks like a smear campaign against Oakland Councilmember Desley Brooks (District Six - Central East Oakland). Both point to a 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article on her by Phil Matier, and on how she allegedly gives City of Oakland money out to friends and allies.

My Twitter response was that it's not proper form to use a 2006 issue in 2010. Moreover, there are a lot of people among the masses who dislike people "just because." Yes, it may be sport, but it's not right.

Desley may, and at times does, have a prickly nature, but when it comes to the needs of her district, there are many who swear by her. That's why she won the November election.

If the attackers have something on Desley, which I doubt, they need to make sure it's current and very substantive, not old and unsubstantive.

Education and economic development in Oakland

This short blog started with a tweet this blogger ran across, and now I can't find because I don't follow the Twitterer who issued it on Twitter.

At any rate the message of the tweet was that an education scholar Richard Rothstein, who talked at the California School Boards Association on Friday in San Francisco, made a comment that education and training could not overcome bad economic background.

There was no link to the tweet issued communicating that idea, or words to that effect, and the tweet didn't come from Richard Rothstein. Moreover it was all but impossible to find a blog post or news account of what Mr. Rothstein actually said.

But it made me think of how economic development and education officials in Oakland don't talk to each other. At all. Yet, economic development planners are supposed to be trying to bring jobs to the same neighborhoods the education officials, and here I mean teachers, work in. Why not talk with them about what the needs of the people in the neighborhood really are?

The view that this disconnect exists has been with me for some time. It came to a personal "head" when I was in a meeting at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in 1999, and the conversation turned to the "jobs / housing balance." That's the idea that jobs should be where the people lived.

But the problem, as I pointed out in the meeting, was that the MTC was pushing for biotech jobs for cities like Oakland where the people didn't have the education for the positions. Everyone at the table looked at me like I was nuts, and I looked at them like they were crazy. Since my ego's much larger than that collective, I left the meeting feeling that I'd just talked to a group of out of touch public execs. I was pretty steamed.

The problem is that they never talked to the people in the parts of the 'hood where jobs are needed. Look. Oakland doesn't have a near 20 percent unemployment rate for nothing. Bring biotech jobs to Oakland, and jobs open up for people who don't live here, but would be forced to commute or relocate here. That's what's happened to a degree, with many biotech jobs in Emeryville and the South Bay.

Meanwhile the people who live in Oakland, raised their kids here, and use the Oakland school system, go wanting. And their kids suffer as do the teachers. They have it the worst. In East Oakland, a friend of mine commonly tells stories of being robbed, having to spend a lot of money for her materials, and other problems.

All of this should form the template for what economic development must do in Oakland. Developers and big projects are sexy, but more often than not, they don't really change things. Nothing helps a place like East Oakland or West Oakland like the modern, environmentally-friendly version of the good old-fashioned auto plant.

Yeah, someone will chime in with the usual arguments against that, and in doing so, keep the same culture that produces our problems alive for years to come.

Oakland News: Al Davis fires-up Raider Nation, Oakland A's Hearing a success

This Oakland news is from the sports World. A YouTuber that goes by gorilla142 (subscribe!) made the rare video of Oakland Raiders Manager of The General Partner Al Davis stopping to exhort The Raider Nation to fight for the Raiders before Sunday's game against the Miami Dolphins at the Oakland Coliseum.

 From what could be understood over the voice of the Coliseum public adress voice, from some speaker source nearby, Al Davis, walking with what appeared to be a mix of fans and plain-clothed bodyguards stopped, took measure of his audience, and said "You guys are great...You wear the Silver and Black...Let me tell ya this: we're going to play our ass off today...You gotta fight with us...Pride and Poise. Will to win. And just win, baby."

That sent the crowd into a frenzy.

Unfortunately for them and Davis, the Raiders got their clocks cleaned 33 to 17.

Still, it's nice to see Mr. Davis still has the fire in the belly to win. The Raiders are up against the San Diego Chargers in San Diego; a game NFL Network analysts gave the Raiders no chance of winning. Indeed, they were so against the Raiders, Oakland may as well not show up and just give the game to the Chargers.

Just win baby!

On the subject of showing up, an estimated 200 A's fans came to Oakland's City Hall's Oakland Planning Commission meeting on an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) for the (hopefully planned) New A's Stadium.  The meeting was, by the account of the great blog Oakland North, a success (I'm still in Atlanta as this is written.)   The crowd was a mix of what the blog Swingin A's called "supporters and non-supporters."  (That's Oakland.)

On the matter of the As', San Jose Mercury News Columnist Mark Purdy goes on a funny, whining rant about how San Jose has been waiting for the right to build a stadium, and a lot of garbage about San Jose's plans that can be dashed with these words: almost 50 percent of the San Francisco Giants fan base comes from San Jose.

Mark didn't mention that.

Man, on this, I love to fight.  I just do.

Dr. Dean Edell out at KGO Radio

According to Blogger Richard Liberman, Dr. Dean Edell, the popular, long time host of The Dean Edell Show on KGO Radio 810 in the San Francisco Bay Area, has retired as a reaction to learning that his long-running show was going to be relegated to weekend, re-run status.

Richard blogs:

I'm pretty sure Dean Edell would have preferred a more amiable departure from the KGO microphone after over 30 years at 900 Front, but when his nationally-syndicated show was essentially shut down and thrown to the weekend re-run pasture, Edell announced his retirement.


More to the point, Dr. Edell felt humiliated and flustered and told Citadel and new KGO GM, Deidre Lieberman, (no relation,) to stuff it. His last show on KGO is Dec. 10.

Liberman also reports that Don Imus may be on KGO in the near future.

Personally, I hope not.

Stay tuned.

A's Ballpark subject of December 1st Oakland Planning Commission Meeting

Want to show your support for new ballpark for the Oakland A's? Show up at the meeting of the City of Oakland Planning Commission tomorrow, December 1st, at 6 PM PST at Hearing Room 1, Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA.

If you want to speak in favor of the new ballpark proposal and talk about the creation of an Environmental Impact Report for the proposed new A's ballpark at Jack London Square - of course you do - just get there at 5:30 PM, fill out a speaker card, and give it to the Oakland Planning Commission's secretary.

Right now, according to the meeting's Facebook page, 156 A's fans plan to attend.

Be there.  Aloha!

Bauer's Transportation Company Bus Shuttle Service

This is the San Francisco Bauer's "Wi-Drive" commuter shuttle bus service. It's the same one used by Facebook and Twitter employees to go to and from work. What this blogger likes about the shuttle bus service is the seats. Wow. They're really thick, cushy, leathery, and luxurious.

You can operate your laptop computer and work online while on your way to work. The Bauer's "Wi-Drive" bus was used by the San Francisco Giants to transport their players to and from that awesome parade after their amazing World Series win.

Need corporate transportation? Call my good friend Gary Bauer. He and Bauer's Transportation delivers for all occasions and transport needs. Bauer's Transportation is at 1-800-546-6688.

Cal Washington: Huskies 16-13 Win; Cal is "Holmoesque"

This is the level the University of California Football Program has fallen to. Cal Alumni are starting to call the team "Holmoesque." That term first surfaced two weeks ago after the Oregon loss, as a good Cal friend of this blogger feared a return to those ugly days of yore.

Three losses later, some think we're there. Cal lost to Washington 16 to 13 and this, the third loss in as many games, has Old Blues, Young Blues, and even Middle-Aged Blues fuming.

Tom Holmoe

Cal finished not just 5 and 7, but 3 and 6 in the Pac-10. The worst record in Jeff Tedford's glorious rein as Cal's Head Coach. While not the 1 and 10 season of 2001, Cal's 2010 performance was enough for my friend to say "I hope we don't see a replay of Tom Holmoe, we're starting to look "Holmoesque."

Tom Holmoe, currently the Athletic Director at BYU, was Cal's football coach for five years, posting a 16 and 39 record, the infamous 2001 season, had an 0 and 5 record against Stanford, and caused Cal to forfeit nine scholarships over four years, be banned from postseason bowl eligibility in 2002, Coach Tedford's first year with Cal.

No, this space is not saying Tedford is like Tom Holmoe, only that the stench from that period is still with many Cal faithful, and this season reproduced some bad, sad memories.

The Problem Is The System

SF Chron scribe John Crumpacker's blog on Cal vs. Washington was far too nice and failed capture the massive level of pissed off, pissed-offness expressed by Cal Alumns. Cal's problem is not as simple as replacing one quarterback with another. That's for people who, for whatever reason, fail to pay attention to play design. But the issue is the Cal Offensive system itself.

For some reason that rests in the collective mind of Coach Tedford and Cal Offensive Coordinator Andy Ludwig, Cal does not have a passing game that contains "safe," short throws for its signal callers. Just because we're in the era of the wide receiver screen, and all of its variations, doesn't mean it has to be Cal's offense. There are, by experiential estimate, over 1,232 variations of short passes to running backs; can't we use some of them? Why is it so important to throw downfield and with just predictability all the time?

There's nothing wrong with good, old, precision short passing. It's forgotten in the wake of the advent of the spread formation option systems - and their pass plays - that have spread like a virus around the country. An approach that has infected Cal Football, save for the running quarterback.

A disciplined approach to the passing game, one that Cal actually displayed the ability to uses against Stanford last year, is sorely needed. Cal must stick to this, and stop this need to play macho-passing ball, most of the time.

Or, if the concern is to keep the pass offense simple for students who have a lot of studying to do, given the demands of Cal, why not an approach that has elements of the Run-and-Shoot? (But retains the power running game.)



The point is to have a real, true, system that can be effective with respect to the coverage, is disciplined, and doesn't get the quarterback killed.

Time For Action; Tosh Shows The Way

Some Cal Alumns want California defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi to be Cal's Head Coach, after the fake injury scandal in the Oregon game. Well, not really, but you get the idea.  It's not that cheating is prized by Cal Alumns, just the need for a coach to do something to move Cal Football forward. Remember, we have Coach Lupoi to thank for Wide Receiver Keenan Allen, so no one wants him to leave Cal for any reason.  Well, within reason.

Well, whatever the argument, we'll have an entire year to hash it out.

GO BEARS!

Oakland Mayor-Elect Jean Quan's Car Booting Shows Knifes Are Out Already

Having her car, a Toyota Prius, booted for more than 10 unpaid parking tickets (you only need more than 5 to get booted) is one of those moments where Mayor-Elect Quan needs a thick skin. Why? Because, from experience, I know it was an inside job. Probably the work of City Hall Gadfly Sanjiv Handa, or someone with that level of knowledge.

Happy Thanksgiving! When then-Oakland City Councilperson Jean Quan beat former State Senator Don Perata to become Mayor-Elect of The City of Oakland, this blogger wrote the following:

...With all of this, Mayor-Elect Quan must be sure to realize that she does not have a mandate; she did not score the majority of popular votes. That should be of concern for her. The Mayor-Elect must - and I think will - be open to people. Moreover, Jean must - and this can't be overstated - develop a very thick skin. She must work to jettison the idea that people who criticize her aren't in her corner. Not so. She's Mayor of Oakland, now, and that means she's got a PR-issue to deal with every day.

As Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris told me, "Zennie, there are a thousand games you can play in City Hall every day. The question is which one you should play?" What Elihu was saying to me is you always have to watch your back, figure out where the arrows are coming from, and then have a plan to strike back, if it's worth doing so. If you have the right temperament , the game's fun. Jean's got to develop that to be successful.

Having her car, a Toyota Prius, booted for more than 10 unpaid parking tickets (you only need more than 5 to get booted) is one of those moments where Mayor-Elect Quan needs a thick skin. Why? Because, from experience, I know it was an inside job. Probably the work of City Hall Gadfly Sanjiv Handa, or someone with that level of knowledge.

In other words, the "police technician" who ran Quan's Toyota for tickets at 9:30 AM on Tuesday didn't just walk down 14th Street with a happy whistle and nothing better to do than check the ticket status of the cars parked at the City Council parking spaces. That happened because someone either in the current Mayor's Office, or a person in the know, or another councilmember tipped off the cops.

That's how my car was towed when I worked for Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris. I commonly parked my 1997 Ford Probe in the Mayor's Parking Space, but only after checking with Mayor Harris before hand.  I arrived early, then, as between 1995 and 1999 I represented the Mayor at the Tuesday morning committee meetings.   It got to a point where parking at the space, in fact exactly the same one Quan used the Tuesday day it was booted, was habit.  

Then, one day, my car was gone.  This was 1997.

I thought it was stolen for a good hour.  But an Oakland police officer called my office to report it was towed.  In my case, it wasn't outstanding parking tickets, but a mean-sprited person in the name of one Toni Cook.  Cook served as Mayor Harris Policy Advisor over the Oakland Schools, and was the advocate of the use of Ebonics, which is a kind of "black English" in Oakland Schools in 1995.  Ebonics was something I and Mayor Harris hated, but Elihu supported her idea in his "political head-fake way" of making you think he backed something he disliked.

Cook and I, while both African American, were as different as night and day.  She wasn't a friend, amd I exchanged perhaps a few words with her, but had no idea she held this deep resentment of my permission to park in the Mayor's space.  She did, and I was told by Oakland Mayor's Office staffers, that it was she who called Oakland's finest and made up a lie to have my car towed.   True story and I was steamed.  I had to cough up $106 to get my car out.

When Mayor Harris found out about it, he had Cook pay me back what I spent.  

Later that year, at the City of Oakland's Christmas Party, Sanjiv Handa approached me and was red-faced that I was parking in the space.   Now, again, Mayor Harris had consistently given me permission to park there, even as others didn't want me to be there.  I told Sanjiv to get upset about more important matters.   He was being rather weird at that time in our lives, anyway.

The point is, people at the City of Oakland can be massively petty.  If they don't like you for some small reason, and its always a small reason, they will work to make your life less than happy.  It's one of the major draw backs of working for the City of Oakland.

In Quan's case, I know for a fact her car-booting was an inside job, and it's a sign Mayor-Elect Quan needs to mak sure that every "I" is dotted, and every "T" is crossed when she takes any action at Oakland City Hall.

In the car-booting case, the problem was Mayor-Elect Quan parked in the Mayor's Office Parking Space, while she's still technically an Oakland City Councilperson.  Having her car booted for tow was someone's way of telling her she's not yet Mayor of Oakland, so she should stay out of the Mayor's Parking Space until after she's sworn in next year.

Mean?  Yes.  But that's the City of Oakland, for ya.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Oakland News: Parkway Theater Back? New Parkway Theater Group Needs $200K

The latest Oakland News is good for an old friend.  The Parkway Theater building at 1836 Park Blvd off E. 18th here in Oakland, California, has been unused for over a year now, and the neighborhood before it an empty representation of its once lively self.

But all that could change if J Moses Ceaser and the New Parkway Theater Group can raise $200,000 within the next six weeks to reestablish the popular "Speakeasy" theater in the space.

 This email sent to this blogger and posted below tells the whole story:

Hi Parkway Lovers:

Big news! The Parkway will be reopening at its rightful home on Park Blvd! We don’t have a signed lease yet but we’re very close to the finish line and absolutely expect to get something done shortly. Please read on for all the details about the impending lease, other Parkway-related developments, and an amazing Quote of the Week:

Negotiations with the Chengs—the Chengs notified us a few weeks back that they would prefer to lease the building than to sell it, and so we’ve been trying to hammer out lease terms that suit both parties. And the negotiations have moved along to the point where Mr. Cheng has said that he is “confident that we can work out something that we can both be satisfied with”, and we agree. We are very happy that the Chengs are prepared to invest money—with help from the City of Oakland—to fix up the theater. We’ve also made our absolute best financial offer and are ready to invest money in the kitchen, lobby, theater spaces, and projection room to bring the Parkway back to life. I expect that we’ll have a lease in place in the next week or two and that we’ll be able to reopen the Parkway in roughly six months time, give or take a few permits and a beer and wine license. How’s that for happy Thanksgiving news!! Please help spread the happy news, and read on since this deal will only move forward if we raise the necessary start-up funds.

We’re Done with Phase One!—I’m very happy to report that we’ve successfully completed Phase 1 of fundraising for the theater’s reopening. Having this first core group of equity investors in place is critical since it’s this group that assumes the most risk and responsibility for the venture. Now we’ve got to raise another $200-300K in Phase 2 and hope to do it over the next six weeks.

Only 10 More Days for Kickstarter—we’ve only got ten more days for our Kickstarter campaign, and it’s not looking good, sort of like the Raiders and 49ers games this past Sunday. “Bleak” might be a better descriptor. But, I’ve been told that deadlines bring out the best in some, and we’re hoping for a last-minute rush on the small donation aisle. Please do your part, and remember that you’ve got nothing to lose, your donations are not cashed until we reach the magical $50K goal. Help make the comeback story of the year possible. Help do what the Raiders and 49ers couldn’t. Help us reach our goal against all odds. Here’s the link: http://kck.st/cPGq5y.

Pizza, Sodas, and Cake, Oh My!—the first dishes out of the New Parkway “test kitchen” are getting rave reviews. We served some pizza at our investor meetings that made guests exclaim, “if the pizza is this good, the Parkway will definitely be successful.” We also made a flourless chipotle chocolate cake on another night, which I think could find its way onto the menu, along with a savory wild mushroom bread pudding, and a few wintry soups. Lastly, we’re looking into making our own fountain drinks so as to avoid the high-fructose corn syrup-filled crap that’s commonly distributed. Could you live without your high-fructose Coke at the theater if we’ve got some tasty alternatives?

December Investor Meetings—we’ll be holding a few more meetings for investors and potential investors in December. These are a chance to learn more about the business plan behind the New Parkway, the risks and benefits involved, and how you can help to bring Oakland’s favorite theater back to life. If you’re interested in learning more about investing your $5,000+, you should email invest@thenewparkway.com to request an investor packet, and then aim to attend one of the following two meetings:
Sunday, December 12th, 6-8PM
Thursday, December 16th, 7-9PM
Both of these meetings will be held in Berkeley and require an RSVP so that we can be sure to have enough food and drink on hand. That’s right, free pizza and beer for all potential investors. So reserve your spot soon, and more importantly, own a piece of a theater you love.

Quote of the Week—I know that this section is called “Quote of the Week”, but this one could be the “Quote of the Year” or even better. Here it is, from Mark Lynn:

“Let me start by saying I hate movie theaters. I hate folks who talk. I hate not being able to get a man drink. I hate the temperature. I hate food munchers, wrapper manglers, and drink slurpers. I hate shitty candy. I hate cell phones. I hate sticky floors. I hate sitting by people I don't know, much less like. Simply abhor theaters.

But…

I love movies. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE The Parkway Theater. I was crestfallen when it closed. It's seriously the ONLY theater I like and I truly love it! I can't describe with words current in the Oxford dictionary how happy I would be if the theater reopened. I haven't been to a movie since it closed. Not kidding.”

Join the Mailing List—in addition to supporting the Parkway financially, we’d love to get more and more folks on the mailing list so that you can hear directly about what’s going on and send us your thoughts. Please help us double, triple, quadruple the mailing list. Steer people towards http://thenewparkway.com/mailinglist.html .

If you're new to the Parkway Theater issue, here's a playlist of videos that cover its closing, community meetings on saving the facility, and an interview with the previous owners, Katherine and Kyle Fisher:

Oakland City Auditor Attacks Financial Reporting, CAO Lindheim Insults Auditor

This shows Oakland CAO Dan Lindheim (in photo) can dig his own hole fast.

The Chief Administrative Officer of Oakland, who's days are numbered in the wake of Jean Quan's victory to become Oakland's Mayor-Elect, insulted Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby, saying she "clearly shows a lack of understanding of the City's financial system and the reporting of its assets," as reported by the Oakland Tribune.

This blogger, who worked for two of the last three Mayors of Oakland, has seen a ton of examples of hubris, including from myself, but nothing to match what Dan Lindheim wrote about the City Auditor's Report of The Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA), and by extension, Courtney Ruby herself.  (Here's Dan in my video from his press conference on The Oakland Police.)

Ruby, who beat back an election challenge from Michael Killian, landing 66.93 percent of the vote, wasted no time in presenting her CEDA loan fund audit report to part of the media. (Here's hoping she looks at the Oakland Coliseum next.)

Here's hoping that Ruby gets better at distributing information to all of the media, too. Like many in Oakland City Hall (except Karen Boyd and the Mayor's Office, and the Oakland City Attorney), her staff seems to think people read newspapers a lot. They don't. It's one reason why newspaper ad revenues are consistently falling. Next time Courtney, send a link to the online report to me. Right now, it's not available!

But I digress.

The City Auditor's Report says that CEDA had something like $14 million in loans it issued (which CEDA does to help businesses and homeowners), but had not written off. Ruby claimed this shows that the City's financial reporting system can't be trusted. If that's the case, the City of Oakland really doesn't know what kind of financial shape it's in.

All of that reflects on Dan Lindheim, who's job it is to issues the reports. The naturally prickly Dan responded in a way that was politically stupid, claiming the City Auditor basically doesn't know what she's doing.

 Either Dan has a good new job to go to after the City of Oakland, since Quan's looking for his replacement, or he's independently wealthy. No municipality will touch someone so willing to openly blast the results of an audit with an insult of the auditor.  

Maybe Dan's going to become a blogger?

Stay tuned. Oh, here's the Trib article.

Oakland News: Rash Of Assault Crimes At Adams Point, Lake Merritt

If you live in the Adams Point area of Oakland and walk at night, don't walk alone. There has been a rash of crimes in the area of late. For example, according to the Adams Point Yahoo Message Board, there were not one, but five muggings along Euclid Avenue.

All of the muggings were thought to have been done by a group of three black men, but that's not certain. Here are some of the notifications of what happened:

Monday, November 15th:

Hi neighbors,

My neighbor, a 20-year old Asian youth was just held up at gunpoint in
front of his house. The 2 African American men chased him and were
spotted by 4 concerned neighbors (alerted by his yelling) before they
ran up to their get-away car - a 4 door blue or black sedan with a
driver and sped away.

According to the police who arrived in minutes - this was their FIFTH
mugging within the hour between Lakeshore and the Laurel.

They followed my neighbor home and mugged him as he got out of his car.

They are currently on the loose and people should be very concerned and
lock your doors (as one of these robberies with the same motive in the
past week was a home invasion).

If you see anything looking like our suspects, please call the police
asap - as they are basically chasing these guys around town.

It's not clear if the person or persons who responsible were eventually nabbed by the CHP, but the overall point of this is to get to know people. A number of female members at Gold's Gym, as one example, walk alone and for long distances. There's also the Sidebar Restaurant, just down the street. Walk with someone from the gym or Sidebar, anyone. (As I write this, I'm in Georgia, so it's not about me. Seriously.)

We have a problem in the neighborhood where a black person like myself doesn't get robbed, but whites are a bigger target. Racism? Yep.

One way to combat this if you walk alone and insist on doing so, is to hold your head up and walk without fear. As silly as this sounds, it's really effective. Part of the issue is the expectation that something bad will happen. Take that out of your head.

But the best thing is to just not walk alone.

Oakland News: Mayor Elect Jean Quan News, City Slickers $4 Million

The election of Jean Quan as Oakland's Mayor-Elect has made her life far more complicated, and that's using her own words. Quan's newsletter, generally filled with news on happenings about Oakland, became a blog diary of her life since last Tuesday's news - one week after the election was held.

Quan Thanks Oakland

Quan explains that the voter turnout was greater than she expected, writing:

With a record breaking turnout of 121,927 voters, I was declared the next mayor with about 51% of the vote on Wednesday. About 30,000 more voters came out than predicted. I received 53,778 votes -- a record because of the fall election. Jerry Brown (48,124) and Ron Dellums (42,110) won in June elections when typically 40,000 less voters participate.

Sorry this editions is so late. As you may guess, my life has only gotten more intense since I was declared Mayor-Elect two days ago. My family, staff, and I are genuinely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and joy we have received. We see the outcome as a victory for grassroots organizing; we see our campaign as a movement of neighborhood leaders that will continue to organize for change.

For those who may feel that Quan's effort to win Oakland "block by block" was just a campaign slogan, she says a group of supporters - over 150 in all - met last Thursday to discuss how they were going to continue neighborhood organizing.

Toward that end, they reportedly broke into small groups divided by district and by issues (like public safety) that remind this blogger of Oakland Sharing The Vision, or what my friend Phil Tagami used to call "sharing the ham sandwich."

Oakland Sharing The Vision was an 1990 effort that attracted 500 Oaklanders to the Oakland Convention Center on a Saturday to hammer out a giant set of goals and objectives for the City of Oakland.  That ultimately became the foundation for a document of those goals and objectives, with timetables, and a non-profit organization headed by Executive Director Emile Durette.  Over time, OSV was watered down from a vision custodian, to a political "cover" organization for elected officials to say "See, we really are doing something," then to a firm that was not doing anything like it's exciting first role.  

Hopefully the energy of Quan's supporters isn't watered down in the same way.

Henry Gardner To Assist Quan

Former Oakland City Manager Henry Gardner agreed to help Quan by charing a "Transition Advisory Committee." Quan reports the group will "make recommendations on the priorities of the Mayor's Office for the first 100 days and first year," and include input from other mayoral candidates.  That's great, but I have the feeling such an effort's going to get bogged down in egos and jousting really quick.  The Mayor-Elect is better off having a simple plan of action that she allows to be altered "here and there" by the political movements of the city.

Jerry Brown had a simple plan that consisted of four objectives around the arts, public safety, services, and if memory serves housing.  That was it.  The lynchpin of his effort was the "10K plan" where Jerry wanted to add 10,000 units of market rate housing to Oakland.   He eventually did it.

But the point is Jerry's plan, which he already had in mind when he was elected, was not such that it could be altered. And he stuck to it.  Jean's all-inclusive approach is admirable, but from my experience in Oakland, it could backfire and create more hard feelings from unmet expectations and unstroked egos.

Does that mean Mayor Dellums "bunker of friends" approach was better?  No. The idea was to have various task forces which consisted of his friends form plans that the public never saw and never saw the light of day.  It was an abysmal failure that signalled the start of a number of perception problems for Mayor Dellums.

In my experience on the Mayor Dellums Sports Task Force, we had four other groups working on the A's issue basically behind our backs.  Moreover, the chair, who was a friend I talked to about this, was afraid to take a stand and go to the Mayor. That's why I quit.

Jean's got to make sure that kind of crap - a lot of people trying to jockey for position to gain her attention - doesn't happen. Her supporters are not seasoned political aides, so they don't know that just because they're in the advise giving role all of a sudden, doesn't mean the Mayor has to listen to them.

Let's see how this plays out.

City Slickers, the non-profit organization that's become one of the success stories of the growing Oakland urban farmers movement, earned a $4 million grant to buy land in West Oakland and build a farm. Excellent news! If you're wondering what the organization's all about, this video I created below will give you some idea. Warning: it's long!

Oakland News: Mayor-Elect Jean Quan and Women Now Run Oakland

With Jean Quan's stunning Ranked Choice Voting win in the 2010 Oakland Mayor's Race, the City of Oakland now has six of its eight mayor and city council positions held by women. Here's the count: Oakland Mayor-Elect Jean Quan, Council President Jane Brunner (District 1: North Oakland), Coucilmember-Elect Libby Schaaf (District 4: Oakland Hills, Montclair), Councilmember Pat Kernighan (District 2: Chinatown, Glenview), Councilmember Nancy Nadel (District 3: Downtown, West Oakland), and Councilmember Desley Brooks (District Six: Central East Oakland).

That leaves just Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente (District 5, Fruitvale, San Antonio), and Councilmember Larry Reid (District 7, East Oakland) as the only remaining male members of the Oakland City Council. Why? This isn't to provide a definitive answer by any stretch, but to start conversation about an important turning point in Oakland's political history.

For years, any woman running for office in Oakland stood a better chance of winning over her male counterpart. The best example of this is unknown Audie Bock's victory over then-former Mayor Elihu Harris for the California Assembly. While Bock didn't last long, her victory was as much due to gender and Green Party affiliation as it was the "chicken dinner" campaign error on the part of Harris' Campaign Manager Richie Ross. What Bock had going for her was she was an unknown and a woman.

Note, unknown.

If you think about it, it's hard to find an election example where a victorious female candidate was known. In many ways Quan's victory was more about some not wanting Don Perata as Mayor of Oakland. That was the same as voters not wanting Harris to be in the California Assembly.

If you consider the field, the vast majority of Oakland's elected officials are women who have been political novices. That is, they were unknown outside a group of people who intensely supported them. Outside of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, there's no female "political heavyweight" in Oakland.

Does that mean a female incumbent can be beaten by an unknown female challenger? The answer seems to be no. Jenn Pei failed to beat the incumbent Pat Kernighan this year, just as Pat's withstood challenge from Aimee Allison. Congratulations Pat!  And there are other examples.  Desley Brooks won her seat over the unknown-to-all-but-insiders Nancy Sidebotham.

To continue that view it's even harder for unknown men to beat women elected officials in Oakland, Councilmember Nancy Nadel withstood a challenge from two men: Greg Hodge and Sean Sullivan.

Community Involvement Is Key

One common quality of all of the successful and unsuccessful female candidates in Oakland is their level of community involvement. Mayor-Elect Jean Quan's reach came at first from her involvement with the Oakland Unified School District before she became District 4 Councilmember. Rebecca Kaplan's base came from her tenior on the AC Transit Board. When I talked to people about Councilmember Kernighan, they point to her involvement with the Crocker Highlands school before she started working as an aide to then-Oakland Councilmember John Russo.

Libby Schaaf's involvement in Oakland extends all the way back to The Festival At The Lake in the mid 1990s, and then her work for the Oakland City Council, and Councilmember De La Fuente. Her first taste of Oakland campaigning was with me, working to get Don Smith elected to the Oakland School Board in 1990.

The key for successful women elected officials is to be involved in the Oakland community. Being a school teacher's a great foundation, as is being involved in neighborhood groups and organizations. This is not to say that a woman can't be a building developer and achieve political success in Oakland, but the current pattern points toward community activism.

What Will This Mean For Oakland?

Now that women run Oakland - and the pattern will be complete if Mayor-Elect Quan selects a female Chief Administrative Officer, something Oakland's never had before - what does it mean for Oakland?

It means the Oakland Police Department is going to have to change its approach in Oakland. In my conversations with Oakland cops, all male save for one, their view is almost classically "Let's bust some heads" male. That approach has caused a lot of problems that, I think, Mayor-Elect Quan and the council want to put a stop to. One change from all of this will be an Oakland Police Department that's more sensitive to the community and less an enemy of it.

Stay tuned.