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.