Comment Archives: Last 7 Days
Re: “What's Your Local Summer Beer?”
Great beers! My summer beer of choice is Ale Industries Golden State of Mind!
Re: “Outside Lands 2013 Lineup Announced”
Check these out if you want to save money at Outside Lands http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/211369…
Re: “Are More Cops the Answer?”
Also, getting passengers to the airport more quickly and pleasantly will probably increase the likelihood that they'll spend their money at the numerous locally owned food establishments at the airport, which is one of the main things that sets the place apart from the usual barrage of fast-food chains afflicting travelers. As for the hotels, they don't need this; any hotel worth its salt has a free shuttle anyway, which actually employs people.
Re: “Friday Must Reads: FEMA Moves to Chop Down 82,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills; Lead Ammunition Ban Clears Assembly”
Plenty of blame to go around, apparently. This shameless pandering to the native plant religionists who don't care how much mayhem, toxicity, or destruction of thriving ecosystems they cause in their crusade to stamp out everything that wasn't here before the first Caucasian set foot here has got to stop. It's bogus nativist bigotry, and it's no more acceptably directed at plants than people.
Re: “Friday Must Reads: FEMA Moves to Chop Down 82,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills; Lead Ammunition Ban Clears Assembly”
Tim,
More than 80,000 trees will be chopped down if this proposal goes through as is. Currently, FEMA is leading this process, and is on its way to funding the clear-cutting. Without FEMA's cash, the trees will not be cut down. So, yes, FEMA is moving forward on a plan for chopping -- a lot of chopping.
Re: “Friday Must Reads: FEMA Moves to Chop Down 82,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills; Lead Ammunition Ban Clears Assembly”
Mary,
I agree that FEMA has done a miserable job at publicizing these plans -- but some of the blame also falls on UC Berkeley, East Bay Regional Park District, and the City of Oakland, who are partners in the project and have failed to properly inform folks as well.
Re: “Are More Cops the Answer?”
The purpose of the BART Airport connector is a quick and seamless connection to the airport, not economic development along Hegenberger. Whether or not that was a good use of $440 million is up for debate, but any stops to slow it down makes it less useful and more a waste of money when compared to the current bus service. Agreed with Joe on everything else though.
Re: “Are More Cops the Answer?”
Len,
I have to disagree with your characterization of Oakland voters in wealthy areas of the city. Traditionally, they've been far more moderate, and far more pro-police than folks in the flatlands. Perhaps you don't remember, but Dick Spees, a pro-police Republican represented the Oakland hills on the city council for a couple of decades until 2002, and repeatedly ran unopposed because he so closely identified with the residents up there.
Also, I think you're way off base about the overall electorate and it's feelings about police today. Just last fall, Ignacio De La Fuente and Jane Brunner ran on pro-police platforms and were heavily supported by the Oakland police union, which papered the city with ads on their behalf. They then were clobbered in the election -- De La Fuente lost by 20 points to Kaplan, and Brunner, by nearly 40 points to Barbara Parker.
(Also, Quan and Kaplan, while they've gotten heat in the media for their actions at the 2010 Oscar Grant protest, they probably helped OPD avert another public relations disaster -- much like what happened a year later when the department decided to start shooting tear gas and less-than-lethal weapons at an Occupy Oakland protest, an extremely bad decision that not only injured people unnecessarily, but also gave the city a black eye around the globe).
But having said that, Quan has never been the anti-police politician she's been portrayed as being in the media and by strident members of the law-and-order crowd. After all, many of the same moderate voters who cast their ballots year after year for Spees, voted for her when he retired.
As a result, I was not surprised at her decision to turn to Bratton and Wasserman for help (although I acknowledge she was probably influenced by the news media and the constant drumbeat of stories about how dangerous Oakland is and how understaffed OPD it is).
Having said that, though, I think the plan that Bratton and Wasserman put together is surprisingly good. No stop-and-frisk. No curfews. No gang injunctions. Instead, they're advocating for better investigations -- a problem OPD has had for years and badly needs to fix.
As for the public perception about OPD being understaffed, I blame local news media for failing to properly explain what is really going on. I doubt that most Oaklanders realize that their city already spends about twice the national average on policing per capita, and that the reason there aren't more cops is not because Oakland politicians are anti-police; it's because they handed out absurdly high pay and benefits packages to cops that are now bankrupting the city.
Re: “The A's Belong in Oakland”
Selig is Oakland number one enemy! He has gone puclic stating that he considers bringing the A's to Oakland a big mistake. After the Hass Family sold the team, there have been several groups willing to purchase the A's and keep them in Oakland. Bud Selig has boycotted and derailed any and all efforts coming from any group trying to make the fan's deserving dream to come true.
Bud Selig has handpicked the last and present ownerships with the sole mission of trying to relocate the team ANYWHERE but Oakland! They have not been successful i.e. Montreal but Selig can wait for the right time to extort another city willing to build a new ballpark with taxpayer's money for another corporate wellfare!
Re: “Friday Must Reads: FEMA Moves to Chop Down 82,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills; Lead Ammunition Ban Clears Assembly”
This FEMA vandalism is obscene and must be stopped. And the stealthy manner in which this has been conducted to date is reprehensible, if not actually illegal.
Re: “The A's Belong in Oakland”
Nice post. However, I'm always puzzled when people ask "why won't the A's ownership show interest in Oakland?" The Wolff/Fisher ownership group was hand picked for one specific purpose: Get the A's out of Oakland. All other considerations are secondary. Blaming the Oakland fan base for the team's troubles is completely disingenuous and with the media parroting phrases like "small market team" and "perennially low attendance," MLB and the A's owners are succeeding in convincing the world that it is the fans' fault the A's must move. Since taking over the team, the A's ownership has stated loud and clear, over and over: "We Don't Want You Here." Tarping off all the cheap seats in the upper decks was nothing but a direct insult to the fans. When you're hoping to debut a new product (the A's in San Jose), it is typical marketing practice to make the old product (the A's in Oakland) appear as out-of-date and unattractive as possible. So the owners have made the coliseum experience as maddening as they can. Want to go get a hot dog from a concession stand? Get ready to miss an entire inning to do so.
The A's media relations, community outreach, fan relations and overall marketing are absolutely pathetic. The East Bay is most certainly NOT a "small market", especially considering the potential fan base in the rapidly growing cities further inland.
The Oakland A's have three major enemies, all deeply committed to getting them out of Oakland: 1) Their ownership group. 2) Bud Selig (a man who has bad-mouthed the A's for decades and led an all out campaign to convince the other owners that the team MUST be moved.) and 3) Peter McGowan and the Giants. The issue isn't really "Giants territorial rights" in San Jose---it is that McGowan wants the A's out of the ENTIRE bay area so he can have this massive rich market all to himself.
These are the sorry realities. Oakland has made generous offers. Oakland businesses have expressed strong interest in keeping the team in Oakland--even to the point of suggesting purchase of the team by a local group. At no time since they took over the team has the Wolff/Fisher group even listened to any of it. Their tepid feigned interest in Oakland is a complete fake.
If you could catch Lew Wolff in a candid moment, I bet he'd even admit to being angered by last year's division title. The A's winning makes it more difficult to move them.
If the A's do move, it will mean the end of one of baseball's all time most exciting franchises. The A's and Giants are essentially opposite in character. The New York Giants were one of baseball's storied teams. After moving to San Francisco, they have displayed decades of boring, mediocre baseball until their recent success. The A's on the other hand, never flowered to their full glory until arriving in Oakland. They set the tone in their first month here with Catfish Hunter's perfect game. Some of the greatest A's players in history are Oakland or East Bay locals, including the great Rickey Henderson. The A's are the consistently exciting bay area baseball team, in contrast with the perennially boring Giants.
I read somewhere that Lew Wolff, Bud Selig and Peter McGowan were all frat buddies. That figures. The MLB owners are the ultimate "good old boy" network. The truth is that, if it weren't for baseball's anti-trust exemption, the only way to describe what these men are doing to the A's would be CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY. Modern baseball is not about fans. It's not about the cities or the ballparks, or the traditions, the history, any of that. It is solely and exclusively about MONEY. Baseball wants the predictable revenue that comes from long term TV contracts, corporate luxury boxes, and other groups that buy large blocks of season tickets. The LAST thing they want is the unpredictable revenue stream of walk-up, game by game attendance. They don't want us coming to the park! People coming to the park means staffing, restrooms, clean-up, and an array of other services. Unless you're a season ticket holder or are willing to spend $50 or more at the park--they'd really prefer you stay home, watch it on TV, and patronize the advertisers. That's modern sports.
Let's Go Oakland!
Re: “Friday Must Reads: FEMA Moves to Chop Down 82,000 Trees in Berkeley and Oakland Hills; Lead Ammunition Ban Clears Assembly”
FEMA is not chopping anything. They are required by law to take public comments, and they are, on their draft EIS, triggered by the grant applications submitted by UC Berkeley, EBRPD, and City of Oakland to reduce fire risk (which, yes, means removing fuel loads, ie trees). By all means, weigh in via the public process, but read the EIS, not Randy Shaw's alarmist op ed in California Progress Report (which implies that FEMA is trying to sneak something by).
Re: “Howard Jordan Was Never the Right Choice”
Len,
I think you're seriously underestimating the knowledge, abilities, and experiences of Compliance Director Thomas Frazier and Court Monitor Robert Warshaw. These guys are NOT anti-police. They both spent their entire careers as cops and were successful police chiefs.
Frazier was a cop in San Jose PD for 27 years, before he took over the Baltimore Police Department. President Clinton thought so highly of him that he appointed Frazier to run a key policing program for the White House.
Warshaw, meanwhile, had an extremely successful run as chief of the Rochester, New York police department -- a city that is not that dissimilar to Oakland (I've spent a lot of time in Rochester; my wife is from there).
In short, these guys are cops who know how to run police departments. And they have very little patience for cops who misbehave. They believe in ethical policing that does not run afoul of the US Constitution. Oakland's new police chief Sean Whent seems to be cut from the same cloth.
Now, if there are a substantial number of Oakland cops who are unwilling to do their jobs in an ethical way and abide by the reforms in the federal consent decree, and would rather leave the department than follow the rules, then that's not a bad thing for Oakland. In fact, it's a win-win-win.
1. The departure of those officers likely will speed up the reform process in OPD and give the department a much better chance of getting into compliance with the consent decree.
2. It'll save the city lots of money: These officers tend to be older veterans who make high salaries. Many of them also have cost the city millions in lawsuits involving their behavior.
3. The city will save even more money by replacing these veteran cops with rookies who will be trained to act ethically -- and thus will save the city even more cash over the long-run.
Re: “East Bay Pizzerias Get Love from the Cooking Channel's 'Pizza Cuz'”
The episode with Cheese Board is airing Monday 5/20 at 6pm PST.
Re: “Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz Tosses $50K To Prop 19”
This comment was removed because it violates our policy against anonymous comments. It will be reposted if the commenter chooses to use his or her real name.
Re: “Are More Cops the Answer?”
Bob, disagree with your "The number of police officers Oakland currently has is reflective of the incredibly expensive police union contract -- not a political philosophy that's anti-policing."
This is a city of which close to a majority of whom collectively voted for two mayoral candidates, Quan and Kaplan, who famously body blocked OPD during the first Oscar Grant demonstration.
Most of the Oaklanders who consistently vote in local elections live in the more affluent parts of town. And up until very recently, most of them shared the anti-cop beliefs of the old Quan and the old Brunner, and that of the consistent Nadel disdain for cops best expressed by one of our council members who said "We can't police our way out of crime."
The high compensation paid police here actually was the result of the widespread anti-police philosophy in combination with the economic self-interest of the police and of the other city employees. Voters and their elected officials didn't want more cops so they never bothered examining what cops were getting paid just so long as the total budgeted for cops didn't eat into other programs like libraries and anti-violence programs. Cops complained about high overtime but got addicted to it. The SEIU and other miscellaneous unions supported the hefty raises given to the cops and fire fighters as long as they also get hefty raises that lifted many non-safety city jobs in the highest paid in the country.
About the same time that the city ran out of smoke and mirror fiscal budgeting tools crime expanded out of the ghetto's into the hills and middle hills.
Practically overnight, liberal voters changed from being cop haters haters to cop lovers. The New Mayor Quan heard the drumbeat and hired Bratton.
And now the non-safety city employees are hoisted by their own petard of supporting their police and fire sisters and brothers past compensation demands because adding more cops now at 200k/cop average total compensation eats into the other employees' pie.
This extreme fast swing by voters and the politicians here from cop haters to cop lovers is not likely to result in rational, optimum use of city resources to increase safety.
I don't care what the elasticity of policing is on a broad sampling of American cities when you have a very specific city with a very specifically screwed up police department nominally overseen by officials who are bi-polar towards police. if anything, I'll bet the elasticity of dysfunction within OPD is such that you could increase the number of Oakland cops by 10% and only see a fraction of a percent drop in crime, if any, until you have doubled the number of cops.
At least one cop supporter, a retired sergeant, has posted cogent reasons why we don't have have to hire a bunch more cops in order to greatly improve OPD performance.
But it's a lot easier to get elected and re-elected by showing the likely to vote voters that you're tough on crime by hiring more cops and not delaying that by negotiating lower compensation. So what if in a couple of years there won't be any money for cops or for programs because local pols and union officials only plan two years at a time.
Re: “"Cops & Robbers" Onstage at”
Sponsored/free tickets available for young adults accompanied by their mentors, educators, elders.
Sponsored tickets are being provided on a first come first serve basis. Please go to http://copsandrobbersplay.wufoo.com/forms/… to register.
Or contact Ami Zins at copsandrobbersplay@gmail.com for if you need more info. Those interested are highly encouraged to apply for the 18 May matinee, as more tickets are available on that date.
Re: “"Cops & Robbers" Onstage at”
FREE PARKING AVAILABLE FOR ALL MAY 18 & MAY 31 PERFORMANCES IN THE KAISER BLDG PARKING GARAGE!
The matinee performances will be followed by an audience discussion with Piper and representatives from local violence prevention programs. These may be some of the most vital conversations the Oakland community will have about violence in our city, precisely because of the presence and voices of elders and young adults in the house.
For mature audiences only! Minimum recommended age 14 due to strong language and honest content.
Re: “It's Time for the Union Fighting to Stop”
Juan Castillo used to be a union rep for UAW Local 2244 at NUMMI where he worked with management to shut down NUMMI with a pack of lies. The main lie used to justify shutting down NUMMI was the pullout of GM which somehow caused a financial strain. That was not true because we didn't make GM cars. We made Corollas and Tacomas and the Pontiac Vibe (25% at its height). GM made little from the sale of the Vibe because it was a rebadged Toyota Matrix. GM didn't get to keep all the profits. The vast majority of revenue came from Toyota production. The GM lie was nothing more than a red herring.
Juan Castillo was also a part of the union busting crew who started a riot at the union hall , videotaped it and spread that across the union busting milieu in the U.S. to frame union workers as "thugs". It's still on You Tube. The whole "riot" was nothing more than a fabricated provocation. People still have flyers from Juan promoting that day with incendiary language designed to provoke anger against the union instead of Toyota.
FYI: Toyota had $39 billion when they announced the shutdown of NUMMI
The lies from Toyota was spread through Juan's newsletter called "Autoworkers News". Juan's newsletter replaced the legitimate workers newsletter called "The Barking Dog" after Caroline Lund passed away. Workers simply assumed "Autoworkers News" was legit and believed the lies from a pro-Reagan anti-union mole. Juan's cheesy website is still up, but the incriminating articles have been taken down to give the impression of just another loyal union rep.
Juan Castillo is still on You Tube in interviews by "laborvideo" where he is quoted as calling the UAW a "business" and spreading the lies about GM.
Juan Castillo lied then and he lies now. Ignore his position as a union rep. He's a union buster.
Either SEIU-UHW was ignorant of who they were hiring; or worse, SEIU-UHW knew of his past collaboration with Toyota management and hired the right guy for the job.
Re: “Recreation Calendar”
SFMOMA puts Mark di Suvero's junk on Crissy Field. Steel eyesores are not art but I have fun imagining their removal.
http://alfidicapitalblog.blogspot.com/2013…