Comment Archives: Last 30 Days
Re: “Quan's Budget Is Unsustainable”
Now we have a new mini me real estate bubble and the Mayor and the Council are giddy in their rush to spend the increased revenues on more cops at high cost and restoring cuts that turned out to be only temporary to other city employees.
No, don't tell me that the "rainy day' reserve proves that our elected officials learned anything from the Dot Com and the Great Recession. That reserve goes poof as soon as Jerry Brown wiggles his pinkie.
And even if he lets us keep some of the Redevelopment money in the reserve, a 7.5% rainy day fund ain't much help in the face of the oncoming fiscal hurricane.
Re: “Quan's Budget Is Unsustainable”
The Mayor's proposed budget would be unsustainable after a couple of years even if she were not proposing increased spending on expensive cops and fire.
Her very competent budget office staff prepared the 5 year fiscal projection that shows we're scrogged because nothing has been done to fund all the huge overhanging "structural" obligations re the medical and pension costs of all the general fund employee costs, not just cops and fire; the deferred capital improvements, old pension costs etc.
All the Mayor did in her budget was repeat the mantra we've heard local politicians chant that "we have to start addressing the long term budget problems" but did absolutely nothing to start dealing with them. Nada. Zilch.
For any of our officials to blame the "Great Recession" for the city's problems is disingenuous. It's more a case of the "Great Dot Com and Great Real Estate Bubble" inflating the city's revenues for several years and thus covering up the underlying failure of normal revenue to cover current costs plus fund future retirement and infrastructure costs. Didn't help that just as the bubbles burst the baby boomers started to retire at the hoary age of 50 and 55 allowed by city contract.
Mayor Quan and all of the sitting council members other than the three newbies, signed the police and fire contract a couple of years ago that preserves and protects binding arbitration for cops and fire in all matters of personnel including compensation and discipline. The council agreed that if any of them tried to repeal binding arbitration that the police fire contract was null and void. So the Mayor and the council members can jawbone all day but the police and fire associations are not about to be guilt tripped into any major compensation concessions before they have to. (btw, check out the old PFRS retirement plan and find out whether a reduction in pay for new hires would lower retirement benefits to police and fire retirees of PFRS. I don't know the answer.)
Re: “Coming Soon: SO MANY NEW BARS”
East Bay Spice Company just opened at 2134 Oxford St, in Berkeley...currently serving North Indian street food from 5pm-11pm and unique, spice-centric craft cocktails from 5pm-2am, Monday-Saturday.
Re: “The Rules of Husbandry”
Quite interesting . . . very helpful . . . THANKS!
Re: “Assemble Offers a Timid Salute to American History”
The classic American answer to blandness is Tabasco.
Re: “Friday Must Reads: Brown Admin. Official Admits Water Tunnels Won’t Save Delta; Brown Urges Feds to Fast-Track Tunnels Despite Concerns They Will Harm Fish”
The only mystery about the new water tunnel proposal is how taking more and higher-quality water out of the Delta possibly can improve the already water-deficient environment.
An alternative proposal should be developed with a specific focus on improving the Delta and the fisheries. This would no doubt require innovative water conservation practices for agriculture and for other water users in the south.
Gov. Brown Senior built the first project to take water out of the Delta. Gov. Brown Junior needs to come into the 21st Century. His father was wrong.
Re: “Lanesplitter Workers Quit in Protest”
Hello, thanks for posting this! As a recent frustrated worker who gave three years of my time and quit, I think this very accurately takes a snapshot of the situation. I've seen a massive decline in food quality, employees (their hiring process only required that I was able to stretch a dough to 19", no reference check or anything), and as a result, employee turnover. As a result, a lot of the fault is put on the senior employees in an often unfair way. Lanesplitter is right, they do have an open door policy, but they simply don't have the proper management structure to address anything quickly, and they far too often have too much on their plate. They only accept any kind of criticism, concern or help through email (you often get scolded for taking up their time) and it takes weeks to get a response, if they do at all. Even after I gave two weeks notice, they made zero effort to even acknowledge that they received my email. Taking into consideration how poorly the schedule is typically written, I had no idea if I was going to be taken off the schedule or not.
I will add that during my second year of employment, I had health insurance. I was given $100 a month toward any health plan of my choice, which I personally thought was generous. However, approaching my third year, hours got changed around and shifts were rarely over five hours, making my five day work week no longer qualify for health insurance.
The part that bothers me is that this was the fault of lower management, and to this day I still don't even think the owners know why everyone is complaining, and why people now believe the plan is inaccessible. The owners have nothing to do with scheduling of staff, and I don't think they even look at the schedule.
I have to say, as mismanaged as this place is, I quit for two main reasons. It seems that they will hire just about anybody, and it takes far too long to get rid of people who don't work out. There is a very minimal training process. Like I said, I was hired based on my ability to toss a dough to 19", and was only given what I would call criticism, not actual training. This was because everyone who "trained" me wasn't actually trained either, just told whether they were doing a bad job or not. They are extremely obscure with what they choose to scold you about, and you're rarely told you're doing a good job. (This is coming from someone who was promoted almost all the way up the ladder and have enjoyed several senior employee appreciation dinners, retreats, etc. I know they thought I did a good job, never heard it.) This environment allows people to think they're AMAZING workers and over entitled, when in reality their performance could be subpar. OR they could be drunk with little to no consequence, and it's a hard battle to get things like this taken care of.
The other reason I quit was an extremely rapid fall in food quality over this last summer. A few years back (when I already thought the product was getting poor) almost everything came from Cysco. Toppings were mostly canned, but there were a few things left. The sausage came raw, which we'd have to portion and prep, chicken came raw, which we'd season and cook, and the produce came in whole, which we'd have to cut and portion. The new produce company sends everything already cut in bags and vacuum sealed, including frozen chicken and sausage (with MSG!) The whole idea of wrapping already cut produce is flawed, because it bleeds gases into the bag making things rot faster. The produce company doesn't put a date on any of their packages, and it's often (often meaning some every day) rotten right off the truck. I brought this up to one of the owners, who responded with "I've been to the facility, and it is phenomenal. It must be a problem with your rotation." They are very close minded when it comes to constructive criticism, no matter how open the door to their email inbox is.
Bottom line is I don't think they're bad people, I just don't think they know what they're doing, and there's close to no real communication between staff and upper management. I wish them the best and I do hope they figure it out before having to close all five of their stores...
Re: “Friday Must Reads: Brown Admin. Official Admits Water Tunnels Won’t Save Delta; Brown Urges Feds to Fast-Track Tunnels Despite Concerns They Will Harm Fish”
"Many environmentalists believe the real reason Brown wants the tunnels is to send more freshwater to Southern California." "Environmentalists" hell; anybody with a brain who's been here more than five minutes.
Re: “California Medical Pot Regulation Bill Passes Assembly Public Safety Committee”
Consider adding your name to the petition based on science and reason to Immediately Remove Cannabis from the CSA and Single Convention Treaty. Each signature sends an email to both Senators and House Representative of the signer along with an email to President Obama.
http://www.change.org/petitions/immediatel…
Re: “ASCAP Targets Farmers' Markets and House Venues”
"He did an informal poll of the musicians he books ..." -- der ralph, who bites the hand that immediately feeds them, especially when asked on the spot who's side they're on? BTW: If more minor venues like farmers' markets finally started anteing up legitimate licensing fees (to be included as a regular line-item in their business plan), the "little guys" who create & perform their original music might actually start seeing some meaningful royalty revenue, too ... Lady Gaga doesn't play micro-venues for a reason ... & that needs to be changed from the grass-roots -- aka "farmers' market" -- level.
Re: “Former Oakland Blight Official Admits to Breaking Law”
Len,
This following passage from the FPPC's investigation of Renwick appears to indicate that the Alameda County DA might not have a criminal case against her:
"[T]he evidence obtained during this investigation did not indicate that the competitive bidding process was compromised by the loan from Arthur Young to Respondent Renwick. Additionally, Respondent Renwick denies that she knowingly engaged in a pattern of violations by failing to include the Arthur Young loan in her 2008 annual statement of economic interests. Respondent Renwick contends that she did not have any ethics training from the City of Oakland until 2010. Thus, Respondent Renwick contends that even though she had been filing SEI’s for several years, she was unaware that the $50,000 loan secured by a deed of trust would be construed as a conflict of interest, precluding her from doing her job when Arthur Young Debris Removal was a participant in the competitive bidding process. Respondent Renwick was and is in the process of repaying her loan from Arthur Young. Additionally, Respondent Renwick stopped signing Blight Abatement Agreements in approximately May 2009, and retired in October 2010, thus, she is no longer a public official making governmental decisions. Lastly, Respondent Renwick has no prior violations of the Act, and she voluntarily amended her SEI’s prior to this investigation. Thus, Respondent’s actions, taken as a whole, show a pattern of violations which were, at worst, negligent."
Re: “Former Oakland Blight Official Admits to Breaking Law”
Len,
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner on this. I haven't looked into what the city can do at this point. One question, I think, would be whether the DA's office would be willing to go after Renwick on criminal charges -- if the city were to request that -- in light of the fact that the FPPC already fined her.
Re: “Quan's Budget Is Unsustainable”
It's total bankruptcy: ethical, functional, financial. Oakland absolutely cannot protect the well-being of its citizens. Oakland has failed at police reform and management so costs are exceedingly high through low morale/high attrition, overly high salaries and excess overtime. "Leaders" have been financially incompetent, dishonest, short-term-oriented, incapable of understanding risk.
There's only one possible route to change: new leadership.
Re: “Quan's Budget Is Unsustainable”
Oakland is completely bankrupt: ethically, functionally and financially. This bankruptcy reflects the failure of leadership.
Ethical bankruptcy: Oakland cannot protect the well-being of its citizens. Rather than take responsibility, Oakland's "leaders" assign blame.
Functional bankruptcy: The city's electeds utterly lack the ability to deal with complex problems. Police reform has failed. The Police Department is demoralized because of a lack of strategic civilian leadership and support. The very expensive high police attrition rate is a result.
Financial bankruptcy: A long history of poor decision-making and short-term thinking. An inability to understand financial planning and the nature of risk. An inability to face facts and deal with them.
None of this will change until there is new, and real, leadership downtown.
Re: “Feds' Medical Pot Fishing Expedition Hits Mendocino Chop”
"Haag hasn't said what she is after..", Do we need two guesses? Do we need even one guess?
Lets face it, even State Attorneys have every intention to use this method, the method of the Federal practice of complete lack of transparency.
Lets assume that 'stuff' rolls downhill. We can also assume that as a measure of Appointee description, appointees are following that which engender possible continued employment under their training from the appointer and that the appointer is the avenue towards advancement to the 'show', Federal appointment purely at the Federal level such as directly at the DOJ or cross entry into other bureaucracies at the Federal level.
No one should assume that Haag or her cohorts in any State will do anything but follow ONDCP policy. The mandate. The only way towards Mj inclusion is resistance to the misguided and corrupted ONDCP policies in each State.
Vote folks, vote your butts off.
Re: “Lanesplitter Workers Quit in Protest”
Sheesh. You make it sound like there's jobs all over the place. Did you ever think that people are working as much as they can, trying to support their families? Workers need to be paid enough to at least survive. And why wouldn't a food-handling establishment want their workers on health insurance right away?
Re: “Lanesplitter Workers Quit in Protest”
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: “Lanesplitter Workers Quit in Protest”
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: “Lanesplitter Workers Quit in Protest”
This sounds a lot like people expecting more from their part-time job than is realistic. If these former employees went to Domino's making pizzas of dough powder A and pizza sauce B -would they be better off? If so, then go fill out an application. Honestly, and this is coming from someone who started working at 15 and did so all through school, I don't expect a pizzeria to provide what these former employees expect it to. I worked hourly in retail and restaurants until my last year in college and, wow, I had some bad, bad bosses. One boss was so mental I quit right in the middle of my rush hour shift -no one called the newspaper over it. As a professional I still have had to change jobs because my bosses were nightmares. I feel for these people, and then I totally don't.
Re: “Noncompete Agreements Are Also Nonlegal in California”
What happens when a employer cuts commission of their reps and targets the lone rep who sales the most