http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2011/05/20/oakland-council-should-worry-about-the-deficit-not-the-mayors-advisor Comments On: Oakland Council Should Worry About the Deficit, Not the Mayor’s Advisor by Robert Gammon en-us Copyright 2013 East Bay Express. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, East Bay Express readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact East Bay Express. editor@eastbayexpress.com (East Bay Express Webmaster) Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Fri, 24 May 2013 05:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Without money, no services. How will the city raise revenue or cut expenses?
I do not believe a vote to increase taxes will succeed.
Posted by Hammerrobbby]]> Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:50:45 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by Lawngun]]> Sun, 22 May 2011 15:25:31 -0700 East Bay Express
(Damn. Just can't get my Lawngun imitation down...:)
Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 19:35:29 -0700 East Bay Express
(Remember, he can't respond now!
Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 19:33:39 -0700 East Bay Express
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/21/BALQ1JJ0A0.DTL

The Mayor is proposing to illegally use money from an East Oakland redevelopment area to buy the Kaiser Center from the City.

Redevelopment money, by law, is supposed to be used in the redevelopment area it's assigned to.
Posted by Max Allstadt]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 19:33:07 -0700 East Bay Express
The only voices that seem to be dismissing the severity of Quan's behavior appear to be her staunchest allies, and Robert Gammon.

How many more questionable actions will the Mayor have to take by fiat before she's gone too far in the opinion of the Express?
Posted by Max Allstadt]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 19:21:16 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by Lawngun]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 16:24:30 -0700 East Bay Express
I know...broken record. I promise to stop, when he leaves.

For the younger members of the audience, a "record" is...
Posted by Lawngun]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 16:21:49 -0700 East Bay Express Maybe you should come teach this newspaper dinosaur a few Internet tricks. I'm eager to learn.

But having said that, the hard-copy newspaper will continue to be our main focus going forward, because it still represents more than 90 percent of our revenue, as it does for most other newspapers.
Posted by Robert Gammon]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 13:11:07 -0700 East Bay Express
I just noticed something that I forgot about those letters written by Siegel on Quan's behalf...THEY ARE ON SIEGEL AND YEE LETTERHEAD. An outside attorney, writing on his own law firm's letterhead, quoting statute, making a legal argument.
Posted by Max Allstadt]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 12:02:40 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 10:00:53 -0700 East Bay Express
Re attorney-client privilege, I actually was referring back to when Russo claimed (as quoted in the media) that the problem with Quan's using Siegel is that attorney-client privilege does NOT apply since he is not the city's lawyer, and that therefore, information that Quan gives him and that should be confidential about the city would fall prey to being UNPRIVILEGED and thus subject to subppoena. It's a different issue from the current problem, and I was just pointing out that Russo's crying foul was about that issue.

As far as the intricacies of the city charter and who's allowed to do what, I'm clueless and am just ranting and venting like everyone else.
Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 09:28:30 -0700 East Bay Express Thanks once again for citing the exact sections of Oakland City Charter. It's pretty clear that Russo violated the charter by not showing up at city council meetings.

Max,
Glad to see you've abandoned the ridiculous claim that Siegel violated attorney-client privilege by attending the consent decree meeting.
Posted by Robert Gammon]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 09:01:44 -0700 East Bay Express
Section 40l(5). Vacancy, What Constitutes.
Posted by Lawngun]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 06:09:38 -0700 East Bay Express
Section 401(1). City Attorney.
Posted by Lawngun]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 05:59:35 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by Lawngun]]> Sat, 21 May 2011 05:53:08 -0700 East Bay Express
There are multiple articles with extensive analysis of the budget and long comment threads on abetteroakland.com and on oaktalk.com

Nobody's suggesting that we need to gut all our programs permanently. But the Mayor's budgets are full of deceitful or vague elements, and she needs to be challenged on that.

For instance: it's clear that in the Mayor's worst-case-scenario budget, there was no real analysis of the consequences for the library.
Posted by Max Allstadt]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 22:15:53 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 21:33:56 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 21:11:31 -0700 East Bay Express
Second: "on closer examination, the allegation appears to be absurd on its face," - which is it?
Posted by yoyo_guru]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 21:10:19 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by sara6300]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 20:08:16 -0700 East Bay Express
The charter says that the city has no attorney but the Elected City Attorney. This is construed to mean that the Elected City Attorney's subordinate attorneys as well as any attorneys contracted by the Elected City Attorney.

The Mayor ordered Mr. Siegel, who is not the City Attorney, to respond to a California Public Records Act request on her behalf.
Posted by Max Allstadt]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 20:05:26 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by Priscilla Smith]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 19:15:59 -0700 East Bay Express Posted by Lavanda]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 18:45:26 -0700 East Bay Express One more thing -- name a single instance in which the mayor has violated the charter. Cite me caselaw that shows that a mayor can't ask an unpaid legal advisor to respond to a record's request that she could have responded to on her own.
Posted by Robert Gammon]]> Fri, 20 May 2011 17:29:41 -0700 East Bay Express