Free Republic

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is showing no signs of grounding his high-flying spending practices - running up nearly $60,000 on his city credit card in a one-year stretch for airline flights, restaurant meals, conference fees and stays at some of the toniest hotels in the nation. That works out to more than $1,000 a week that Oakland's taxpayers shelled out from September 2008 to September 2009 to keep Dellums traveling in style. The mayor ran up nearly every dime of his $59,079 in expenses after the City Council ordered employees in fall 2008 to halt all unnecessary travel to help...

Bad news for Oakland today. CQ Press has released their annual City crime rankings, and Oakland is even closer to the top of the list than usual. The rankings are based on the incidence of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and vehicle theft in all US cities with more than 75,000 residents. Out of 393 cities considered, Oakland clocked in as the 3rd most crime ridden, topped only by Camden, NJ and St. Louis, MO. Other cities joining Oakland in the top 10 include Detroit, MI, Flint, MI, New Orleans, LA, Birmingham, AL, Cleveland, OH, Jackson, MS and Memphis,...

OAKLAND — A man arrested at the West Oakland BART station Saturday was held on battery charges after a thick glass window broke during his arrest, severely cutting the BART police officer at the scene, officials said. BART officials held a news conference Sunday to address the incident because a video of the arrest was posted on YouTube. The video is shot from inside a train and shows Michael Joseph Gibson, a 37-year-old San Leandro man, shouting at other riders. In the video, an officer enters the train, grabs Gibson and walks him toward a wall at the other side...

Somewhere in the bureaucratic haze of Oakland city government, in a spacious office with views of Frank Ogawa Plaza, there is a holiday grinch who has actually succeeded in swiping a slice of Christmas spirit from city residents. Now I already know what you're thinking, so let's get it out of the way. It is not Mayor Ron Dellums. He has been out of town since Saturday attending to a death in the family, said Paul Rose, the mayor's overused, underinformed press secretary. On Monday, Oakland city officials informed Marco Li Mandri, executive director of two business community benefit districts...

Motorists continued to ignore the speed limit approaching the Bay Bridge's S-curve Monday, just hours after a driver lost control of his truck there and fell 200 feet to his death. During the morning commute, a digital billboard at the westbound incline read, "Slow Down. 35 MPH Curve Two Miles Ahead," yet few drivers heeded the warning, perhaps because of distraction or a simple refusal to slow down, said Simon Washington, director of the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center at UC Berkeley. Washington, an expert in traffic safety who will analyze the stretch for Caltrans in the coming days,...

Oakland Mayor Ronald V. Dellums owes the residents of this great city an explanation. And if he can't provide one, he owes his resignation. ... He is a hometown hero entrusted with the highest public office Oakland can offer. His $239,000 tax bill is peanuts compared with the weight of his responsibility as Oakland mayor. Anyone can make an honest mistake, and if that's all this is, then no harm, no foul. But Oakland residents deserve to know why the mayor was unable to handle his legal obligation to pay income taxes, .. ... They are deserving of far more...

(11-03) 15:20 PST OAKLAND -- Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife failed to pay more than $239,000 in taxes over a three-year period and have had a lien slapped on their property by the Internal Revenue Service, public records show. ... Yeah yeah yeah, another Democrat politician didn’t pay all his taxes. But Dellums isn’t your typical “the rich aren’t paying their fair share!” Democrat. He was among the luminaries of the 60’s New Left and was the first traveled in April to Cuba to meet with their hero Fidel Castro. Now that’s its been discovered that Dellums has...

Ron Dellums, who earns about $184,000 as Oakland mayor on top of a congressional pension, appears to owe the Internal Revenue Service at least $66,554. A lien has been placed against his property for failing to pay taxes for 2006. According to the East Bay Express, which broke the story, Mayor Dellums and his wife, who file jointly, may owe more than $239,000 in taxes, mostly for the years he worked as a lobbyist in Washington, DC.

The Bay Bridge reopened just after 9 a.m. today, six days after a repair job on a cracked structural beam on the eastern span fell apart and plunged onto the upper deck. Tests conducted overnight and this morning on an altered version of that repair job showed that the fix was holding, Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said. At 9:01 a.m., a fleet of five California Highway Patrol cars escorted the first private vehicles allowed onto the westbound upper deck since the span was shut down Tuesday evening. About 10 minutes later, the lower deck reopened for traffic heading to the...

So Tom Cable walks. That's how you'd have figured it to play given the other characters and circumstances involved. But more than that, Napa County District Attorney Gary Lieberstein said that Raiders assistant coach Randy Hanson couldn't satisfactorily explain to Lieberstein's conviction rate how his jaw was broken. And that, ultimately, is the lesson here. Nobody told enough of a believable story for us ever to figure out what Cable, the Raiders head coach, actually did to Hanson's face, let alone what his intent was when he did whatever it was he did. With that kind of iron-clad certitude, is...

A longtime Your Black Muslim Bakery associate with a checkered past in dealing with public money persuaded BART's board of directors on Thursday to award him half of a seven-figure energy-efficiency contract, despite BART staffers' recommendation to the contrary. Nedir Bey, 48, was a confidant and "spiritually adopted" son of the late Yusuf Bey, Your Black Muslim Bakery's founder. Once a respected community institution, the bakery has been linked to decades of various frauds, abuses of women and children, and violent episodes, including several homicides. Bey's own background includes a $1.1 million Oakland city loan never repaid and campaign matching...

Despite state investigators and other experts saying that a detective's ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery's young leader compromised his investigation of a journalist's slaying, the Oakland Police Department will decline to discipline him, police sources say. Sgt. Derwin Longmire, who investigated the Aug. 2, 2007, killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in downtown Oakland, will return to work within days, according to three department sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was reassigned from homicide to patrol last year, and he has been on paid administrative leave since April pending possible disciplinary action in this case. Longmire's...

OAKLAND — Although changing venues for criminal trials has become a rarity in the state, a decision by an Alameda County judge last week to move the murder case against a former BART police officer was not a surprise, criminal law professors and attorneys in the field said Monday. Professors and attorneys said community outrage against the Jan. 1. killing almost assured the trial would be moved. "If there is ever a case you would expect a change of venue, it would be a case like this," said David Sklansky, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law....

About 30 animal rights protesters gathered outside the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on Sunday, waving signs decrying dogfighting in response to Michael Vick's arrival with the Philadelphia Eagles and drawing mostly praise from Raiders fans entering the stadium. Oakland has been the happy ending for many of the animals rescued from Vick's dogfighting and gambling operation in Virginia. Ten of the dogs in Vick's pit bull collection -- the ones that could be saved and rehabilitated -- found new lives in San Francisco's East Bay, fostered and treated by the group BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls). On Sunday,...

OAKLAND — The murder trial against former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle will be moved to another county, a judge declared Friday. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson informed attorneys late Thursday that the case against Mehserle, in which he is accused of murder in the shooting of an unarmed Oscar Grant III early New Year's Day, should occur in another county because the 27-year-old cannot receive a fair trial in Alameda County. Jacobson's ruling was made less than a week after a hearing on a change of venue in the case concluded with prosecutors arguing that Alameda County...

The Raiders can't keep Rich Gannon out of the Coliseum's broadcast booth, so they want to lock the quarterback-turned-TV analyst out of the team facility in Alameda. Team officials told CBS Sports they did not want Gannon to attend Saturday's television production meetings in advance of Sunday's Raiders-Broncos game, The Chronicle has learned, citing his public criticism of the organization in recent years. "Rich Gannon is not welcome here," Raiders executive John Herrera said Friday when asked about the ban. "We told CBS we did not want him in our building, we did not want him to be part of...

His Excellency, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, will offer a Pontifical Solemn High Mass at St. Margaret Mary Church, an apostolate of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, this Sunday, September 20, at 12:30 p.m. The occasion is the 20th anniversary of the first indult Traditional Latin Mass celebrated at this church in 1989. St. Margaret Mary was the first church in California to offer the Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday under the indult granted by Pope John Paul II. in 1988. In 2005, the Institute was invited to the Oakland diocese by then-Bishop Allen Vigneron. Under the...

An Internet list includes names of businesses, government buildings and university structures around Pittsburgh that protesters apparently plan to illegally target during the G-20 summit, Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons reported. Many of the 100 sites are in the East Liberty, Shadyside, Oakland and Lawrenceville neighborhoods, away from the site of the global economic summit, which will be held Sept. 24-25 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center downtown.

I had to take a time out to send a little message to my friend Jack Cafferty at CNN. He has a blog post focusing on Van Jones and asking if the White House should have so many czars. SNIP The conservative attack on Jones, a swift-boating and a smearing that left Jones with a new national identity to build from. Yes, he's got to overcome the YouTubing he's gotten and he can do this with, well, new videos. Van's not the radical he was in the past, but you know what, Sean Hannity's not cavorting with the White Supremacist...

From a clearinghouse site on radical leftist/marxist Bay Area organizations:YOUTH EMPOWERMENT CENTER / CORPORATE DESTRUCTION CLUSTERS Description: Anti-capitalist money-funnel for radical youth indoctrination groups founded in Oakland, California in 2000, by foundation-guided merger of four existing youth organizing groups and based on the Tides Center fiscal-sponsorship model with a half million dollars of foundation money. YEC is fiscal sponsor of the four founding groups: C-Beyond (a Tides Center project - radical organizers) Youth Force Coalition (anti-prison group) SOUL - School of Unity and Liberation (racial / economic justice group) Underground Railroad (art and culture for revolution) and subsequent groups:...

Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), the revolutionary group formed by self-described "communist" and "rowdy black nationalist" Van Jones, held a vigil in Oakland, California, "mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world" on the night after Sept. 11, 2001.... Van Jones is now President Obama's green jobs czar. He does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration's push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda. Jones also founded the Ella Baker Center...

Some of the country's biggest media subsidizers, including AT&T, P&G and Campbell's, have decided to stop advertising during Glenn Beck's program. Beck, a pretender to the populist throne who has made a name for himself on YouTube through catchy remixes of his crying tirades, recently accused President Barack Obama of racism. So Oakland-based ColorOfChange.org has arranged an advertiser boycott -- since viewer disinterest doesn't affect the bottom line of network or cable news directly. Which leaves Beck shrill and popular among his demographic, but likely losing money for News Corp. investors. Never a good position to be in if your...

Yusuf Bey IV tried several times last year to persuade one of his former followers from Your Black Muslim Bakery not to testify against him in a kidnapping and torture case, recorded telephone calls reveal. Bey IV spoke with Kalil Raheem from jail in early 2008 as authorities were pressuring Raheem to testify against him. Sometimes cajoling, sometimes making veiled threats, Bey IV repeatedly asked Raheem not to cooperate with prosecutors even if it meant that Raheem would be locked up, according to recordings of the calls that The Chauncey Bailey Project obtained. "They are going to send me to...

OAKLAND — A judge on Friday shot down Yusuf Bey IV's attempt to dismiss kidnapping and torture charges against him, quickly ruling that there remains "incredibly damaging" evidence. Bey IV's lawyer Anne Beles, argued that her client's rights were violated in April when another judge refused to allow a witness to testify at a preliminary hearing after which Bey IV was ordered to stand trial in the case. That decision was the second time a judge ruled there was enough evidence to proceed with the case against the 23-year-old former CEO of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery. An earlier...

Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment that deprived gay men and women of the right to marry one another, was perhaps the ugliest and most divisive electoral moment since Proposition 187, which denied illegal immigrant children access to health care and public education. All across the state, gay men, lesbians, and their friends picketed hostile churches and boycotted businesses that backed the amendment. And as they contemplated their fate, they asked themselves: Who did this to us? Was it the Mormons? The National Organization for Marriage? Black voters? White evangelical megachurches? Now, eight months after...

This Quentin Tarantino movie of a Raiders training camp just got a whole lot more NC-17. Randy Hanson, the assistant coach who somehow suffered a fractured jaw in an altercation with head coach Tom Cable, has hired a lawyer and is pressing charges against coach Cable for allegedly punching him. If that's not enough, sources say Hanson is also alleging that Tom Cable choked him while screaming, "I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!" Look at the bright side, Raider fans. At least the chair and the cabinet aren't planning on pressing any charges. The National Football...

OAKLAND -- A Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Las Vegas was turned around today after a man apparently stripped off his clothes and harassed fellow passengers. The man was arrested, and a female passenger was taken off the plane to receive medical attention, according to airline officials. Southwest officials confirmed the arrest, and said the flight returned to Oakland International Airport at 8:15 a.m. After an investigation, the flight took off for Las Vegas at about 10 a.m. No further details were available.

AUGUST 15, 2009 Illegal Immigration Enters the Health-Care Debate In California, Funding Is at Stake for a Clinic That Treats Patients No Matter Their Status; An Issue 'No One Wants to Touch' MIRIAM JORDAN VALLEJO, Calif. -- A health clinic in this blue-collar city north of Oakland, partly funded by the county, is saving local hospitals thousands of dollars in emergency-room visits by treating uninsured patients who suffer only non-urgent ailments. A watchdog group is now calling on county officials to cut funding for clinic patients who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally, a debate certain to surface...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- Court documents claim a man charged in the murder of an Oakland journalist was also involved in the killing of his own brother. Yusuf Bey IV, former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey and two other men. Yusuf Bey IV's brother, Antar Bey, was killed in 2005. Alfonza Phillips is serving life in prison for that murder. In documents filed last week seeking to overturn Phillips' conviction, defense attorney Randi Covin says Yusuf Bey IV and two other men acted on their intent...

OAKLAND — A man apparently locked out of his West Oakland apartment was seriously hurt when he tried to rappel down the roof of the building into a back window and fell four stories, fire officials said. Fire fighters responded to calls of the man's fall around 1:40 a.m. today in the 700 block of Peralta Street, across from the Main Oakland Post Office. The man, whose age was not immediately known, apparently lived in the building and had been locked out of his apartment, officials said. He went to the roof and rigged an orange electrical extension cord, which...

Bakery's rule ended with journalist's killingOAKLAND - Two years ago this morning, when Devaughndre Broussard gunned down journalist Chauncey Bailey, he did it in exchange for a chance at becoming rich, he later told prosecutors.But his pay for killing Bailey wasn't cash, Broussard said. It was a promise of knowledge.Yusuf Bey IV, the then 21-year-old CEO of Your Black Muslim Bakery, told Broussard that he'd teach him and cohort Antoine Mackey the secrets of creating bogus credit reports and fraudulent loan applications that would bring them hundreds of thousands of dollars, Broussard said in March.Bey IV "was like, 'I am...

An Oakland County Democratic Party official used interns to send falsified letters to Republican county commissioners in order to persuade them to vote for a health care resolution, according to a commissioner who received one of the letters....Oakland County Democratic Party Chairman Mike McGuinness issued an apology to the Republican Caucus in an e-mail on July 21.

OAKLAND, CALIF. -- The leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery embraced the men who had just told him they carried out orders to kill Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey, telling them "I love y'all," according to the admitted gunman's chilling grand jury account released Thursday. The April testimony of confessed killer Devaughndre Broussard led to the indictment of onetime bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 23, in the 2007 slaying of Bailey and the killings of two other men. Also indicted in the three slayings was bakery follower Antoine Mackey, also 23. On Thursday, Bey and Mackey pleaded not guilty to murdering...

A former Your Black Muslim Bakery associate wanted in two California counties has been arrested in St. Louis. A St. Louis Metropolitan Police spokeswoman confirmed Friday the arrest of Ajuwon Fardjamaal Muhammad, 25, but couldn't immediately provide any details on the circumstances. An online court records system indicates he's charged there with misdemeanor interference with legal process. Muhammad is wanted in Alameda County for his alleged role in the New Year's Eve beating of an East Oakland man; he's charged with battery with serious bodily injury and criminal threats. Police case notes say victim Jerome Muhammad reported eight to 12...

Authorities believe a body found buried last week in a San Francisco park is that of a man who had ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland and who vanished two years ago under suspicious circumstances, The Chronicle has learned. The man, thought to be Omar Sharif Allah, disappeared in October 2007 as the black self-empowerment group was in the final stages of its unraveling. Its leader, Yusuf Bey IV, son of the man who founded the bakery in 1968, had been jailed two months earlier on charges of kidnapping two women and torturing one of them. Bey IV...

Oakland has raised the price of parking tickets, extended meter times to 8 p.m. in most parts of the city and is more aggressively enforcing parking violations, including in residential neighborhoods. The decision is driven by the city's budget woes, which deep cuts to city services alone did not solve. Falling sales and property, property transfer and hotel taxes have contributed to a $51 million decline in revenues. But the move to wring more money out of parking violations, one of the few legal tools the city has, is inspiring a revolt. A newly established parking enforcement crew that works...

OAKLAND -- A former intern in Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' office has pleaded no contest to credit-card theft after being accused of stealing bank account information from two mayoral staff members and a law firm where she previously worked, her attorney said Friday. Phelicia Williams, 27, of Oakland entered her plea this week in Alameda County Superior Court, where she had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing. She will be sentenced Aug. 20 by Judge Morris Jacobson. In exchange for her plea and her promise to pay $15,000 to the victims, prosecutors dropped five other felony counts, defense attorney Robert...

The allegations in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly threatens to become a courtroom drama focusing on the Oakland mayor's office - and who's really in charge. To some Oakland residents, Edgerly may represent the antithesis of political reform. She was accused of interfering with a police investigation, she hired her friends and family, and she underestimated the 2008-09 budget deficit by millions of dollars. But she is also a veteran political insider who knows - and can allegedly prove - how things really work in the mayor's office. Ever since Mayor Ron Dellums...

After a year of silence, fired Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly has filed suit against her former bosses, claiming she was unfairly terminated after refusing to hand out patronage to Mayor Ron Dellums' supporters and pay some of his wife's bills with city money. The mayor dismissed Edgerly in July 2008 after instances of possible nepotism involving her surfaced, including the allegation that she had tipped her nephew, who also worked for the city, of an impending gang raid.In her suit, filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court, Edgerly says the mayor's wife and unpaid adviser, Cynthia Dellums, directed her...

SNIPPET: "Then, at 1 a.m., police said two men opened fire in the parking lot of a Denny's in the 600 block of Hegenberger Road near the Oakland Coliseum. One of the wounded men reportedly went into the restaurant seeking help. He and the second victim were sent to the hospital, where they are listed in stable condition."

The Oakland A's have reached a $510,000 settlement with a male attorney suing them because he wasn't given a commemorative cap being handed out to women at an A's game on Mother's Day 2004. Attorney Alfred G. Rava initiated a class-action lawsuit against the A's because, as a biological male, he was not given a plaid sun hat being handed out to the first 7,500 ladies arriving at the Mother's Day game. He sued over a commemorative Mother's Day cap? He could have at least held out for the Giambi bobblehead. The whole context of the promotion make Mr. Rava's...

Even though city officials would prefer to avoid a public conversation, behind closed doors the Oakland City Council has discussed filing for bankruptcy protection in the midst of a $100 million budget deficit. "We have asked the (bankruptcy) question because we wanted to know the impact," said District 5 council member Ignacio De La Fuente. "In closed session, the question has been asked, and an answer was given." He would not elaborate. "It's a possibility," he acknowledged. "Things are that bad." Council President Jane Brunner was equally aloof. She ably acknowledged the city's dire financial problem while managing to avoid...

School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded "self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort," to quote the school's website.

Spitting in the eye of mainstream education Dave Getzschman Students sit in detention at American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland for offenses ranging from getting up during class or skipping a problem on a homework assignment. Students who misbehave in the slightest must stay an hour after school; if they misbehave again in the same week, they get more detention and four hours of Saturday detention. Three no-frills charter schools in Oakland mock liberal orthodoxy, teach strictly to the test -- and produce some of the state's top scores. By Mitchell Landsberg May 30, 2009 Reporting from Oakland --...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- A former community-group leader accused of ordering the murder of three men, including a newspaper editor, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday. It'll be the third time Yusuf Bey IV will stand in front of a judge for the murder of Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007. Bailey was an editor for the Oakland Post and working on a story about the finances of Bey's Your Black Muslim Bakery when he was gunned down on the way to work.

With the dark cloud of a lingering federal probe behind him, there is nothing standing between former state Sen. Don Perata and the Oakland mayor's office but time, opportunity and blue skies. On Wednesday, the FBI closed the books on a five-year investigation into whether Perata's business dealings drove his legislative decisions. Perata announced his plans in March to run for mayor of Oakland in 2010. So far, his toughest competition, former City Manager Robert Bobb, is currently the state-appointed director of the Detroit public schools and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. The federal investigation was the darkest hour...

At 97 years old, Ivarene Lett was enjoying her twilight years in Oakland's normally tranquil Adams Point neighborhood. Though small and frail, she remained independent and active, enjoying a weekly exercise class and still driving her beloved Chevrolet. But Monday night, the woman many described as cheerful was found beaten to death inside her sixth-floor apartment on Lee Street a few blocks from Lake Merritt. And, in a city accustomed to hearing about homicides, this slaying, her neighbors said, is particularly shocking. "It's unusual and stunning," Hervene Spurrier, superintendent of the building, said Tuesday. "How gross, how grotesque, how insane...

(05-06) 10:56 PDT OAKLAND -- The 90-year-old father of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey flew in from Iowa to be in the gallery Wednesday as the leader of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery made his first court appearance since being charged with ordering the 2007 murder. However, Chauncey Bailey Sr. and other relatives who sat in the Oakland courtroom turned out to be witness to uneventful proceedings, much to their dismay. Neither bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 23, nor another man accused of taking part in the Oakland Post editor's slaying, Antoine Mackey, 23, had defense attorneys to handle the...

Law catching up with Your Black Muslim Bakery By Josh Richman and Mary Fricker The Chauncey Bailey Project Posted: 05/09/2009 03:04:36 PM PDT Updated: 05/09/2009 03:51:55 PM PDT Until recently, Devaughndre Broussard was the only Your Black Muslim Bakery associate ever charged with murder, despite a decades-long trail of eight bodies authorities say they have linked to the organization or its founding Bey family. Now, Broussard and two others are charged not only with the August 2007 killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, slain amid his investigation of the bakery, but in two other killings as well. Broussard, a...

Salvatore J. Cordileone, an outspoken defender of life and traditional marriage, was formally installed on Tuesday as the fourth Bishop of Oakland at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. “It was close to one-hundred years ago that my grandparents came from Sicily and settled across the bay (before moving down to San Diego some years later), where my grandfather established his fishing trade,” said Bishop Cordileone in his homily at the Installation Mass. “Like countless others, they labored under the hardship of immigrants – a new land, with a different language and different customs, struggling to be accepted and to...