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U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) disagrees with the Navy's decision to name a cargo ship under construction in San Diego for California farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. The decision, announced Tuesday, "appear[s] to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy's history and tradition," Hunter said in press release....

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums doesn't seem to do much on the job these days -- but he went into meltdown Monday when veteran KTVU political reporter Randy Shandobil had the temerity to ask why he's been missing in action as one of the most crime-challenged cities in the nation faces a devastating layoff of a quarter of its police force."Who the (blank) are you to decide what my role is?" a raging Dellums told Shandobil in a phone call Monday, after the Oakland-based reporter showed up at City Hall to ask why Dellums has been seen at high profile boxing...

Despite his pledge last year to join other Oakland elected officials in taking a 10 percent pay cut, Mayor Ron Dellums has continued to collect his full $183,000-a-year salary, a spokesman for the mayor confirms. The spokesman, Paul Rose, declined to say precisely why the mayor took the extra $18,300 in pay this past year -- but there is speculation that he needed the money to help deal with his troubled personal finances.

AHMADINEJAD: 'YEP, I'M NUCLEAR!'February 17, 2010 The only man causing President Obama more headaches than Joe Biden these days is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, coincidentally, was right after Biden on Obama's short-list for V.P.). Despite Obama's personal magnetism, the Iranian president persists in moving like gangbusters to build nuclear weapons, leading to Ahmadinejad's announcement last week that Iran is now a "nuclear state." Gee, that's weird -- because I remember being told in December 2007 that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran had ceased nuclear weapons development as of 2003. At the time of that leak, many of...

OAKLAND -- Mayor Ron Dellums delivered a fiery speech Thursday to city business leaders, telling them federal stimulus dollars will provide 5,000 jobs in Oakland over the next three years. In a broad-ranging 55-minute address, Dellums also said Oakland has been selected as one of three cities that officials from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department and the White House will visit, possibly in early March, to evaluate the effect of the 2009 stimulus package. "Oakland is not on this list by accident," Dellums said. "We're there because people appreciate that we've engaged in a problem-solving, collaborative effort that...

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife, who already have a lien on their property for failing to pay more than $239,000 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, are now facing a second lien for more than $13,000, records show. Dellums, 73, and his wife, Cynthia, 55, who acts as his unpaid adviser, are named in an IRS lien filed with the Alameda County recorder's office Dec. 23 in the amount of $13,638. The lien, which says it is for tax year 2008, comes two months after the couple were slapped with a lien in Alameda County for failing...

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...

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...

Oakland mayor's chief of staff to resign By Kelly Rayburn Oakland Tribune Posted: 09/04/2009 02:56:00 PM PDT Updated: 09/04/2009 08:34:01 PM PDT OAKLAND — David Chai, chief of staff to Mayor Ron Dellums, is leaving his position to take a job working as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's "business czar." Chai, 41, will depart a little more than two years after joining Dellums' staff. He said he is leaving on his own terms and will begin working for Newsom — whom he worked for before being hired by Dellums — at the end of the month. "Working for Mayor Dellums...

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...

An ad hoc group of Oakland community leaders and activists demanded on Tuesday that the Oakland Police Officers Association (OPOA) police union apologize for its role in preventing Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums from speaking at the joint funeral of the four Oakland police officers killed in the March 21 MacArthur Boulevard shootings. “The exclusion of Oakland’s mayor was more than a disrespectful affront to the mayor himself, it was an act of insubordination to Oakland’s governing body, and a back-handed slap in the face to all of the citizens of Oakland who pay the generous salaries of the members of...

(03-27) 10:51 PDT Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is attending Friday's funeral for four slain city police officers, but will not be speaking at the request of at least one killed officer's family. The mayor's spokesman, Paul Rose, said Dellums turned down a police offer to give opening remarks after at least one of the families requested he not be among the dignitaries speaking at the ceremony. Rose said the mayor did not want to "make an awkward situation even more awkward."

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums says a proposed HBO television series that would examine the world of prostitution in Oakland "goes against our vision of Oakland as the Model City and does a disservice to our residents and visitors alike." In a statement released by his office, Dellums said, "While I understand that there are certain benefits to having a major film done in our city, I am not willing to support this project at this time." Dellums said, "The people of Oakland have come too far to have our city's name trampled upon in the name of entertainment. I am...

OAKLAND — Police internal affairs detectives investigating the handling of journalist Chauncey Bailey's slaying will have state investigators present when they interview members of their department's command staff. Investigators from the attorney general's office will be there to monitor the interviews, according to a letter the Department of Justice sent to Mayor Ron Dellums in November. But the Justice Department won't take over the whole investigation — which is apparently what Oakland internal affairs investigators wanted, the letter stated. "We do not believe, as has been suggested by the Police Department's Internal Affairs investigator, that the Police Department investigation be...

Shhhh. What's the big secret? When it comes to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' deliberations on matters of grave importance - they are cloaked in more secrecy than an illegal CIA counterterrorist operation. When Dellums ran for mayor in 2006, he pledged to run a transparent government. Yet at a time when Oakland needs a strong leader to deal with budget cuts and lack of leadership in several key departments, Dellums is missing in action and his decision- making process is one of the best kept secrets in Oakland City Hall. I don't think even the mayor knows what's going on...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A judge ruled Monday that there's sufficient evidence for the reputed leader of Oakland's worst drug gang to stand trial on attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting a member of a rival gang at 31st Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way on June 30, 2006. At the end of a preliminary hearing that stretched over three weeks, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Vernon Nakahara also ordered 34-year-old Marc Anthony Candler of Castro Valley, the reputed leader of the Acorn gang, to stand trial on a street terrorism clause, possession of assault weapons and being an ex-felon...

Susan Gluss may be one of the most recent Oakland residents to move on to safer, saner confines in the Bay Area, but she is by no means alone in her decision to call it quits. Gluss, and countless others like her, are the collateral damage - the civilian fallout - from the city's timid efforts to stem a series of crimes that have terrorized residents much of this year. The steady increase in crime since 2006 has raised residents' concern about personal safety and security to the level where that now vies with the city's underperforming school system as...

OAKLAND — Mayor Ron Dellums told hundreds of business leaders at the Oakland Marriott on Friday that city and state officials are on the verge of an "unprecedented" effort to work together to revitalize 470 city blocks across Oakland.His remarks were offered at the San Francisco Business Times' "Building Oakland" breakfast, and came one day after high-ranking city and state officials met in Oakland to discuss the project, called the California Urban Communities Collaborative.The effort will focus on four separate areas of Oakland, but Dellums offered little information on how it will work. He said more details will be available...