Oakland News: Joel Young V. SEIU; Occupy Oakland’s Jessica Hollie Runs For City Council

Joel Young, the AC Transit Board Member and now former candidate for the California Assembly District 18 Seat that’s now a contest between Alameda Vice Mayor Joel Young and Peralta Community College District Trustee Abel Guillen, is reportedly quite unhappy and has become the political target of the local SEIU. Meanwhile, some are unbelievably shocked that Joel lost.

Young recently walked into Pican Restaurant (on Broadway near Grand and Broadway and featuring excellent ‘California-infused Southern Cuisine’) wearing a running suit and what my source described as sandals; not the common Pican dress of business casual, but fortunately the management doesn’t have an official dress code. There, Young met Alice A. Huffman, the head of the California NAACP. Huffman was reportedly upset that Young lost the election and wanted a kind of debriefing.

Why was she upset?

There are some who believe that the California Assembly District 18 Seat is still a “Black” political position. Thus, Young was believe by some to be the next in line behind Sandre Swanson. This blogger never bought into that because Sandre didn’t come out and support Joel Young in the race. Moreover, Kathy Neal, who’s also Black, was just as good and viable a candidate until she dropped out of the race.

I take the news of Ms. Huffman’s questioning as one of curiosity: just wanting to know, well, “what happened?” Nothing wrong with that. What she should completely understand by now is that Joel’s two run-ins that were called domestic violence (even though official charges were not filed in one case, and charges dropped in the other) gave his political enemies enough dirt about him to toss around, and baby that’s what they did.

But the real something wrong is that SEIU bosses who withdrew their backing of Joel back in late February (when the decision was made) because he took the Service Employees International Union’s internal candidate’s questionnaire for both Bonta and Guillen and used it for his own work – my source says he was openly using it to dis Rob and Abel in the process of trying to woo the California Chamber of Commerce and turn it away from backing either one of them.

Well now the SEIU’s bosses reportedly see Young as politically-damaged and they’re out to finish him off. They’re going to start promoting a candidate to run against him and knock him out of the AC Transit Board seat he currently holds.

Look out Joel, it’s not over.

Jessica Hollie Running For Oakland City Council District Three Seat

Look out Oakland City Council District Three Candidates, you’ve got a new challenger for the seat that will be vacated by Nancy Nadel in 2013: Jessica Hollie, who’s also known as Occupy Oakland member Bella Eiko. On her announcement page, she writes:

After many disappointing pieces of legislation, frustrating hours actually in council meetings or reviewing videos, and not seeing the results needed to help the working class people of Oakland; I have decided to run for City Council. After all this is a democracy and the people have a responsibility to try and actually help the city through proper allocation of funds via social programs (such as education) and not an over abundance of poorly trained police officers who both drain city resources and criminalize the citizens. .. I’m new at this of course, but I appreciate any and all help. Thank you very much, now let’s turn Oakland into a real people’s town!

I dont’ see where she’s officially filed papers with the Oakland City Clerk’s Office to run for office. And I note this decision came after the Oakland City Council Committee Hearing on May 22nd, where she kinda stole the show.

This is Jessica at the now-famous Oakland City Council hearing of May 22nd, where she spoke against the ordinance that would prohibit tools that the Oakland Police judges to be symbols of protest violence:

Here’s Jessica before the Oakland City Council in January:

And here she is last December:

But now, Jessica’s got to go from being loud to being smart. She’s got a donations page up, but if the money isn’t used to actually run for office, she could find herself at the tail end of a nasty lawsuit. She’s got to take the process seriously. It’s not for playtime or for the faint of heart. Politics in Oakland is a dangerous game. It’s a game played by some people who will smile at you as soon as stab you in the back, and then smile at you again.

And guess what: they expect you to do the same. Jessica can’t get by with the “I don’t expect to win” jazz, because once she formally signs papers to make herself a candidate, then says she’s it, it’s warfare – THERMOFUCKING NUCLEAR WARFARE.

All that stuff she said, the arrests – all of that – will be thrown right in her face by some one of the candidates, or the media. Trust me.

If Jessica can deal with all that, she’s the real deal.

On the matter of the videos, what’s interesting is that Jessica seemed to have went “rogue” in her dress for the May hearing. I wonder how she plans to brand herself for her election run? Whatever the case, what Jessica’s doing, running for office, is the best way to protest against Oakland – get elected to deal with the problems.

In fact, Oakland does have a tradition of activists running for, and winning elections. Heck, current Mayor Jean Quan considered herself an activist at one point before she ran and got involved with the Oakland School Board. This is what all Occupy Oakland members should do, and perhaps they’ll stop attacking Democratic elected officials in the process.

Stay tuned.