Oakland News: Joel Young Update; Don Perata For Mayor, Again?

This blogger has a ton of Oakland News to catch up on, including big Joel Young news. First, sorry for the blog platform, as whatever HostGator, the blog server host, has got me into, I have constant service interruptions. I switched from Blogger to WordPress to get on Google News, even though the Blogger version was on Google News in 2010. But for whatever reason Google’s dragging its feet in approving my blog this time around. Still fighting, but also fashioning alternative methods – good news: experiments are working.

Ok, enough of me; on to Oakland.

SMG vs AEG

My interview with SMG’s Doug Thornton from Monday, but posted on Tuesday. We talked about SMG’s accomplishments in the service of managing the Oakland / Alameda County Coliseum Complex for the Authority.

Today, Doug’s being interviewed by a two-person panel consisting of Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty. That same panel’s to also talk with AEG about possibly replacing SMG. The trouble is, AEG has been linked to talks of moving the Oakland Raiders to LA, as well as to the death of Michael Jackson. What AEG has is money, and I think they’re going to dangle it in the face of the cash-hungry JPA, and a City – Oakland – looking to create a new sports-oriented facility on the Coliseum Complex.

Joel Young Raises $35,000 In 3 Months

Joel obviously wanted me to see this, because the news came in an email from his campaign, and guess what? I never signed up to be on his email list. But knowing Joel, he said “I’m going to send this to Zennie to see if he publishes it.” Surprise! Here’s the email message:

Friend-

Thanks for Helping Me Finish Strong

Thanks to your outpouring of support last week, we finished strong ahead of the March 17th filing deadline. We raised over $35,000 dollars in 3 months, including more than $3,000 on Friday alone. I want to thank all of you for responding to our appeal. I am confident that we will continue to lead the race in cash-on-hand headed into the final two months. If you didn’t get the chance last week, please make a contribution today!

Voters Respond to Jobs Here Message

Last week, my colleagues at AC Transit and I entered into negotiations with Gillig, a unionized bus manufacturer in Hayward, to purchase 60 buses over the next two years. The contract award was the culmination of years of work and one of my proudest days as an elected official. Not only will the contract create jobs here in the county, it will save AC Transit hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We made over 1,000 calls to voters in the District last week telling them about my plan to create jobs and the response has been overwhelming. Phone banks are a great way to talk to a lot of voters in a short amount of time. We’re just getting started, and we’ve set an ambitious goal of making 30,000 phone calls in the month of April. Sign up today to come in for a phone bank! I’d love to see you down at our headquarters.

Joel’s hard work is paying off, if you excuse the pun. But let’s see if the voters actually do pick him over Bonta and Guillen in the CA Assembly District 18 Race. Joel’s working hard to overcome his obvious character issue in the domestic violence cases we’ve seen of late. The trouble is, once he got out of one issue…

He got into another with Jason Overman. Joel has to prove he’s not going to carry this anger issue into the California Assembly.

If Joel can stand and take heavy questioning about that, and not get pissed and handle himself with class, he’s ready for a rebirth.

Don Perata For Mayor, Again?

Recall Jean Quan rumblings are that former California State Senator Don Perata may again throw his hat into the ring should a recall of Mayor Quan look like it is close to reality. If that’s the case, Don would face a challenge from his long-time friend Ignacio De La Fuente, who has stated he would seek the office of Mayor of Oakland under those circumstance. Right now, Don would publicly scoff at the idea, but Don’s known for saying “No. No. No. Maybe. Ok. I was doing it all the time.”

And how does Don feel about the effort to recall Quan? Well, his face comes up on the Facebook “like” field for “Recall Mayor Jean Quan Of Oakland, CA.”

Another Sign The Recall Quan Campaign Is Weak

There are a a number of reasons why the Recall Mayor Quan Campaign is weak, but here’s a another one. Type “Recall Mayor” in Twitter, and you get a list of Twitter accounts named for the Mayors that account creator wants recalled. Guess what? There’s no Mayor Quan.

That can only mean the organizers of the campaign don’t know jack about social media. What a bonehead mistake. Of course, if they see this and change that situation, then they’ve got a chance. If they see this and do nothing, that’s a sign the campaign’s toast out of the box.

Now one of them will point out “You have to look for Recall Quan.” No, I have to look for the more general term of “Recall Mayor” because it gets greater visibility. But thats the media these days: formed by people in groups and for those people in those groups – a lot of “innies.” Yes, people who think that because you read something and they read the same damn thing, then everyone knows about that thing, when the truth is many could not give a big rats ass outside that social circle.

Translation: someone in Bakersfield doesn’t know Jean Quan’s the focus of a recall effort, and so is not going to think to type “Recall Quan” in a Twitter search. Get it?

As to who’s financing a part of the Committee To Recall Jean Quan, that’s not a mystery here. It’s a certain older white business man-type who ran for Mayor of Oakland in 2010, and lives in a house in the Oakland Hills, and goes by the name of Greg.

Oakland Raiders Send Caps To Caps-For-Kids

A nice message:

Caps for Kids · 1,953 like this
2 hours ago ·

Thank you to The Oakland Raiders! They sent us some caps that we can use to get signatures from their great players for our patients! What a great organization!

Stay tuned.