Oakland News: Why Kathy Neal Quit Assembly Race; Make Love Oakland!

The race for the California 18th District Assembly Seat currently held by the termed-out Sandre Swanson recently lost a candidate that this blogger thought had a chance because she was the only woman: Kathy Neal.

The reason for Neal’s departure, according to my sources, was simply that Neal didn’t think she could win. “It was not enough support and not enough money,” my source said. “She didn’t want to just be in the race; she wanted to win it. After the poll, she didn’t see a reason to stay in.”

The head of Kneal Resource System, former Port of Oakland Commissioner, and former wife of former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris (Neal was married to Elihu when I was his economic adviser), Kathy was not only behind Rob Bonta ($161,883), Joel Young ($154,078), and Abel Guillen ($118,584) in contributions, but had came up third in one poll behind only Guillen, with Bonta, the Democratic Alameda councilman, out in front.

Neal’s departure makes the possibility of an election win by AC Transit Board Member Joel Young, a greater possibility. This, even with a restraining order, and two publicly known, violence-related encounters that ended in visits to court, the most recent one just over a month ago, and involving long time political operative and right-hand to Oakland At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, Jason Overman. If Young pulls out of this with a win, it would be fair to say the Empire Really Did Strike Back.

Occupy Oakland Love In Tuesday

Believe it or not, there was an Occupy Oakland march recently, on Tuesday. But the reason you didn’t hear about it was that there was no police action against it. (Funny how that works?) The Occupy Oakland Valentines Day March went off without a hitch, or even the orgy-like display of public sex this blogger expected to happen. (Rats!) But the protestors had a great cheer: “Make love, not war. We don’t want that shit no more.”

Here’s the video:

Whatever the future, some political candidate’s going to adopt that slogan.

The Oakland Green Party Rises

If you’re a betting person take a look at the rising – fast rising – Oakland Green Party. It’s represented by an unprecedented four candidates: Theresa Anderson will run for the Oakland City Council At-Large Seat currently held by Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan; Donald Macleay, who ran for Mayor of Oakland in 2010, is running for the Oakland City Council District One Seat; Randy Menjivar is taking on Oakland City Council President Larry Reid in District Seven; Vicente Cruz II is running for the Oakland School Board District Three Seat.

Here’s Don and Vicente:

Open City Council Seats

In case you don’t know, the following districts are the focus of elections this year: District One, Three, Five, and Seven. Of these, one man is throwing his hat in the ring for the third time: Sean Sullivan’s going for the District Three seat. Beverly Rivas of Zennie62 recently sat down to talk with Sean in a video interview. Here it is:

In District One, Don Macleay has a challenger in comparatively less known Richard Raya. The one difference is Raya has a more search-engine-visible website than Don – what do I get when I type “Oakland City Council District 1” and “race” – not Don. Better work on that, Donald Macleay!

Earthquake?

That small shake you may have felt was a 3.7 Richter Scale Earthquake located just south of Vallejo, not the tequila shots you had.

Sports in Oakland

Trail Blazers @pdxtrailblazers

Blazers 93, Warriors 91: FINAL. Blazers without @aldridge_12 get a rare win in Oakland. Gerald with 24p/6r, Batum with 17/p/4r/3a/2s/2b

And Jeremy Lin, once with the Warriors, is ballin with the NY Knicks. That’s just plain wrong.

And on the matter of wrong, how about this Twitter tweet:

@DarthLewWolff

Woke up from a nightmare! I dreamt the #Athletics won the West & Oakland put $500 mil to a new stadium! Good thing dreams don’t come true!

Darth Lew Wolff must be high or something. Well, we are talking about Oakland A’s Owner Lew Wolff.

And on the matter of high, I’m not high on the direction of the Oakland Raiders. Fired popular head coach Hue Jackson. Brought in Reggie McKenzie to be the new GM. None of this with a clear five-year plan. Just-make-change. Anyone can do that.

If I walk into the Raiders HQ I expect to see a full planning war room. I want the gm to tell me what to expect five years from today. I want a plan, not piecemeal decisions that look tough.

You fired someone? Big deal. What’s the plan?

Where’s John Russo?

John, former Oakland Lawyer, is chillin’ in Alameda – sorta. Getting out of Oakland when he did was a master stroke of genius. Here’s my most recent interview with my friend, and Alameda’s first permanent city manager in years:

While John deals with land matters in Alameda, his hand picked replacement Barbara Taylor gets ready to run for Oakland City Attorney, in her first election battle of any kind in years. Her challenger? Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner, who’s also a lawyer. That’s going to be a tough battle if Barbara elects to play rough – just saying. Personally, if I were up against Jane, who’s a good campaigner, I’d go nuclear from the start.

That’s me; question is, does Ms. Parker have that kind of fire in the belly? (To use a term once applied to Walter Mondale when he ran against Ronald Reagan.) We shall see.

Stay tuned.